Books!: Washington’s Spies

I finally cleared out my reading queue and refilled with Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring. What most likely prompted this was the opportunity to meet the author, Alexander Rose, except I hadn’t read his book at the time of the opportunity, so I avoided him in shame.

To belatedly remedy this egregious faux pas, I went to the library specifically for this book. Perhaps the next time I encounter Mr. Rose, I will be able to engage in witty and engaging discussion on his work, but for now I get to share my review of the book with you, Dear Reader(s).

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Books!: Geo. Washington’s Secret Six

One of my recent areas of fascination, in addition to everything else, and inspired almost wholly by AMC’s (fantasmagorical) TURN: Washington’s Spies, has been the story of the Culper Spy Ring (link 2) (link 3). I wrote a thing a while ago about the cinematography of the show, which for me is a huge part of the attraction, but the storylines are pretty compelling as well.

Thus, imagine my excitement when, at the library, I came across this book titled George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring that Saved the American Revolution. It is not the book on which the show is based, but had a short line between this book and the basis for the show, with a lot of artistic license thrown in for cinematic reasons.

To the best of my ability, I will refrain from doing a comparison with the show, because the show and this book aren’t really related outside of the fact that they occupy the same realms. It would be like me trying to evaluate you based on a run-in with one of your cousins, and that wouldn’t be fair to anybody.

Without further ado, the book:

East Wind, Rain. East Wind, Rain.

 

An original artifact

 

“A Day that Will Live in Infamy”

Americans today recognize that line, especially in conjunction with December 7. Hopefully they also know where that line came from: the speech FDR gave to Congress on December 8, after which Congress pretty much unanimously declared war on Japan and brought America into World War 2. Japan’s ultimate goal of destroying the Pacific Fleet backfired in a major way and had the opposite effect of keeping America out of their hair. America, for its part, realized how much it had underestimated the Japanese. [note: FDR actually said “a date that will live in infamy”]

However, there are a couple of interesting and much lesser known stories surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor. I came across them separately, but putting them together is surely a seed for a lot of interesting research.