hehehe ...

Clearly you haven't lost the most identifiable characteristic of a dice dealer - the art of self flattery... hehe. Well good for you brother, good work, glad you had fun (not to mention, any day, any where in the world an AC guy gets his come up-ins, is a good day). $385 horn high yo? The first thing I'd say at my joint, even before "bet", would be "throw me 3 red" ... and you probably think Im kidding.

After nearly twenty years...

I discovered that I can still make my way around the layout after nearly two decades away from dealing.

Yep, today I climbed onto a game and pushed in (all three bases) for what I was told by my bosses was some damn respectable action. I was told that, should any of the new dealers want instruction on "6 and 8" moves, I was the one to deliver it... no one else. Seems they thought my particular brand of "instruction by example" was exactly what they felt they were looking for.

I started by showing just a simple one-number $18 goes to $24 (classic "take one-leave one" stuff)... and ended by showing a particularly stubborn pit boss from Atlantic City exactly how $24 each CAN go to $30 each in less than three moves, and that $18 each goes to $24 each in less than four moves (you have to have $6 in white, thought, in the payout). THAT was the stuff that let me walk out of that training session with a larger-than-average hat size, believe me... I LOVE showing those AC jerks how its done!

I've never claimed to be Johnny Craps, and I know my hands are far less than "magical" in anyone's book (even mine)... but there is a real sense of pride in knowing that if the time ever came that I had to put on the black and whites again... I could hold my own with the best of them. I mean, can anyone give me a rougher "trial by fire" than a practice table with break-in dealers (and myself) slinging cheques to 25 of the crustiest veteran supervisors in the business? I kid you not, there was probably 200 years worth of dealing and gaming experience on that table... and I didn't miss a beat or a bet.

What I did do was sweat, though... Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I had forgotten how HARD it is to hump that much time with my head never going higher than my ass. It wasn't a twenty-minute stint, either... you slugged it out till the shift said "Change em up!" and a new dealer pushed you out. Thank GOD we were "business casual" today, and that I wasn't wearing a tie... I'd have had a stroke before the first tap out. I won't lie and say I didn't fall just a bit behind (those Jersey boys LOVE to run you over when you have 12 come bets and they are all down with odds!)... but I kept up no matter how many rolls behind I was.

Yep... I'm feeling kind of salty tonight. I managed a very respectable hour or so of base time on a game that very few people will ever see no matter how long they deal, because you just never see THAT many strokers on ONE game at one time... EVER. I mean, I haven't SEEN a live craps game since March of 2006, and my first stint on stick was to book a $385 horn high yo, while the dice were in the air and a twelve hits... it took me as long as figuring out what $1500 plus $400 plus $25 plus $77 was, and I had the payoff quicker than anyone on the table. "$2002 dollars for the stroke in the puke-green dress shirt next to base, please, and tell him its still up to win again."

Okay... I'm done bragging.

Well thank you sir ...

for those kind words.

I have heard rave reviews about 1776. McCullogh is clearly up there in terms of modern works. Some of these I was familiar with (with 1776 the next on my list of purchases). However, I was altogether unaware of Jaroslav Pelikan and his masterpiece you enthusiastically endorsed. This I will add to my list. And that's what's great about just this type of thread - comparing/sharing tools in the tool box. That was the simile one of my favorite history professors used. He balked at the idea of students selling their books at the conclusion of their requisite course. He considered a library much like a tool box. "You don't sell your wrench just because you bought it to fix one leaky faucet." And I have kept that perspective ever since.

Let me add a few of my own suggestions. Niall Ferguson's Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order And The Lessons For Global Power. And "the real" series by Andrew M. Allison. The Real Thomas Jefferson, The Real George Washington and The Real Benjamen Franklin are all fantastic contemporary publications & can be purchased online for as little as $12.

In terms of modern "classics" I would rank W. Cleon Skousen's The 5,000 Year Leap near the top - it should be required reading in every high school in America. As well as William L. Shrirer's The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. I have a second edition circa 1960 if you can believe it. My mother picked it up at a flea market (clearly the tool box analogy was lost on someone out there). Written in 1959 this became the definitive post war account of Nazi Germany, as Shrier lived and worked in the Reich the first half of its' existence, not to mention documents and memories were still fresh enough for first hand accounts.

You're right - there are scores we could name. I sought one name and got many. In fact I intend to list some of the names here on a sheet of paper (along with my trusty Amazon password info) & put it at the end of my "currently reading" shelf so as to have fresh names for exploring the past when my current selections are at their conclusion.

Funny. There is an electronic device I'm sure you're all familiar with. A "Kindle." It's a sleek, electronic mini lap top looking thingamajig, similar to the much vaunted new Ipad. You can load hundreds (perhaps thousands, I don't know) books into it, and carry a virtual library around with you, accessible at the ease of your finger tips. And I hate it. I understand, I get it, this is the inevitable Gene Roddenberry future and I'm behaving like a grumpy "back in my day" old man (and barely into my 30's no less). But here's the thing. Something, I'm not sure what, but something is lost without that feel and smell of a fresh new book. It's like freshly brewed coffee. It has a distinctly pleasing aroma filled with boundless pounds of potential. Only to be matched by a used, dog eared, perhaps underlined here & there (in my case), slightly frumpled book sitting on your shelf. Walking buy a shelf and seeing the titles leap out on the book ends which jut out gives me a smile. Occasionally I pull one out and have a look through. See what I underlined, what was "so important" 6 years ago to me. And just seeing the titles of read (& sometimes reread) works also keeps the arguments and positions formed as their result, fresh in my mind. At least more fresh then were they resting in some sub folder on an over sized ipod. So, let us list on, whenever they occur to you or a new gem has been stumbled across, for there is no list so sad as a "completed" reading list.

On the Historian Question...

"Who is our Herodotus? Our Pliny? Our Tacitus?"

That might be the BEST question posed on this site since its inception. OUTSTANDING discussion topic... well done!

Classical-period historians (Herodotus, Xenophon, Josephus, Dio Cassius, Suetonius) give us the very (VERY) limited glimpse of life in the classical period... and there are so few extant examples of such works that the names ring through the ages. Since the 16th Century, extant writings of more modern historians have been more readily available to us, mainly because of Johannes Gutenberg, so the choices of whom we are going to refer to in the realm of historical studies grows every year.

I'd have to say that the last, really "epic" work of historical study to come from an English author was Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" in 6 volumes between 1776 and 1788. I'd put Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" up there, too... but I'm not sure that is actually a work for an "historian" as much as for an economist, even though the bulk of it is a study of the history of economics.

Now, if you wanted a list of whom I think are the greatest "modern" historians, I can't narrow it to just one or two. I'll give you a short list of my personal favorites here:

Shelby Foote and his three-volume masterpiece The Civil War: A Narative

Anything Simon Shama wrote or produced on the history of the British Isles.

James Burke's Connections series.

Jaroslav Pelikan's 5-volume "epic" masterpiece "The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine" is the stand-alone greatest work on the history of Christianity ever written... and the man wasn't even Catholic.

Danny Danziger has written a series of books (three that I know of) about very specific periods of time... 1000 AD, 1215 AD and 1453 AD... all very detailed in their accounts and all very fun to read. Ryan still has my copy of The Year 1000, so it must be good.

David McCullough has written some absolutely SUPERB books in his day. Truman, 1776, and John Adams are my favorites (with 1776 taking top spot). He's also the narrator for Ken Burn's Civil War, too.

Jeez... the more I think, the more I can list here. There are so many to choose from. Who have I NOT put up that need to be there?

On the German Question...

We can discuss strategic mistakes and missed opportunities by the Nazis all day long, but we can't do that without pointing out Allied mistakes, too. I'm game for either continuing the discussion of exactly when, in a purely historical context, Hitler and the Nazis crossed the line between fighting a fight they could win, and expanding to a war they could never win (and I still contend that it was the actual manner in which Barbarossa was planned and executed that put the final nail in the coffin, and not the invasion itself)...

OR...

We can discuss strategic possibilities for potential German success, given certain understood constants and parameters that we know from history. This takes us into the "What If" game again, and past experience has shown we don't tend to agree in this realm on what is or isn't "fact".

For example, as Jambo pointed out, had Hitler come to the same conclusion that Stalin did and removed himself from the strategic planning and operations aspect of the war effort, I have a sneaking suspicion that much of what we take for granted now would NOT be the case. Imagine what the defenses along the Normandy and Brittany coasts might have been like on the morning of June 6th, 1944, had Rommel had his way rather than be forced to do what Hitler insisted and separate commands between all forces on the beaches and the reserve armored units inland. What if command authority had remained with the officers on the coast, where the decisions needed to be made immediately, rather than deferring them all back to Berlin and the OKW?

One final point...

Ryan makes the case that the end of the war for Hitler was Pearl Harbor, and it is a good point... but to be absolutely accurate, you'd have to say that the turning point in this scenario was Germany's declaration of war after the US declared on Japan... and I'm not sure that wasn't the right thing to do.

Keep in mind that Hitler didn't want the U-boats sinking American vessels (even though they did, on occasion) because he didn't want to provoke American intervention in Europe, but once America was at war in the Pacific, and knowing we'd fight right alongside both the English and the French to defend their colonial and commonwealth territories, American involvement in Europe was unavoidable, so the shooting of convoys and American "Lend-Lease" targets after Dec 10th, 1941, just makes good sense, right? Why not force America into a two-front fight that could only detract from America's ability to assist and support England and the Allies?

Had Germany done a "secret attack" on the US by bombing New York harbor or Hampton Roads or Boston... then I'd agree. But in reacting to a Japanese act (that I have never been fully convinced was known ahead of time by the Germans), I think it was (objectively speaking, of course) the only strategically sound course Germany could take.

An update on the German question(s) ...

1.) It wasn't Goring ...

Goring was fledgling in his assault on England, he wasted far too many planes on sites other than the RAF bases which should had been his target if Germany was to lay the groundwork for Operation Sea Lion (the ground forces invasion of the British Isles). Between Hitler's growing frustration with the inability to quickly dominate the skies for his upcoming British invasion and the Brit's moxy bombing of Berlin (morale more than strategic, like Doolittle), he ordered the bombing of London and subsequent cities. His theory was either the common people would be so rattled they'd demand a government who would sue for (a puppet-regime style) peace (which is what he wanted so as to get on with Russia and destroying Bolshevism); or their morale so depleted as to make Sea Lion a walk.

2.) Upon further reflection this all strikes me as a bit mute - invading Russia was the war as far as Hitler was concerned, just as much as dominating Europe. Gaining "breathing room" in the East was as much a part of his war aims as dominating the West. We can say he "lost the war" by going into Russia, but that's not entirely accurate. More accurate, I think - as I work through this thought process here (forgive me) - is pinning Germany's Achilles heel on Hitler's impatience born of an inflated belief of his own military prowess after the WWI victor, France, hit the dirt like a hill billy prom dress. Just follow me here. If he first goes after Poland, then France, then Britain, then the US via Japanese and German forces combined, saving Russia for last (assuming Ol' Joey Staleen laughs as both the Brits and the US fall at the hands of his "pal" Adolph), then there exists the potential for a different outcome. In essence the timing of his various invasions (which came unraveled after he fails to take Britain in 1940, his first loss) is the culprit more so then the particular countries he chose to invade. He could have focused on Western Europe, prevented Japan from hitting Pearl, then go after the US knowing Stalin would cheerlead, and then go into Russia - preferably at the beginning of summer. Hitler's timing due to ego and belief in his own abilities prevented such a methodical, deliberated approach. In 1939, even into 41', his armies could of wiped the floor with the UK or Russia. He would have been wise to play them off of each other to the demise of each - defeating one then the other rather then force them into bedfellows aligned against him.

It works the other way too ... hit Russia first (then France & the UK). Chamberlain would have done nothing at a German invasion of Russia, and it's unlikely Churchill rallies the nation to defend Stalin's Soviet's, a man and government he despised nearly as much as National Socialism. In that scenario Hitler saves the US for last, and now he has the oil rich Urals to fuel his war machine. The combinations for success were he to go one at a time with these uneasy allies, rather then uniting them with simultaneous theaters of combat, are endless.

At any rate, MY POINT is Germany's undoing is the timing of Hitler's invasions. Going after Russia before the UK submits (or vice versa). Then allowing the US to come in (signing off on Japan's attack on Pearl) before Russia submits. He kept expecting the success in Poland & France to follow in Britain and Russia, and didn't wait for the outcomes to be sure before launching on the next invasion. He wanted Germany to rule the world for a 1000 years, but he wanted to get there in 2.

(* By the way: I stress "potential for a different outcome" because I do believe in the inevitability of American exceptionalism defeating Nazi Germany, no matter the circumstance. However, that is a bias - one I proudly submit - and not necessarily an objective dissertation on where Hitler went wrong.)

Can I ask a general history question?

Who is the West's leading historian?

Who is our Homer, our Tacitus, our Pliny the Elder?

I often go to the Brit transplant Niall Ferguson, he's a brilliant scholar and fantastic public orator (I once witnessed him absolutely fillet a PBS panel single handily) whose books are used in both "liberal" and "conservative" universities in a multitude of nations. But who is considered "the" guy, or at the very least "the" institution?

My question's genesis is a result of the History Channel's series: Who Really Discovered America?. They present at least 8 different possibilities all predating Columbus as much as 22,000 years, ranging from the Vikings (a rather obvious one) to the Japanese (matching pottery in Ecuador) to the wandering tribe of Israel (confirmation of which would lend historical creedence to The Book of Mormon, I might add). And all that's fine - any post high school pseudo historian knows Asian migration "discovered" the Americas prior to the Pinta, Nina and Santa Maria. My question is more general - who's the standard bearer? Whom must an archaeologist or budding historian convince of his theory for it to go "mainstream?"

I will say this, technology is again imposing itself over traditional renditions of history, and I don't mean carbon dating. Multiple historical societies and institutions are using advanced DNA testing/sequencing to discover previously unknown "interactions" between disparate cultures and nations hitherto unconnected by either oral or written history.

I know the past is a powerful voice within each of us here. And as such I recalled from one essay (& I paraphrase) Pliny the Younger writing to Tacitus regarding his uncle's passing - It is those favored by the Gods granted either to do what is worth writing, or write what is worth reading. I number my uncle among those few blessed in both.

My question is, who is the guy writing what's worth reading about history in 2010?