Short Reviews for November 2025

Fifty-Year War, Party Politics in the Continental Congress, Lightstep, Scarlet Pimpernel

The Fifty-Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War, by Norman Friedman (640 pp; 1999)

Who should read this? Someone already familiar with the outline of the Cold War who wants to know more.

I’d read a lot about the Cold War, but this’s the first book that focuses on its grand strategy - on how the United States and Soviet governments considered and decided their moves in the “Great Game” of worldwide war, posturing, politics, and economics, year by year and decade by decade.

Friedman keeps up this perspective roughly chronologically, from leader to leader. For each American President and Soviet general secretary, Friedman shows us the choices before that leader both as they really were, and as he thought them to be (through imperfect intelligence). Then, we see what that leader actually chose and why, and how the other leader and his government saw that.

It’s an engaging view. I can see why this sort of maneuvering was called a Great Game. With a long-term perspective and a callousness about the people involved, it could easily become a game. But, to billions during the actual Cold War, it wasn’t.

The book, of course, gives definite judgments of American Presidents. Fairly or unfairly, Friedman writes very positively about Eisenhower and Reagan, and very negatively about Kennedy and Johnson. Kennedy he paints as frankly stupid, forgetting or ignoring important details and causing America to come out much the worse. Reagan he paints as someone whose dynamism and awareness of American economic superiority consciously won the Cold War.

This very much shouldn’t be the first book one reads on the Cold War; Friedman regularly presumes one knows the basic outline of events he references. But, it’s a very good book to help bring things together.

---

Party Politics in the Continental Congress, by James H. Henderson (492 pp; 1974)

Who should read this? Someone interested in revolutions in general, or the American Founding Fathers in particular, or political history.

Henderson proves, by analyzing voting records, there were distinct factions in the Continental Congress. The Founding Fathers consciously projected a public image of coming together for the general good, but - as they often acknowledged privately - factions existed nonetheless.

The factions were largely founded in geography, but not entirely - we have some Northerners voting with the Southern or Middle states, and vis a versa. Henderson connects this to the later First Party System, pointing out how the Northern and Southern factions swapped positions on many issues as they grew into the Federalist and Republican Parties, but they nonetheless each largely held together.

But in the Continental Congress, unlike the later party systems, the factions were very informal, and roundly hidden from most outside observers. It greatly helped that Congress was chosen by state legislatures, without public campaigns. So, they were very susceptible to friendships or great oratory luring someone to another side. What’s more, as the war and diplomacy went on, changes in issues led to new factional alignments. As I compare this to modern politics, I can’t help musing over whether the changes were really improvements.

I love this book for its close look at the details of Revolutionary politics: both how the Revolution grew out of such politics, and how the men involved consciously strove (at least publicly) to reach a higher ideal above geographic or factional alignments. We see another side of the Founding Fathers’ human shortcomings, but also how they tried to rise above them.

---

---

The Lightstep, by John G. H. Dickinson (520 pp; 2008)

Who should read this? Historical romance fans who like confusing endings.

She’s a German nobleman’s daughter caught amid the Napoleonic Wars; he’s a French émigré who’s turned against the Revolution after seeing its bloodiness and now fights against it. He despises her social class’s compromises; her family despises his low birth and pennilessness.

Dickinson paints realistically-conflicted characters, and he nicely avoids letting the budding romance squeeze out the rest of the plot while still showing it nicely. The characters are the essence of this novel.

But after the confusing ending, I’m not sure what Dickinson was trying to say. It’s probably realistic for so many plans to go unfulfilled, and for us to be robbed of the climax I was expecting. But all the same - the ending doesn’t just feel unsatisfying; I don’t see how it caps off so many character arcs in so many major characters.

Unless Dickinson is just trying to say how war makes so many arcs futile? Having read and enjoyed his Cup of the World trilogy, I’d totally believe he’d say that. But in that case, we need to see more past the ending - how our protagonists tried or failed to rebuild their lives after this? But we don’t get that.

---

The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy (275 pp; 1905)

Who should read this? Someone looking for dramatic character-focused stories, who doesn’t mind purple prose.

I liked this historical novel as a teenager; now, I feel the purple prose more, but I still enjoy the character drama.

The famous anonymous “Scarlet Pimpernel”, an Englishman, is rescuing French aristocrats from the French Revolution, and our Anglo-French protagonist (beset with a husband she despises who distrusts her in turn) is faced with the choice between betraying him and betraying her beloved brother... yet things are more complicated than they seem, and both spouses are forced to learn to forgive each other in a beautiful plot arc.

This double drama - the rescues in the background, and the mutual incomplete understanding in the foreground - plays out with excellent pacing and adroitly-handled suspense. The two lead characters are both pictured like realistic people, with multiple dimensions being revealed in sequence. All this redeems much purple prose.

Sadly, the immediate sequel (I Will Repay) gives us the purple prose without the well-paced plot or beautiful realistic characters. Orczy tries again to play out mutual misunderstandings with a new set of characters... but they’re shoddily characterized. I recommend forgetting the sequel and stopping with Book One.

But Book One - The Scarlet Pimpernel itself - I’m very glad I reread.