Skip to main content

New Books

By
I'm reading an interesting book right now:  American Canopy about the importance of trees in the development of the nation.

I also see that Henry Wiencek has finally released his Jefferson book.  I guess enough time has passed since the book on the Hemings family.

http://www.amazon.com/Master-Mountain-Thomas-Jefferson-Slaves/dp/0374299560

Comments

  1. avrdsSeptember 29, 2012 at 6:21 PM

    There's a lengthy excerpt at the Smithsonian this month:

    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Little-Known-Dark-Side-of-Thomas-Jefferson-169780996.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonSeptember 29, 2012 at 11:13 PM

    I wouldn't mind taking on Jefferson.

    ReplyDelete
  3. avrdsSeptember 30, 2012 at 12:12 AM

    If that excerpt is any indication, he does take him on!

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonSeptember 30, 2012 at 11:49 AM

    Wiencek is very well regarded, I'm sure he will provide a very interesting take on Jefferson.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousOctober 1, 2012 at 9:00 AM

    I saw American Canopy a few months ago in HBC I think and it looks interesting.Meant to order it so thanks.bosox

    ReplyDelete
  6. avrdsOctober 1, 2012 at 3:26 PM

    I'm just starting but it's a fascinating look at how trees dominated from the earliest settlement of the continent through the desire for masts (overlapping with Roger Williams) but also in ship building generally and establishing the Atlantic trade routes of slaves, sugar, and ships.

    What's fun is that it's a very general history of the US using trees as the focus. I think it goes all the way up to post-WWII. Since I've been working with the Forest Service recently, this is doubly interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousOctober 8, 2012 at 1:57 AM

    Yes, I am "finally" releasing my Jefferson book, "Master of the Mountain." It took so long because I discovered new information that wrecked the assumption I started with -- that Jefferson was a benevolent, enlightened slaveholder who was trapped in the institution. I had to toss out two years of writing and start over. The Smithsonian Magazine excerpt has some of this new material.

    ReplyDelete
  8. avrdsOctober 8, 2012 at 3:22 AM

    I hope you will join us in our discussion of it! We had a great discussion of your book on Washington.

    ReplyDelete
  9. James FergusonOctober 8, 2012 at 7:50 AM

    Thank you so much for dropping in on this forum. We started it up three years ago in an effort to bring back together a reading group from the old NYTimes forums, which avrds notes this particular reading. We would love to discuss your new book on Jefferson in here.

    The whole Barton thing has renewed attention in Jefferson, which I suppose is the only good thing one can say about his book. I've been following Warren Throckmorton's blog on the subject.

    I've long had an interest in Jefferson, mostly from the point of view of planning and architecture. I really enjoyed McLaughlin's book on Jefferson and Monticello from a few years back.

    ReplyDelete
  10. James FergusonOctober 8, 2012 at 2:36 PM

    I see you have competition this fall,

    http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-The-Art-Power/dp/1400067669/ref=pd_ys_sf_s_283155_b1_n_1_p

    ReplyDelete
  11. avrdsOctober 8, 2012 at 3:27 PM

    I'll see if I can get this one too.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  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
228 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more