Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
Another view of Washington and biography:
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I've read numerous biographies of Washington, but no one volume biography can come close to this one. It is a superlative piece of work giving a panoramic view of the man ang going into copiosly noted details I never read before. This makes GW genuinley human and appropriatley flawed--at last we find out that he genuinley smiled snd laughed and that he wasn't sickenly boring. This is Pultzer material. I spent 25 days plowing througgh 825 pages of text and enjoyed it all. Read it--it'll change your views on him and enrich your views on those around him. My eyes preclude me fromreading the New Yorker review--I trust it was favorable. Let me know.
ReplyDeleteI overdid it today finishing the book...so I'll wait and post more tomorrow... 30 pages on a Kindle is not a bad rate for me---the print in the book is small. With regular print I'm good for 40 to 50 pages daily on a Kindle
ReplyDeleteThanks, Robert. Look forward to your additional comments. I have such a strong picture of Washington that it will be interesting to read what Chernow has to say about him. I will definitely read the book.
ReplyDeleteWhat will probably impress you are the new approaches he has to Washington's personality and behaviors. He does no fawn over the man, nor does he demonize him. He explains him--makes him human--points out his positive, his negatives and his obsnate side.Sometime the General could be an overbearing pain in the ass--and at other times a forgiving soul and a leader who would never order his men to do something he wouldn't do. He suffered as much as his men during the war--yet never lost sight that he was an aristocrat who had to be treated better than others--a democratic man he was not--but admitable he was, in every sense of the word.
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