My history professor once told us to start our libraries immediately. By the time I had chosen my major I was interested enough to take him up on his advice and begin my collection in 1970 mostly with Modern Library reprints. Only now in my retirement have I decided to start giving them away after finishing Journal of the Silent Majority. I’ve read most of them at least three times including Edward Gibbon and I tend to butcher them with notes, multicolored highlighting, and Elmer’s glue repairs. I’m keeping the most important ones like Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Carlyle’s The French Revolution, Fire in the Streets by Milton Viorst, The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, and Nihilists by Ronald Hingley because it discloses the ancestors of our glorified 1960s radicals. These are just a few cited among my 751 footnotes. It’s also good insurance to have all of the books on hand during the editing process.
History never made much sense until I began collecting a variety of books and began eliminating the bad ones, especially text books that had no passion or logic to them – mostly bullets and beans. They never told the story of what the ordinary man saw on the streets. Butchering history was not limited to textbooks. I began to notice how some stories like Malcolm X changed. As time passed and radical become normal, Malcolm’s crazy assertions were doctored by politically correct new authors. Much of that occurred after 1960 when a new breed of cat apparently controlled the destiny of the American literary world. I believe that seismic shift came when John Kennedy came to power and enabled the Left, especially the Media, to monopolize perception. A watershed used book that I purchased for 50 cents was Tragic Era by Claude Bowers. It made sense of America’s Reconstruction, the post-Civil War occupation of the South by the North. Most history books avoid that era because it holds too many uncomfortable truths about us as a nation. It wasn’t just the different point of view, but the various contemporary sources cited and what they revealed that ignited my interest and further exposed the bias of modern American history books. I personally witnessed a second occupation of the South and Bowers described in detail what I was seeing 100 years after the fact!
I was fortunate enough to obtain many books from the discarded piles that Mid-Continent North Library in Independence sells for a pittance. It was Harry Truman’s library although it probably went by a different name when he used it as a young man. I also spent many hours downstairs researching the old periodicals like Look and Life Magazine that are off limits today because people started stealing them. After the ban, I started going to the dark aisles and recesses of UMKC. If I won the lottery I probably would give the university library enough money for higher wattage bulbs. History is foreboding enough without having an ambience of the crypt.
Brandeis University alumnae in Kansas City used to have tent sales of used books, records, magazines, and maps at the old Bannister Mall. Those tents were huge and it was a success for many years, but finally disappeared. I really missed it because it was exciting. The Blue Ridge Mall did the same thing only in miniature with lesser variety. Used book tent sales have become obsolete. Maybe it’s because the newer generations don’t read books– just chirp, gurgle, and twitter. Used book stores for the most part followed the same fate. Independence Square used to have a couple of mom-and-pop stores. One was owned by a lady whose plump and affectionate cat, Pricilla, inspected every customer. On the same block there was another store badly lit and disorganized but owned by a lady who was a used book pack rat. Brookside, south of the Country Club Plaza, had one of the first used book stores with exotic coffee and treats. It too disappeared. Low profit margins and electronic competition killed them.
Auctions are questionable places to find books. Unfortunately, auctions reflect the interests of the owner whose estate is being sold. History and biography books are few and far between because most people do not read serious books. What you sometimes see are boxes of awful pulp fiction with Western or Romance themes. For me science fiction is also a tragic waste of time. Anybody can make that stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction. The point is to keep looking.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the success of Amazon and how it has helped collectors of books. Low prices and consistently good delivery are what keeps me going back. The only drawback is not being able to physically browse to find that special one. Others besides Amazon sell eBooks that have become fashionable. They are OK so long as their electronic content is never modified - a tempting prospect for some who want to tweak history. Although physical books aren’t the only sources authors should cite, I find them to be like an old shoe or a pair of old jeans – dependable and comfortable.
