reviews

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  3/20/2021
  

  Why Did the Slave Trade Survive So Long?

  by James Oakes

  James Oakes reviews John Harris's new book "The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage," and praises its insight into the late years of the slave trade and slavery's relationship to capitalism. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/11/2021
  

  The Underground Activists Who Fought for Freedom Across Asia

  by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

  A new book on the movements against colonial rule in Asia looks to grassroots movements and multiple ideological and political groups and challenges "great man" ideas of national liberation. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/12/2021
  

  Review: Was the Constitution a Pro-Slavery Document?

  by Gordon S. Wood

  Gordon Wood says James Oakes's new book examines the dialectical relationship between 19th century interpretations of the Constitution as a pro-slavery and anti-slavery document and argues that that debate steered Lincoln toward a commitment to racial equality as inextricable from abolition.

• 
• SOURCE: Charleston Post and Courier
  12/20/2020
  

  Review: New Book Seeks To Differentiate Between Confederate History And Historical Memory

  "Adam Domby’s book provides a helpful guide through White Southern memory, a place where the Civil War never really ended."

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  10/26/2020
  

  "Time's Monster" by Priya Satia Review – Living in the Past

  Time’s Monster is a book about history and empire. Not a straightforward history, but an account of how the discipline of history has itself enabled the process of colonisation, “making it ethically thinkable”.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  9/21/2020
  

  Eric Williams’ Foundational Work on Slavery, Industry, and Wealth

  by Katie Donington

  Debates over Eric Williams’s work have ebbed and flowed ever since he first published Capitalism and Slavery in 1944. His book inspired a body of historiography to which many historians of slavery and abolition have added their voices over the decades.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/14/2020
  

  Familiar Story of the Boston Massacre Becomes Familial

  A review of Serena Zabin's upcoming book "The Boston Massacre."

• 
• 2/24/20
  

  New, Experimental West Side Story Is an Experiment that Goes Awry

  by Bruce Chadwick

  The play has lost its focus and sense of history.

• 
• 2/20/20
  

  A Tale of the Great Migration

  by Bruce Chadwick

  Blues for an Alabama Sky, a new play by Pearl Cleage, tells the story of a handful of those people. It is a deep, rich play in which their stories are carried out against the cultural backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance.

• 
• 2/5/20
  

  Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are Back, and the Sexual Revolution with Them

  by Bruce Chadwick

  The late 1960s was the heyday of America’s sexual revolution and nowhere was it bigger than in California.

• 
• 1/28/20
  

  There’s Nothing Like a Good Ghost Story from the Past

  by Bruce Chadwick

  The terrifying and wondrous Woman in Black is an international hit. It's a play staged in 2020 that was written in 1987 about an event that took place in 1927.

• 
• 1/26/20
  

  How Neville Chamberlin Misread Hitler and Allowed the Third Reich to Threaten the World Order

  by Jeff Roquen

  In the new and magisterial study Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill and the Road to War, Tim Bouverie incisively reconstructs the ideological landscape of post-WWI Britain to explain how Chamberlain and other politicians and pundits misread Hitler and ultimately allowed the Third Reich to threaten the entire world order.

• 
• 1/26/20
  

  The Film “1917” and the Allegory of the Wooden-Headed

  by James Ottavio Castagnera

  Viewed with one eye on this current context, “1917” can surmount its surface characterization as an exciting “war movie” to become an allegory.

• 
• 1/21/20
  

  1917: The War Movie at Its Very Best

  by Bruce Chadwick

  The movie is a story within a story – the two men within the greater war

• 
• 1/19/20
  

  A Play About Historical Reenactors Grapples With American Identity

  by Bruce Chadwick

  Talene Monahon’s new play, How to Load a Musket, takes a deep, hard look at the re-enactors of two wars, the American Revolution and the Civil War.

• 
• SOURCE: BBC History Extra
  1/14/20
  

  “A staggering tour de force – but an opportunity missed”: a historian’s review of the film 1917

  by Jeremy Banning

  How does 1917 deal with the realities of war and what does it show about the real events of 1917 – the retreat by German forces and life in the trenches? 

• 
• 1/14/20
  

  Depression Era Tenor Hits All the High Notes

  by Bruce Chadwick

  It is 1934, at the height of the Depression, and an opera company in Cleveland is trying to make enough money to stay in business.

• 
• 1/12/20
  

  A New History of American Liberalism

  by Bruce W. Dearstyne

  Liberals looking for an enlightening but sobering account of their movement's history should read James Traub. 

• 
• 1/5/20
  

  Somewhere Over Their Rainbows - Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland

  by Bruce Chadwick

  In the late 1930s and 1940s, Deanna and Judy, just teenagers, were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Deanna was not only a superb actress, but as a singer had the voice of an angel.

• 
• 1/5/20
  

  Little Women are Bigger Than Ever

  by Bruce Chadwick

  Director Gerwig, who also wrote the screenplay, has  made this a very modern look at life in the 1860s.