Dispatches from Vilnius

This is an interesting excerpt from a book Hoover wrote on Wilson, entitled The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson .  Here is the complete text .  Hoover and Wilson were the only presidents to write books about other presidents.  Wilson had written a biography of Washington .

Summer is baseball and since there are some sports fans here I thought it would be fun to compile a Top Ten booklist of favorite baseball books -- history or fiction.  Ask Men has compiled this dubious list , although it has a handful of gems like Ball Four and The Natural .  I really liked the book on Satchel Paige I read a few years back, Don't Look Back .  What are your thoughts?

I seem to get much of my "news" from Jon Stewart these days.  I first heard about this book on The Daily Show , and I've since read a number of favorable reviews .  Annie Jacobsen debunks the UFO conspiracy theories that surround Area 51, saying it is just part and parcel of the covert history of this mysterious military base.  Of course UFO enthusiasts are none too happy to have their conspiracies debunked, but once again fact is stranger than fiction, as Annie probes into the sordid Cold War history between the US and the Soviet Union, Back to that little gray alien allegedly seen at Area 51: Ms. Jacobsen has a theory about the base’s alleged U.F.O. connections. It goes back to the radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” in 1938 and the panic it engendered. Making a series of implications that are her book’s most controversial aspect, she connects this hysteria to the 1947 alleged flying saucer crash in Roswell, N.M., a story cherished by conspiracy theorists ...

Harriet Beecher Stowe's birthday was three days ago, and David Reynolds marked the occasion with the release of a new book that puts her immortal book into perspective, The “Battle for America” of the subtitle, is the conflict between the progressive, anti-slavery message of Stowe’s novel and the reactionary, conservative elements who resisted the abolition of slavery. While the Civil War was the most bloody and costly front in that battle, Reynolds demonstrates how the ideological debate raged on long after the war ended, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin never far from the socio-cultural intersection of values. Just as it inspired sympathetic books in the same vein, it also precipitated a flood of pro-slavery novels that romanticized the Old South. The reactionary anti-Tom books, as Reynolds states, might have ended up in the dustbin of history had it not been for Thomas Dixon’s venomous works catching the fancy of filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915...

I remember watching the American Experience documentary of Walt Whitman years ago.  I was heavy into Whitman at the time.  It was part of my "Beat" experience.  The documentary is no longer available at PBS, but someone was nice enough to upload it to Youtube.  David Reynolds has written a recent biography, Walt Whitman's America , which has been mentioned as a possible reading group selection.

  I had looked forward to this documentary , but was sadly disappointed by how shallow it was.  Guggenheim appears to take the neocon view that the problems with public schools in America are the teachers' unions, pointing to a handful of charter schools, which don't have to hire union teachers, as shining lights.  Melissa Anderson sums up the shortfalls of this film in this Village Voice review .

Another option is the second book, The Coming of the New Deal, 1933-1935 , in Schlesinger's series, The Age of Roosevelt , especially given that Social Security and other programs born out of his administration are coming under fire from Republicans.  There is also Leuchtenburg's book, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932-1940 .  Love the 1963 cover .

  Recently, a signed first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird sold for nearly $10,000 at Abebooks.  The novel celebrated 50 years in print in 2010.  It is one of the most revered books in American literature and still resonates with many readers today. "I can honestly say I learnt more about human rights from To Kill a Mockingbird than all the law books in the world. I first read it when I was 12, then studied it at school. So much of what I believe about people and values is promoted in the simple but powerful story of Atticus Finch, who tirelessly defends a black man in the Deep South on the false charge of rape. At its heart it's really about three basic values: dignity, equality and fairness."  Shami Chakrabarti, Human-rights lawyer and director of Liberty

Another Doomsday has come and gone, making those who believed in Camping's vision feeling rather dejected afterward.  Fortunately, there's Leon Festinger's classic book, When Prophecy Fails , to help guide these perplexed Christians through another day.  What was intriguing to me is Camping believed only 200 million souls would be called up to heaven, leaving approximately 1,8 billion Christians behind, not to mention countless other lost souls.  I guess only born-again Christians need apply.

We haven't had a good meander for while ...

  One of the more interesting persons to emerge from Von Drehle's narrative was Frances Perkins, who is the subject of this well received book, The Woman Behind the New Deal .  Would make for a nice continuation of our discussion of the Triangle Fire .  Nice to see she was honored with a stamp back in 1980.

  Seems each month offers another observance.  This month it is Jewish heritage .  The special month was inaugurated in 2006 to recognize the more than 350-year history of Jewish contributions to American culture. Obama first paid tribute in May, 2009.

Man O' War has been overshadowed in recent years by Seabiscuit and Secretariat , but Dorothy Ours hopes to rescue the great racehorse from the dustbin of history. Tackling old beliefs with newly uncovered evidence , Man o’ War: A Legend Like Lightning shows how human pressures collided with a natural phenomenon and brings new life to an American icon. The genuine courage of Man o’ War, tribulations of his archrival, Sir Barton (America’s first Triple Crown winner), and temptations of their Hall of Fame jockeys and trainers reveal a long-hidden tale of grace, disgrace, and elusive redemption . Seabiscuit was the grandson of Man O' War.

  ... in print anyway.  Fascinating more for the iconic place this book has achieved in American literature than for the story itself.  I didn't know there was a Southern Cross edition in Morocco binding.

Thomas Powers' book on the Killing of Crazy Horse won the 2010 L.A.Times Book Award for History. I was totally awed by how good it was. The other runners up are here: http://events.latimes.com/bookprizes/previous-winners/year-2010/ While I was in L.A., I was able to attend some fascinating panels, and learned about some interesting books. These two were both really interesting: The first one I attended was on "democracy and its discontents" with these three authors: Scott Martelle - The Fear Within - http://www.scottmartelle.com/ Thaddeus Russell - A Renegade History of the United States - http://www.thaddeusrussell.com Barry Siegel - Claim of Privilege - http://www.barry-siegel.com I then attended a session on "the living constitution," which was an amazing discussion with Erwin Chemerinksy, Henry Weinstein and John Dean. I was so impressed by their commitment to civil liberties (yes, even John Dean) and what they had to say that I went up after the sessio...

It was nice to see Peter Bergen on CNN news this morning, commenting on the death of Osama bin Laden .  He was one of the clearest talking heads in the weeks and months immediately following 9-11, helping to explain the history of al Qaida, without resorting to histrionics.  Bergen was one of the few "infidels" to get a chance to interview bin Laden , and has since pieced together an oral history of the most wanted man in the world. I read Bergen's Holy War, Inc. , which provided a rational perspective of events despite its incendiary title.

This is a marvelous little book by Lewis Mumford.  I thought it would be a good point of departure for those who want to share their observations and book notes on New York, past and present.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) is the most famous Yiddish writer of the twentieth century, and translations of his works have made him one of the most beloved in English. A prolific writer who vividly conjured the annihilated Jewish world of  eastern Europe, he spoke to the fears, longings, and ambivalence of America's modern nation of immigrants. Singer drew  on folk memories and mystical traditions to create a body of work that moved dramatically from the realistic to the fantastic, in ways that startled readers and inspired other writers. Singer's characters—often Holocaust survivors haunted by their immediate past and disoriented by American reality—dramatized the conflicts not only of postwar American Jews, but of an entire society committed both to cultural pluralism and to assimilation. see a site dedicated to him at Library of America .

  Here is an on-line copy of Susan Glenn's book, Daughters of the Shtetl .  It looks at both life and labor of Jewish immigrants in New York at the turn of the century, eventually leading to the uprising of 1909.  Should serve as a valuable supplement to Von Drehle's early chapters. Another book I was able to find on-line is The Promised City - New York's Jews, 1870-1914 , by Moses Rischin, who, paints a vivid picture of Jewish life in New York at the turn of the century. Here are the old neighborhoods and crowded tenements, the Rester Street markets, the sweatshops, the birth of Yiddish theatre in America, and the founding of important Jewish newspapers and labor movements. The book describes, too, the city's response to this great influx of immigrants—a response that marked the beginning of a new concept of social responsibility.  To complete this triptych, here is a copy of Hasia Diner's Lower East Side Memories , which recounts the period 1880-193...

  Here's a reprint of Sidney Lens' classic book on The Labor Wars , looking both within and without the unions, first published in 1974, In L abor Wars , Lens demonstrates how, contrary to conventional wisdom, the struggle of workers for decent pay and conditions on the job, democracy, and social justice has played a far more pivotal role in shaping American life than any president or general. In gripping detail, Labor Wars rescues the rich tradition of working-class rebellion that has so powerfully defined our history.