I have always read…no other words will work…A LOT. I am always reading something. Except for about 4 shows on TV and “guy” movies, I read. My tastes have typically been toward thrillers, sci-fi, mysteries, and military history. Mid 2008 I really began reading more straight history. I started by reading the history of farming in America. This was brought about by the death of my step dad. He was a mechanic and left me his last project, a 54 model Ford tractor. See, he was a ‘54 model too and he always wanted a tractor like his dad had when he was little, but he died before he could finish it. When I started learning about it, I learned more about the history of Farming. I am getting off point, but the history of Ford Tractors, along with Deere and International Harvester, is the history of Farming, and the history of Farming is the History of America.
I first started watching Glenn Beck in 2008 as well. I was on a work trip to Fort Worth and walked into the hotel room and HLN was on and there was this guy ranting about Government…not Elephants or Donkeys…just crooked politicians in general and I thought, “who is this guy..and on HLN?” At the time, I didn’t watch the news, ever.
But I didn’t like what was going on. I didn’t have Bush Derangement syndrome, but I sure thought he was heading us down the wrong path. Then when I saw who was running on the D and R tickets, I could tell those jokers were not going to make it better. I knew that the answers to my uncertainty could be found by reading more about what has happened in the past. So I began to read political and History books. Which gets me back on point.
When I started reading more history and politics there didn’t seem to be a lot of demand for these topics. Bookstores in my area had maybe two shelves of politics and one or two rows of history. A lot of those were more coffee table type books that are all fluff and no substance. There were a lot of “get out of debt” books, but they were personal debt, not national debt.
After the election we were buried by books about Chairman Zero. Then older books became more popular, and were followed by a lot of newer books. The History Channel’s: The Story of Us is the most highly watched documentary they have ever done. 27 of the top 100 bestsellers on Amazon.com right now are in the field of History, Politics, or economics, and only one is pro-Obama. The biographies of several of the Founders and THE FEDERALIST PAPERS are on the bestselling list! Could you have even found a copy of the Federalist papers in a bookstore 5 years ago?
People are reading, people are learning, people are watching. Everywhere I go people talk about history or politics. This gives me hope.
-KOOK
