Books

Review of Erik J. Chaput's "The People's Martyr"

by J. Stanley Lemons

Was Rhode Island's revolutionary democrat all that democratic?

Review of Roy Morris Jr.'s "Declaring His Genius"

by Doug Ireland

A seriously flawed book that only mentions Wilde's sexuality three times.

Review of James Goodman's "But Where Is the Lamb? Imagining the Story of Abraham and Isaac"

by Jim Cullen

An ambitious work of cultural history that resonates far beyond its biblical subject

Review of Stephen King's "Joyland"

by Jim Cullen

King is up to his old tricks in a pulpy series that honors the roots of his literary tradition.

Review of Mark Kurlansky's "Ready for a Brand New Beat"

by Ron Briley

A new musical history of the civil rights era will be familiar to scholars, but it still hits all the right notes.

Review of Robert Wilson's "Mathew Brady"

by Jim Cullen

It's surprising how little is known about the father of photography.

Review of Brett Martin's "Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad"

by Jim Cullen

How TV supplanted the movies as the auteur medium of choice -- and why that may be changing.

Review of James Agee and Walker Evans's "Cotton Tenants: Three Families"

by Ron Briley

James Agee's classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men gets stripped to its bones.

Murray Polner: Review of Charles Glass's "The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II" (Penguin 2013)

In a nation where World War II is commonly celebrated in films and TV in an aura of triumphalism, Charles Glass’s book The Deserters” re-examines a phase of the war that has essentially been overlooked by extollers of the "Good War."

Jim Cullen: Review of Niall Ferguson's "The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die" (Penguin, 2013)

 In The Great Degeneration, Niall Ferguson offers a précis of his libertarian brand of thinking with an expansive view of Anglo-American society -- and why it's falling apart. It rests on a key insight, and a questionable prescription.

Ron Briley: Review of Glenn Frankel's "The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend" (Bloomsbury, 2013)

In the spring of 1956 Warner Brothers released The Searchers, directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. The film received mixed reviews and turned a modest profit while garnering no Academy Award nominations. Over the last fifty years, however, the reputation of The Searchershas grown among filmmakers and film critics.

Luther Spoehr: Review of William J. Reese's “Testing Wars in the Public Schools: A Forgotten History” (Harvard University Press, 2013.)

When the examiners for the Boston School Committee visited the city’s public schools at the end of the 1845 school year, they brought along a surprise.  Instead of the standard public questioning, recitation, and exhibitions, students were to take written examinations.  This development, says William Reese, was as revolutionary as it was unexpected.  Linked as it was to other reforms advocated by Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and his allies in Boston, it was instrumental in establishing the template for public schooling across the country that still exists today.

Jim Cullen: Review of Christopher Clark's "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914" (Harper, 2013)

At one point early on in The Sleepwalkers, University of Cambridge Professor Christopher Clark cites a perception -- certainly one I had growing up -- of the First World War taking place on the far side of a historical divide. "It was easy to imagine the disaster of Europe's 'last summer' as an Edwardian costume drama," he writes, attributing this view to Barbara Tuchman books. "The effete rituals and gaudy uniforms, the 'ornamentalism' of a world still largely organized around hereditary monarchy had a distancing effect on present-day recollection. They seemed to signal that the protagonists were people from another, vanished world."

Ron Briley: Review of Ruth Barton's "Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film" (Kentucky, 2012)

Described as “the most beautiful woman in the world” during her Hollywood film career from the late 1930s to the 1950s, Hedy Lamarr is less well known today among film fans, with the exception of viewers who enjoy Turner Classic Movies. Nevertheless, Lamarr is the subject of three recent biographical studies, perhaps due to her long overlooked status as an inventor. 

Vaughn Davis Bornet: Review of Joseph W. Scott and Solomon A. Getahun's "Little Ethiopia of the Pacific Northwest" (Transaction, 2013)

Often a book will be idly described as “timely” on one thin ground or another. This book on Ethiopians who migrated from their home country in Northern Africa (via Sudan?) and settled in Seattle fits the needs of all who are focusing on immigration policy at this moment and wish they knew a whole lot more about those who came here voluntarily and involuntarily.

Bernard von Bothmer: Review of Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman's "American Umpire" (Harvard, 2013)

What role should America play on the world stage? What has been its exact role historically? Is our current position in the world a break from tradition -- or a continuum? Is America a force for good -- or is our international involvement the source of many of the world’s problems?

Jim Cullen: Review of Marc Morris's "The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England" (Pegasus, 2013)

The Norman Conquest is a highly readable and substantial account of one of the most pivotal events in British history. It is a distinguished contribution to the annals of 1066 and deserves to have a long history of its own.

Ron Briley: Review of "Beyond Home Plate: Jackie Robinson on Life After Baseball," edited by Michael Long

The courage and athletic ability demonstrated by Jackie Robinson in breaking Major League Baseball’s color line in 1947 and making the Brooklyn Dodgers a dominant National League club during the 1950s resulted in the ballplayer’s induction into the pantheon of baseball immortals at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Robinson’s career after he retired from the sport following the 1956 season is, however, less well known, but Robinson’s decision to take an active role in the civil rights movement provides ample proof that the courage displayed on the playing field carried over into the struggle for a democratic nation freed from the scourge of racial discrimination and segregation.

Jim Cullen: Review of Allen C. Guelzo's "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion" (Knopf, 2013)

Gettysburg: The Last Invasion is the work of a consummate professional, and an excellent one-volume treatment for novice, fan, and scholar alike.

Luther Spoehr: Review of Erik Christiansen’s “Channeling the Past: Politicizing History in Postwar America” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013)

For many decades now, survey after survey has shown that American students learn little American history in their classrooms.  So disappointed historians should be glad that, at least since World War II, popular history has been, well, popular.  But, no.  Instead, most academic historians who pay any attention to popular history at all spend much of their time lamenting its inaccuracy, its blandness, its frequent failure to conform to scholarly standards and to academics’ own particular interpretations.