No Icons, Please

About the Book

No Icons, Please: Cheeky Portraits from the Twentieth Century honors the idea that history is both instructive and entertaining. This anthology of the recent past offers “brief, none too reverent glances at the people who loomed large in the century we just bid adieu.” In nine colorful chapters, Ernie Plock casts his whimsical net across the waters of American Presidents, sports, film, foreign affairs, rock, television and other outposts of these ten decades. Composed in the form of short, tongue-in-cheek parables, the book questions the notion that an appreciation of history requires the digestion of mountains of words: “I’ve yet to find a satisfying reply to the question of why anyone would want to spend 5,000 words on what can be communicated in twenty.” Observing that “we are an entertainment society,” the author pays equal attention to personalities from our popular heritage as well as from “serious” history–Babe Ruth, Hillary Clinton, Humphrey Bogart, Kaiser Wilhelm, Lucille Ball, John Kennedy, Yoko Ono, Henry Ford, and any number of other celebrated figures stalk these pages. The book is divided into nine sections so that readers can more easily locate subjects of particular interest.: “U.S. Presidents,” “Third Down Batting Practice,” “Society at Large,” “Real Movies,” “Foreign Objects,” “Hitting Rock,” “Strictly Politics,” and “There’s Always TV.” As a former tennis instructor and veteran of a quarter century in Washington, D.C., Plock in the end conceded literary defeat to the mighty tugs of sports and politics. “Presidents were once politicians, too,” he observes. A concluding section, “It Gets Even Better,” summarizes what it all means and even ventures a prediction. Plock jauntily dips into the some of the little-noted or only partially answered questions of this maddening century such as the closely kept secret behind Babe Ruth’s “called shot” and Lucille Ball’s moment of truth. Other riddles of the past take their place–how did Bill Gates escape lasting doom? Why was Herbert Hoover the most underrated American President? What was the nagging question only Frank Zappa could answer? Who was Mrs. Robinson and what did she mean? How was the motor of Duke basketball tuned? Was the future kind to Linda Tripp? No Icon’s excursions offer fanciful pleasures for both the casual observer and the obsessed historian. While interpretive, the collection also bows to the factual realities of the twentieth century. An author of two books on modern German history, Plock is careful to draw his ticklish nuggets from events that actually took place “unless they are related in the conditional–or else are so patently zany as to lie beyond the pale of rational experience.”

About the Author

Ernie Plock is author of two books on modern German history, including East German-West German Relations and the Fall of the GDR. He has contributed numerous articles to historical and business publications and is co-author of a recent anthology of poems, Blended Notes. Ernie received his doctorate in international studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., where he taught world politics. His later years were devoted to analysis of international health care issues for the federal government in Washington. A former tennis instructor, Ernie enjoys writing, films, and March Madness. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Mary and daughter Marina.