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NonfictionMilitary HistoryBlack HistoryAmerican History

The march toward freedom

Feature by John T. Slania

Although they examine three separate, significant times in the span of African-American history, these books share common themes: the struggle for freedom, the quest for equality and the achievement of these goals with the help of a great leader. Spanning more than a century, from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, these new volumes provide important perspective as we celebrate Black History Month.

THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR

Much has been written about Abraham Lincoln’s evolution from a president who simply sought to preserve the union to one who ultimately realized he must free the slaves. But James Oakes makes the case in Freedom National that even before the Civil War, Lincoln held a firm anti-slavery view and pursued that goal until his death. While January 1, 2013, marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Oakes writes that long before that historic order was issued, Lincoln and the Republican Party were orchestrating political and military maneuvers to free the slaves.

Oakes, a noted professor of history, provocatively sets the starting date of the emancipation at less than four months after the first cannon shot of the Civil War. It was on August 6, 1861, that Lincoln signed the First Confiscation Act, instructing the Union Army to seize any property and free any slaves owned by Southerners disloyal to the union. “[F]irmly convinced that slavery was the source of the rebellion, Republicans began attacking it almost as soon as the war began,” Oakes writes.

While experiencing some success with military action, Lincoln realized he needed a broader decree—the Emancipation Proclamation—to achieve full freedom for slaves. Thus, Oakes writes, the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t the beginning or end of Lincoln’s mission, but a more aggressive phase of his anti-slavery campaign. The final steps were victory over the South in the war, and then passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery, which Lincoln shepherded through Congress. He was assassinated before the amendment was ratified by the states.

Freedom National is a refreshing new look at Lincoln because it refutes a growing body of work arguing that it was only after exhausting every other political and military tactic that he adopted an anti-slavery stance. Oakes’ conclusion: “[Lincoln] was neither the Great Emancipator who bestrode his times and brought his people out of the darkness, nor was he in any way a reluctant emancipator held back by some visceral commitment to white supremacy.”

GIVE 'EM HELL

It is altogether fitting that this Black History Month trilogy moves from one great military conflict—the Civil War—to another: World War II. In fact, the theme of Rawn James Jr.’s The Double V is how the nation’s military conflicts, and their use of African-American soldiers, reflect our attitudes toward racism and equality. “From exclusion and segregation, to integration and diversity, the armed forces, for better or worse, have always reflected our country at large,” James writes.

The Double V refers to the attempt by black soldiers to achieve two victories in World War II: on the battlefield and at home, where they sought to be treated as equals. James, an accomplished historian, writes that the Double V campaign was best described by prominent civil rights activist Roy Wilkins, who said that blacks should “fight on for the full freedom of 100 percent democracy at home while we are fighting a war for democracy abroad.” Providing critical historical context, James details how African Americans were mustered into the U.S. military beginning in the late stages of the Civil War. Yet it wasn’t true integration, he writes, since black soldiers often performed menial tasks in segregated units.

Two factors led to the complete integration of the military, according to James: the loyalty and heroics displayed by black soldiers in World War II, and the presidency of Harry S. Truman. As a U.S. senator, Truman headed a committee to investigate misappropriation of military defense contracts. Inspecting dozens of military bases and field operations, Truman grew to understand not only the nation’s vast military apparatus, but also its soldiers, including the bravery of its black soldiers. Once the war was over and the foreign enemies dispatched, Truman turned to combating the internal enemy of segregation.

On July 26, 1948, African Americans finally enjoyed the “Double V” when Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces. Of course, the order did not end racism in the military, James points out. But this bold decision by a conservative, white Missourian did establish a doctrine to bring equality to the military. While the struggle for equality continues, James concludes that evidence of progress can be seen six decades later with the election of Barack Obama, who, as president, is commander in chief of the armed forces.

TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY

Not all wars involve the military. This is a lesson from Taylor Branch’s The King Years, which chronicles Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for equality during the Civil Rights era. Here, the clash is between white supremacists—who refuse to allow blacks to eat at the same lunch counters, drink from the same water fountains or use the same bathrooms—and African Americans asking for the rights granted to all citizens by the U.S. Constitution. The offensive is conducted in a peaceful fashion by King, but frequently met with bloody violence.

The King Years is a distillation of Branch’s acclaimed trilogy, America in the King Years. The series totaled more than 2,000 pages, offering a comprehensive and exhaustively researched exploration of the Civil Rights movement. Branch was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for History for the first installment, Parting the Waters, and received praise for two subsequent volumes, Pillar of Fire and At Canaan’s Edge. Here, Branch selects 18 passages from the trilogy in an attempt to capture the essential moments of the Civil Rights era. Branch’s hope in publishing a condensed edition is to make history accessible to a new generation of readers. “Our goal in this edition,” Branch writes, “is to convey both the spirit and sweep of an extraordinary movement.”

Moving chronologically, The King Years begins with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, moves through the Selma March in 1965, and finishes with King’s assassination in Memphis in 1968. These condensed passages allow readers to grasp the significance of these and other key moments in King’s life and offer an invitation to Branch’s more complete writings.

In an interview with his publisher, Branch revealed the inspiration for publishing The King Years: “For all readers, I believe, lessons from the Civil Rights Era apply not to bygone forms of racial segregation but most urgently to a troubled future. . . . They show how ordinary people can work miracles against intractable burdens to advance both freedom and the common good.”

The war against racism is not over. But The King Years shows how King and others advanced the cause of equality in the same noble fashion as the great leaders who preceded them. It is Branch’s hope that a new generation who learn about King’s crusade for civil rights may be inspired to continue the fight.

Although they examine three separate, significant times in the span of African-American history, these books share common themes: the struggle for freedom, the quest for equality and the achievement of these goals with the help of a great leader. Spanning more than a century, from…

NonfictionWomen's HistoryMemoir

Forging new paths for women everywhere

Feature by Heather Seggel

A popular bumper sticker theorizes that well-behaved women rarely make history. While it’s true that sometimes swimming against the current is the only way to get where you’re headed, three new books show women making history in a variety of ways, from globetrotting, to taking on mysterious jobs, to smashing through political barriers—even if their behavior was sometimes less than ladylike.

ALL ABOARD

In 1889, Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days was hot stuff. So hot, in fact, that two New York publications sent female reporters on trips around the world to try and beat fictional character Phileas Fogg’s time. Matthew Goodman’s Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World recreates the race and shows how it shaped the women’s lives afterward. It’s also a dazzling tour of the world at a time when travel routes were just opening up; a look at sensationalist journalism and pop culture in pre-Kardashian America; and a testimony to how hard women had to fight to get work and achieve respect as journalists.

Bly perfected the art of traveling light for the sake of convenience, then went on a shopping spree in Singapore, after which she was saddled with a cantankerous monkey she named McGinty. Bisland, who agreed to race against Bly with less than one day’s notice, didn’t like the publicity that came with the challenge and squirmed at being hauled in rickshaws and sedan chairs, but she was otherwise a fearless competitor who continued to travel for the rest of her life. Their stories should inspire both writers and travelers today: If you finish this without laying out your own version of Nellie Bly’s one-bag, no-hassles travel case, don’t complain the next time you’re dinged $25 for an extra suitcase. She was vastly ahead of her time.

WOMEN’S WORK

The Girls of Atomic City details a story that seems impossible yet was true. Author Denise Kiernan brings a novelist’s voice to her thoroughly researched look at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a small city that housed 75,000 people, used as much power as New York City, yet didn’t exist on any map. During World War II, numerous women were recruited to work in Oak Ridge but were never told what their jobs were; each job was isolated from the others so a complete picture couldn’t be formed. All they knew was that they were working to help bring a swift end to the war. By the time anyone had figured it out, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been decimated and the war was over.

The story of the town is impressive and occasionally funny: Women disembarking from cars for the first time sank to their knees in mud, since there were no sidewalks built, and one resident persuaded a worker to make her contraband biscuit tins from scrap metal so as to avoid the cafeteria’s sub-par chow. There was camaraderie among the workers, yet everyone felt ambivalent about what they created and how it was ultimately used. Kiernan gives no easy answers, but the stories of the women will resonate with readers. If someone offered you double what you’re making now, would you jump on a train with no further information? That took guts.

HIGHEST CALLING

It’s great to look back and find undiscovered stories in our past, but the experiences of those who are still with us have much to offer as we go forward. Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice is Mary Robinson’s memoir. The first female president of Ireland and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights traces her political roots back to an early and radical questioning of her Catholic upbringing. Continually working and fighting for full inclusion on behalf of the poor and marginalized, she became a vocal opponent of U.S. President George W. Bush’s policies in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. When journalists questioned her outspoken stance and willingness to jeopardize her U.N. job, she writes, “I replied that this was the job; it was better to do the job than try to keep it.”

Robinson is unsparing about mistakes she’s made in her political career, and unfailingly gracious and grateful to her friends and family in these pages, which puts her tougher stances in perspective. A critical thinker and fine writer, her life story is a pleasure to read, and one that will certainly inspire generations of leaders to come.

A popular bumper sticker theorizes that well-behaved women rarely make history. While it’s true that sometimes swimming against the current is the only way to get where you’re headed, three new books show women making history in a variety of ways, from globetrotting, to taking…

NonfictionMilitary History

Bravery among the bullets

Feature by Pete Croatto

War is a complex subject with many aspects to explore, but one thing is clear: It makes for good books. Four new releases examine the American experience in three wars through the remarkable stories and objects that survived them.

A GENERATION PASSES

Richard Rubin (Confederacy of Silence) roamed the country to interview The Last of the Doughboys, the only surviving American veterans of World War I. Just a few dozen of them remained when he began his research, including a man who transferred bodies to Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and another who regretted not serving in combat. Though not all of the subjects are chatty, their remembrances give Rubin the opportunity to provide dignity to the elderly and show how a simpler time was actually quite complicated.

Rubin reminds us that 1.3 million men were killed in just one battle, the Somme. The era of WWI saw segregation as the norm, as well as the marginalization of women, who could not serve in combat. Immigrants were a significant presence in America, but the culture of the day was to support the U.S.—or else. Those are among several themes explored by Rubin, who is so determined to detail the battles and tasks of his interview subjects—while discussing other topics such as the challenges of interviewing 100-year-olds—that he’s nearly foiled by his own ambition. Still, he manages to fashion a nice ode to a generation whose role in shaping modern-day America is fading from public consciousness.

HITLER’S ART HEIST

Robert M. Edsel’s Saving Italy examines the United States’ attempt to save valuable artistic works in WWII-ravaged Italy. Bombings and gunfire were not the only threats: The Nazis were smuggling art from various Italian cities, including works by the most famous artists of the Renaissance. Salt mines in Austria were converted into a hideout for thousands of pieces of art, some of which belonged to Adolf Hitler himself.

Saving Italy works best in showing how a picture is worth more than a thousand words. For the Nazis, the paintings and sculptures were spoils of war. For the Italians, art was a crucial part of their history, one that the Americans recognized. Out of that concern rose “a new kind of soldier charged with saving, not destroying, what lay in the path of the conquering army.” Among these soldiers were the book’s two protagonists, “Monuments Men” Deane Keller and Fred Hartt.

Though some readers may grow impatient with the book’s structure, which loads the story with a detailed accounting of military strategy (including the Nazis’ surrender), Edsel tells a readable and ultimately triumphant story.

WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME
Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey possesses the juiciness of a beach read. Peter Carlson’s excellent book covers the plight of two reporters from the New York Tribune, Junius Browne and Albert Richardson, who were captured by Confederate troops in the Battle of Vicksburg.

Since both men were non-military personnel, they were quickly paroled. But getting released was another matter entirely. Because the Confederacy so loathed the Tribune and prisoner exchanges between the North and the South had stopped, Browne and Richardson were stuck in purgatory. After 20 months, escape on foot and horseback to Union territory near Knoxville, Tennessee—a 340-mile journey laden with potential enemies—was their only option.

Carlson works with wonderful efficiency, describing the political and social environment both men faced but never losing sight of the story and its momentum. The writing is compact and vivid as readers are escorted to the hell both men endured. “Freezing rain fell all night,” Carlson writes, “and in the morning the corpses piled outside the dead house glistened with a thin coating of ice.”

THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY
I’m guessing the New-York Historical Society doesn’t have corpses, but it probably has everything else. The Civil War in 50 Objects, written by Civil War historian Harold Holzer, is a fantastic museum tour of a book. Fifty items out of the Society’s nearly one million Civil War items are presented in mostly chronological order. Holzer provides historical background and context for each piece, which range from a pike used by John Brown’s freedom fighters to a footlocker belonging to Lt. Col. William H. Paine of the Fourth Wisconsin.

The beauty of the book is its format. Readers familiar with the Civil War can head to an item of particular interest—as a reformed beat reporter, I flipped right to the prison newspaper—while casual readers will enjoy an inviting atmosphere for a historically intimidating subject. With such an effective strategy, it’s no wonder that Holzer is an editor. Perhaps he should have been a general.

War is a complex subject with many aspects to explore, but one thing is clear: It makes for good books. Four new releases examine the American experience in three wars through the remarkable stories and objects that survived them.

A GENERATION PASSES

Richard Rubin (Confederacy of Silence)…

RomanceFictionWomen's History

An engaging trio of tributes to Jane

Feature by Elisabeth Atwood

Would Jane Austen be rolling over in her grave after reading the latest additions to the Austen-phile’s bookshelf? Au contraire: If Austen had an iPhone, she would likely be tweeting the praises of these three charming Austen pastiches and tributes—which may have readers reaching for the originals.

AN OVERLOOKED HEROINE
The Pursuit of Mary Bennet, former librarian Pamela Mingle’s first novel for adults, is as much a sequel to Pride and Prejudice as it is an homage. Mary Bennet has always been overshadowed by her four sisters. But now that they are all out of the house, Mary finds herself receiving the romantic overtures of Henry Walsh, a friend of her brother-in-law Charles Bingley. Inexperienced in romance, Mary worries that she is misreading Henry's intentions. Does she deserve love?

The more popular characters, like Elizabeth and Darcy, make appearances in the novel, but Mingle keeps her focus on Mary and her efforts to move past her childish—and, sometimes, obnoxious—ways. Writing in the first person, Mingle is able to explore Mary's inner life in a manner that Austen did not, giving her depth and helping the reader feel invested in her happiness. Mingle doesn’t try to imitate Austen or rewrite her classic novel. Instead, she gives contemporary readers a clever take on an overlooked character.

PUTTING A TWIST ON A CLASSIC
Countless romance novels and love stories have been born from Jane Austen novels. Add Katherine Reay's delightful debut, with intriguing characters and a well-developed plot, to that list. This is not a straight modernization, but rather a pastiche that stands as a tribute to the power of literature. An epistolary novel, Dear Mr. Knightley is made up of the letters and journals of Samantha "Sam" Moore, an orphan raised in the juvenile system in contemporary Chicago who writes letters to her mysterious benefactor. 

Sam is an introvert, hiding in books, shunning personal relationships and, in general, failing to connect with others. After losing her job, she finds that she is the recipient of a special grant: She will be able to attend Northwestern and pursue a masters in journalism, provided that she keep Mr. Knightley apprised of her career through old-fashioned letter writing. Sam uses the letters to open up about her past, an act that allos her to finally accept love and forge relationships with people.

Because Sam hides behinds her favorite novels as a defense, Reay is easily able to weave quotes and storylines from several classics into her tale. Dear Mr. Knightley is a welcome addition to contemporary romance, but what makes it great is Reay’s ability to make the reader feel truly connected to her characters. Readers will get lost in Sam’s story, forgetting about other responsibilities and to-do lists.

MODERNIZING MATTERS OF THE HEART
The Austen project, HarperCollins’ commission of six well-known contemporary authors to provide modern takes on Austen’s completed novels, commences with a bang with Joanna Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility. Trollope, the best-selling author of 18 novels, has taken on a heavy mantle here. Her story is the same as Austen’s, but set in modern times, complete with cell phones, iPods and Facebook references.

The modern-day Dashwood family must adapt to a new life after the untimely death of their father, who had never legally married their mother. Left with no money and no home to live in, the three Dashwood girls, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, along with their mother, Fanny, must adapt to a life without the security of inheritance, family name and status.

Trollope does an exceptional job remaining true to the original characters. She accurately captures Austen's classic theme of "head versus heart," even as she updates the characters in believable ways (Elinor, for example, is studying architecture). Trollope’s version of Sense and Sensibility reminds the reader that the world may be changing too quickly around us, but matters of the heart remain constant.

Would Jane Austen be rolling over in her grave after reading the latest additions to the Austen-phile’s bookshelf? Au contraire: If Austen had an iPhone, she would likely be tweeting the praises of these three charming Austen pastiches and tributes—which may have readers reaching for…

NonfictionMusicBlack HistoryBiographyAmerican History

Turning points on the road to equality

Feature by John T. Slania

African Americans have been struggling for independence, equality and respect from the moment they were brought to the New World in chains. As that struggle continues today, it’s instructive to look back on our turbulent history to learn from the past and hopefully improve on the future. The five books featured here can help us to do just that, examining historical themes that serve as milestones on the journey of progress.

DESPERATION & DECEPTION

It’s ironic that Captain Amasa Delano was on the high seas in pursuit of seals when he came upon what appeared to be a slave ship. Hunting for seals and slaves were equally predatory professions. And while seal hunting was a lucrative industry, the slave trade would prove to be even more profitable. Not that Delano would grasp the irony; he was an idealistic, anti-slavery New Englander. And when he boarded the battered vessel, his idealism would leave him vulnerable to a deception that had deadly consequences.

This page-turning history lesson is found in The Empire of Necessity by Greg Grandin, author of the acclaimed Fordlandia. Delano’s ship happened upon a distressed Spanish vessel one day in 1805. It appeared to be merely a lost slave ship. In reality, the 70 West Africans on board, seeking their freedom from slavery, had commandeered the ship. The clever slaves forced the Spanish captain to go along with the ruse. Delano believed the charade for nine hours, but when he discovered he’d been tricked, he ordered his men to attack the West Africans.

While Grandin’s narrative is a gripping read on its own, the underlying theme is profound: The deception in this incident is symbolic of America’s willingness to ignore the hypocisy of slavery in a supposedly free society. Unfortunately, it would take the United States another 60 years before it would acknowledge the falsehood.

FAILED EXPERIMENT

When the Civil War ended slavery in 1865, the U.S. embarked on an effort to provide reparations to Southern landowners and expanded rights to newly freed slaves, including suffrage and education. That policy, called Reconstruction, was a noble idea that failed.

In The Wars of Reconstruction, Le Moyne College history professor Douglas R. Egerton details the myriad factors that led to the collapse of Reconstruction: the replacement of Abraham Lincoln with an inept Andrew Johnson; Southern resistance to the granting of equal rights to blacks; and the premature withdrawal of federal troops. But Egerton contends that an ongoing pattern of violence in the South doomed Reconstruction from the beginning. “Reconstruction . . . was violently overthrown by men who had fought slavery during the Civil War and continued that battle as guerrilla partisans,” Egerton writes.

The Wars of Reconstruction offers a fresh perspective on why the grand experiment of Reconstruction failed and how it took nearly a century afterward for African Americans to gain any semblance of equal rights in the South.

SIREN SONG

In the early 1900s, many African Americans—shackled by an inability to earn a living or cast a vote—began a Great Migration from the rural South to the industrialized cities of the North. Jobs in the car factories of Detroit and steel mills of Chicago beckoned, while also fostering a black middle class. For the first time, African Americans earned enough money to own homes, buy cars and spend money on entertainment. One of the people they went to see was trumpeter Louis Armstrong.

In Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism, Duke University music professor Thomas Brothers chronicles Armstrong’s own Great Migration. After gaining notoriety as a musician in New Orleans, Armstrong heard a siren song in 1922 calling him north to Chicago, where there was a thriving black nightclub scene on the city’s South Side. There, Armstrong honed his crafts playing alongside jazz greats such as King Oliver, Earl “Fatha” Hines and Cab Calloway.

While this biography highlights the maturation of a great entertainer during the Jazz Age, it parallels the evolution of many African Americans in the early 20th century as they earned respectable livelihoods and carved out their own cultural enclaves in the North.

BARRIER TO PROGRESS

Unfortunately, the prosperity of the Jazz Age gave way to the Great Depression, and over the next several decades, many African Americans suffered from poverty and segregation in Northern cities. Some returned to the South, only to encounter further discrimination. The hatred experienced by a race was crystallized in the life of James Meredith, a trailblazer best known as the first African-American student to attend the University of Mississippi. Meredith is the central figure in Down to the Crossroads, an intriguing new book about the civil rights movement by historian Aram Goudsouzian.

Down to the Crossroads focuses on the so-called Meredith March, which the civil rights leader began on June 5, 1966, to register black voters in Mississippi. He started the march in Memphis with the goal of reaching Jackson, Mississippi, but he was soon wounded by a mysterious gunman. While Meredith recovered from his wounds, other black leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, traveled to Mississippi to continue the Meredith March.

Goudsouzian uses the march to capture the divergent leadership styles of the era’s civil rights leaders. There was the defiant Carmichael, who led marchers in “black power” chants, while King preached nonviolence. This single march, captured in detail in Down to the Crossroads, gives readers a clearer understanding of the tensions that often dominated the civil rights movement. 

CONTINUING THE DREAM

When King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, some thought it was the end of the dream of equality for African Americans. In his new book, Waking from the Dream, David L. Chappell turns the spotlight onto those who stepped in to continue the cause in King’s wake, albeit in a less unified fashion.

Waking from the Dream describes the attempts by black leaders such as Ralph Abernathy and Jesse Jackson to further the movement, only to see the struggle slowed by politics and in-fighting. Despite the splintered movement, Chappell details how this new generation of leaders helped gain the passage of the Fair Housing Act and launched the presidential campaign of Jackson.

While it would take another 40 years before Americans would vote in their first black president, Waking from the Dream makes a strong case that Barack Obama would never have been elected were it not for the efforts of the leaders who followed in King’s wake.

African Americans have been struggling for independence, equality and respect from the moment they were brought to the New World in chains. As that struggle continues today, it’s instructive to look back on our turbulent history to learn from the past and hopefully improve on the future. The five books featured here can help us to do just that, examining historical themes that serve as milestones on the journey of progress.

NonfictionWomen's History

Celebrating the accomplishments of fearless females

Feature by Julie Hale

The past is packed with remarkable women whose achievements deserve special recognition. Just in time for Women’s History Month, three new books provide in-depth looks at a few of the courageous, far-sighted women who served as early champions of change. Inspiring narratives about friendship, kinship and the quest for equality, these compelling books salute a group of winning women who were ahead of their time.

Sensational in every sense of the word, The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age by Myra MacPherson looks at the lives of Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin, free-thinking feminist sisters who took New York City by storm in the 1860s by fearlessly addressing the taboos of the time. They were proponents of free love, suffrage, sex education and labor reform, and they stumped for their causes bravely. Originally from rural Ohio, where their father, a snake-oil salesman, used them in his act, the sisters were a canny and intelligent pair, both strikingly handsome and unfazed by public scrutiny. They never shied from a scandal. Their accusations of infidelity against minister Henry Ward Beecher nearly trumped the Civil War for press coverage.

Victoria WoodhullTennessee Claflin

Mathew Brady portraits of free-thinking sisters Victoria Woodhull (left) and Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin, who never shied away from challenging the conventions of their era.

 

The duo’s accomplishments are astonishing: Victoria was the first woman to make a bid for the presidency (her running mate was Frederick Douglass). With the assistance of millionaire magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, Tennie’s reputed lover, the sisters launched the first female-owned brokerage firm. Their taste for controversy and ultra-progressive attitudes (tenacious Tennie proposed that women be trained for army combat) were frowned upon by more reserved feminists, but they remained steadfast in their desire for reform. MacPherson, an award-winning journalist, takes a theatrical approach to these radical proceedings. She provides a cast of characters and unfolds the sisters’ story over the course of five irresistible “acts.” This is a grand tale presented on a grand scale.

A SAVVY SISTER-IN-LAW

Carol Berkin’s Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte features a heroine whose fierce independence and indomitable will made her an early model of change for women.

Bright, well read and remarkably beautiful, Elizabeth Patterson—known as Betsy—came from a well-to-do Baltimore family. When the dashing Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon’s spoiled younger brother, arrived in Baltimore and made her acquaintance, he was smitten. The pair wed in 1803, and their union drew the attention of the American government while scandalizing Napoleon, who blocked Betsy’s entry at ports throughout Europe. To Jérôme, the French emperor issued an ultimatum: Give up Betsy or relinquish the Bonaparte fortune.

Jérôme, of course, caved. Betsy, who bore him a son, took a defiant stance in the wake of his betrayal, forging a life for herself that did not include the refuge of another marriage. Thanks to her beauty and intellect, she shone in European society and spent many years overseas. She also set herself up handsomely through investments and profits from Baltimore real estate. Through it all, she remained proud of the Bonaparte name.

Berkin, a historian and the acclaimed author of Revolutionary Mothers and Civil War Wives, brings a fascinating chapter of feminist history to life in a narrative that’s brisk and vivid.

FEMINIST FAMILY TIES

Diane Jacobs explores an intriguing facet of a famous family in Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters. In this artful biography, Jacobs spotlights the friendship that existed between Abigail Adams, wife of President John Adams, and her sisters, Mary Cranch and Elizabeth Shaw Peabody, with whom she shared progressive ideas regarding education and gender. The sisters came of age in the mid-1700s in Weymouth, Massachusetts, raised by a minister father and a book-loving mother. They were a tightly bound bunch until marriage parted them. Avid letter writers, over the years they produced a correspondence that was polished and insightful, filled with wit and commentary on current events.

Drawing on their letters and other archival materials, Jacobs has created a well-rounded, thoroughly readable biography of the threesome. Each sister shines in her own way: Mary, the eldest sibling, served as mayor of her small hamlet, while Elizabeth, the youngest and an ambitious writer, established the second coeducational school in America with the help of her husband. Middle sister Abigail took charge of the Adams farm while her husband forged a path to the presidency. The sisters’ independence, integrity and spunk shine through Jacobs’ expertly crafted narrative, which also provides a fresh look at life in colonial-era America.

The past is packed with remarkable women whose achievements deserve special recognition. Just in time for Women’s History Month, three new books provide in-depth looks at a few of the courageous, far-sighted women who served as early champions of change. Inspiring narratives about friendship, kinship and the quest for equality, these compelling books salute a group of winning women who were ahead of their time.

NonfictionTrue CrimeBlack HistoryAmerican History

Obstacles on the path to equality

Feature by John T. Slania

The African-American struggle continues in every corner of the nation, from small towns like Ferguson, Missouri, to the boroughs of New York. Thus, Black History Month arrives at a critical time in America. The question is: Can we learn from history? These selections shed new light on the black experience and offer perspectives on the often painful evolution of race relations in America.

Journalist Jill Leovy’s Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America chillingly reflects the violence and racial tension that exists in many urban areas. It’s principally the story of Bryant Tennelle, a Los Angeles teenager who was shot and killed in 2007. At first blush, this might simply be viewed as another black-on-black murder, and something the Los Angeles Police Department would typically ignore. But Tennelle’s father was a police officer. An unlikely hero, police detective John Skaggs, emerges to doggedly work the case and solve the crime.

But Ghettoside is more than just the story of one murdered teen. Leovy broadens her focus to examine the cycle of violence among black men in America—a country in which nearly 40 percent of all murder victims are black. She also offers insight into how the killings can be stopped.

“[W]here the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death,” she writes, “homicide becomes endemic.” Leovy bolsters her argument with extensive research, which included embedding herself within an LAPD detective squad.

SPYING EYES
Sometimes the conflict between law enforcement and African Americans doesn’t play out through violence. F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature reveals the covert side of oppression. Scholar William J. Maxwell conducted an exhaustive records search to uncover files showing that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover spied on African-American writers and silenced some of their work. Maxwell gained access to 51 files demonstrating that over five decades, Hoover was obsessed with black authors, fearing their work might inspire political unrest and violence. He assigned a team of FBI agents to carry out a series of assignments, some as benign as reading advance copies of books, others as serious as persuading publishers to halt the release of books. Targets included Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, as well as the work of Richard Wright, whose poem “The FB Eye Blues” inspired the book’s title.

Among the most stunning examples of the Bureau’s activity was a hate letter written to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964. In it, a white FBI agent posing as a black man tells King he is a “complete fraud and a great liability to all us Negroes.” F.B. Eyes is a startling look at how racism has influenced the highest levels of authority.

THE FUGITIVE TRAIL
In Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, noted historian Eric Foner gives a detailed and often stirring account of the antebellum network that transported escaped slaves from the South to Northern free states and Canada. Foner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written many fine books on the Civil War, slavery and Reconstruction, uncovers new evidence of just how extensive the secret path to freedom was for fugitive slaves.

His account centers on the Underground Railroad’s network in New York City, which had the North’s largest community of free blacks, as well as many ardent white abolitionists. Pre-eminent among them was newspaperman Sydney Howard Gay, who documented the activities of the Underground Railroad in a meticulous “Record of Fugitives,” which logged the arrival of fugitives in the city in 1855 and 1856 and related some of their horrifying personal stories. (In the book’s acknowledgements, Foner credits a former Columbia University student who found the document in the university archives.) Gay’s record details the step-by-step movements of escaped slaves through the city and the deeds of abolitionists who aided their flight. Among those recorded by Gay was Harriet Tubman, who reached New York in November 1856 with a group of runaway slaves from Maryland.

Gateway to Freedom is an important addition to the historical view of the Underground Railroad and a salute to the slaves who “faced daunting odds and demonstrated remarkable courage” in their journeys to freedom.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The African-American struggle continues in every corner of the nation, from small towns like Ferguson, Missouri, to the boroughs of New York. Thus, Black History Month arrives at a critical time in America. The question is: Can we learn from history? These selections shed new light on the black experience and offer perspectives on the often painful evolution of race relations in America.
NonfictionMemoirBlack HistoryAmerican History

Perspectives on the road to equality

Feature by John T. Slania

Racism. Oppression. Violence. Faith. Hopefulness. These themes have defined the black experience in America from the moment slaves touched shore. As African Americans continue their struggle, three new books cast fresh light on the journey from slavery to freedom.

A LOST MEMOIR FINALLY FOUND
Austin Reed’s birth certificate states that he was born a free man in New York, unique for a person of color in the 1820s. But Reed’s struggles in the pre-Civil War era made him far from free. Never before published, his remarkable 150-year-old autobiography, The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict, shows that even in the North, hatred and prejudice made life intolerable for African Americans.

Reed’s handwritten account chronicles years spent as an indentured servant and petty thief whose crimes led to turns in a juvenile reformatory and later, prison. Following the death of his father, Reed was made an indentured servant to pay off his family’s debts. When he burned down his master’s house, he was sent to a reformatory, where he was subjected to hard labor. But he also learned to read and write, allowing him to create this fascinating account of his experiences. As an adult, crimes of theft and larceny would return him to prison, where he was beaten and left in solitary confinement.

The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict is believed to be the earliest account of prison life written by an African American. Authenticated by a team of scholars, it helps broaden the historical context of the black experience in America.

BAD SEEDS
Author Karen Branan is forced by two events to confront her prejudices: the present-day birth of her granddaughter and a century-old lynching in a small Southern town. The birth involves a baby girl born to Branan’s white son and his African-American girlfriend. Brenan’s first instinct is to recoil, a reaction that can, in part, be traced to her upbringing in Georgia. It is there, in the town of Hamilton, that four African Americans were lynched in 1912 for their suspected role in the murder of a white man. The sheriff at the time was Branan’s great-grandfather.

Branan, a veteran journalist, decides to confront her family’s past, and her own beliefs, by researching the lynching. It forms the basis for her cathartic memoir, The Family Tree. The book reveals some dark truths. First, the murdered white man, Brenan’s distant cousin, had a history of assaulting black women. He was found shot dead after pursuing a 14-year-old black girl. As the case unfolded, Branan’s great-grandfather, the sheriff, arrested a woman and three men, all black. Then he offered no resistance when a white mob dragged the four suspects from jail and hanged them from a tree. Even more startling is that Branan discovers she is related to one of the lynching victims.

The Family Tree is a fascinating account of a white author’s struggle to examine lynching, racism and the violent crimes of her own family. She strives for healing the only way she can: by uncovering the truth.

AN INFLUENTIAL VOICE
When African Americans began the Great Migration from the South to Northern cities, many found opportunities in Chicago: employment in factories, steel mills and stockyards, a chance to own a home and greater social acceptance. The city’s South Side became a black metropolis teeming with shops, restaurants, nightclubs and churches. Providing news to this emerging group was the newly created Chicago Defender, a black-owned newspaper.

Ethan Michaeli traces the growth of this groundbreaking newspaper in The Defender, showing how the Chicago Defender grew to become a cultural and economic force in not only Chicago, but also the nation. Smuggled copies made their way to the Jim Crow South, providing blacks with much-needed news of the civil rights movement. A team of national correspondents from the Chicago Defender was there to cover the lynching of Emmett Till, the violence against the Freedom Riders and King’s crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And the newspaper played an important role in supporting and promoting the emerging black middle class.

The Defender is a thorough and well-researched account of an important voice in black history.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Racism. Oppression. Violence. Faith. Hopefulness. These themes have defined the black experience in America from the moment slaves touched shore. As African Americans continue their struggle, three new books cast fresh light on the journey from slavery to freedom.
NonfictionWomen's History

Books for the superwoman in your life

Feature by Julie Hale

As the holiday season approaches, we’re paying tribute to the visionaries of the past with a collection of books that honor the leading ladies who paved the way for generations to come. Whether you’re shopping for a girl with a change-the-world attitude or a woman in search of gifted role models, these books are sure to inspire.

BRAINS AND BRAWN
Mathematicians and physicists, smugglers and spies, suffragettes and explorers—you’ll find them all in Wonder Women, Sam Maggs’ spirited tribute to 25 pioneering females. Maggs, the bestselling author of The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy, has put together an intriguing roundup of thinkers and doers who forged new paths in their chosen areas. Notables include algorithm whiz Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter of Lord Byron and creator of code for an early computer, and inventor Margaret E. Knight (1838-1914), designer of—among other devices—a machine that mass-produced flat-bottomed paper sacks.

Maggs provides brief bios for each of her subjects, and her off-the-cuff prose style and winning sense of humor keep the proceedings lively. Maggs’ lineup of influential females is well curated and inclusive, while smart illustrations by Sophia Foster-Dimino bring the ladies to life. Wonder Women is a must-read for the girl who’s a bit of a geek.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS
Featuring an epic roster of female athletes, Molly Schiot’s Game Changers is a stirring tribute to the record setters, barrier breakers and milestone makers who opened the way for the women competitors of today. Inspired by Schiot’s popular Instagram account, @TheUnsungHeroines, this adrenaline-infused photography book focuses on overlooked but outstanding women athletes—20th-century sports greats who aren’t household names but should be. 

Schiot shares the stories of luminaries like mountain climber Annie Smith Peck, who caused a scandal in 1895 when she ascended the Matterhorn in pants instead of a skirt, and Bernice Gera, pro baseball’s first female umpire, who was harassed by the men in her class at the Florida Baseball School. From bullfighting to boxing, every corner of the sports world is represented. Discussions between legendary ladies like soccer player Abby Wambach and Title IX advocate Margaret Dunkle provide background on the place of women in a male-dominated industry. Packed with classic photographs, Schiot’s book is a gold-medal gift idea for the sports fan.

INK, TYPE AND INSPIRATION
Grassroots gals Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring create art with the power to incite—and unite—women of every age and stage. They’re the team behind Dead Feminists, the broadside series they crank out (literally) via printing press, using hand-drawn lettering and imagery to highlight quotes from famous feminists. A new book based on the series captures the duo’s crisp press work and knack for making bold statements through innovative design. 

In Dead Feminists, O’Leary and Spring honor 27 illustrious ladies—strong-willed leaders who changed the world through leadership, literature, art and education. Eleanor Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, Shirley Chisholm, Emma Goldman and other eminent feminists are profiled in chapters filled with vintage photographs, ephemera and, of course, the team’s original broadsides, which are stop-the-presses sensational. Beautifully designed all the way down to endpapers showing a collage of nifty type blocks, this volume has a handcrafted quality. Insights into the printing process and a rousing foreword by Jill Lepore make this the ultimate gift for the gutsy girl.

SO BAD THEY'RE GOOD
One hundred remarkable women get the diva treatment in Ann Shen’s Bad Girls Throughout History, a sparkling celebration of formidable females who lived their lives outside the constraints of convention. As Shen explains in the introduction, “To be a bad girl is to break any socially accepted rule.” These trailblazing ladies did just that and more, transcending the boundaries imposed by gender to leave a permanent imprint on popular culture.  

Shen includes innovators of every era, from Cleopatra, the original bad girl, to anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger and feisty figures of the present day like Tina Fey. Brief biographical essays provide background on the lives and accomplishments of these iconic individualists, who, as Shen puts it, “knocked up against that glass ceiling and made a tiny fissure or full-on crack.” Activists and artists, musicians and politicians, cinema stars and scientists—these bad girls definitely made good. Shen’s elegant watercolor illustrations round out this salute to a group of distinguished grandes dames.

ESSAYS WITH ATTITUDE
Frank and fearless—there’s no better way to describe The Bitch Is Back, a collection of 25 essays contributed by some of today’s top female writers. Edited by Cathi Hanauer, it’s a companion to The Bitch in the House (2002), the bestselling anthology that took stock of the female experience at the start of the century.

Nine writers from the first volume return in this edgy collection, along with new contributors like Julianna Baggott and Sandra Tsing Loh. Ranging in age from 38 to 60-plus, they speak their minds on motherhood, monogamy and midlife. With barbed humor, Pam Houston ruminates on five realizations that have accompanied aging (#3: “I don’t care what men think of me anymore.”), while Jennifer Finney Boylan recalls “the strange blessings of turbulence” connected to coming out as transgender. Susanna Sonnenberg and Cynthia Kling both reflect on making major decisions at midlife. Filled with hard-won wisdom and more than a little good news (getting older is definitely liberating!), The Bitch Is Back will motivate gals to take a kick-butt attitude into 2017. 

 

This article was originally published in the November 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

As the holiday season approaches, we’re paying tribute to the visionairies of the past with a collection of books that honor the leading ladies who paved the way for generations to come. Whether you’re shopping for a girl with a change-the-world attitude or a woman in search of gifted role models, these books are sure to inspire.
NonfictionAmerican History

Captivating perspectives on the past

Feature by Keith Herrell

Gift-buying trends come and go, but for some readers, history books are a sure source of enlightenment and pleasure. Here are five of our favorites this season, sure to brighten the holidays for any history buff.

SHAPING NEW YORK
Looking for the perfect gift for someone who loves all things New York? You can’t go wrong with The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910, which covers the 40-year period known for rampant capitalism and audacious displays of wealth. With its handsome cover featuring the Flatiron Building and a full-page photo of the  Cornelius Vanderbilt mansion facing the introduction, this is a book that cheerfully joins in the celebration. But don’t be fooled—author Esther Crain has produced a comprehensive look at the Gilded Age, peeling back the veneer to examine the multiple flaws that led to progressive reforms. So yes, there are plenty of photos and reproductions of mansions, costume balls and luxury hotels, but Crain also carefully depicts all aspects of life in the Big Apple, with chapters focusing on the poor, crime (and sin!) and the rise of the “New Woman.” Treat this like a coffee table book, merely flipping through pages to gaze at the pictures, at your peril. With numerous breakout sections on such topics as crusading reporter Nellie Bly, “The Opera House War” and an all-female stolen-goods ring, it’s a fascinating history lesson as well. 

BLACK PANTHER LEGACY
The founders of the Black Panther Party probably didn’t expect a coffee table book about the group’s creation when they got together 50 years ago, but this year’s anniversary commemorations include Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers. Authored by Stephen Shames and party co-founder Bobby Seale, the book uses photographs from the early days (almost all of them black and white) and oral recollections to tell the story of the revolutionary social organization created as a response to racism and social inequality. Most controversially, the Black Panthers advocated armed self-defense to counter police brutality. (One of the most striking images shows Seale and other party members armed during a protest at the California State Legislature.) Seale’s voice dominates the text, but many figures important to the movement, including Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver, are also heard from. The photographs are by Shames, who acknowledges in the introduction that the Panthers have made errors but emphasizes a legacy of positive social programs, including free breakfasts and health care. His photographs capture it all, including recent images that make it plain that the struggle continues.

MARVELS OF INVENTION
Just as you can’t eat only one potato chip, it would be impossible to stop with one selection from America the Ingenious: How a Nation of Dreamers, Immigrants, and Tinkerers Changed the World. Written by novelist and journalist Kevin Baker (Paradise Alley), it’s a celebration of more than 75 inventions and innovations—some of which we take for granted, some of which we’ve almost forgotten (cotton gin, anyone?) and some of which we still marvel at. Each entry checks in at about three pages, including illustrations, which makes this the book to pick up any time you’re looking for that perfect factoid or cocktail party anecdote. Did you know that the death of legendary football coach Knute Rockne hastened the development of the transcontinental airplane? Or that 3-D printing has been around in some form since the 19th century? Thanks to Baker’s efficient and witty commentary, the learning goes down easily and leaves the reader wanting more. His selections are eclectic—don’t go looking for a recounting of how Bell invented the telephone—and he casts a wide net, somehow managing to work in such disparate subjects as the safety pin and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

SURPRISE ATTACK
The weekly Life magazine that baby boomers grew up with may be gone, but its editors still maintain an online presence and publish books on a broad range of subjects. The latest is Pearl Harbor: 75 Years Later, which carries on the Life tradition of iconic photographs, with additional features. The photographs—most of them black and white—are striking, of course, and include images from a Japanese aircraft carrier bound for Pearl Harbor in December 1941. As for the attack itself, destruction on the ground and at sea is depicted in page after page of photos, with black smoke filling the sky. But don’t overlook the accompanying words, including a thoughtful explanation of the run-up to the war and a valuable timeline for Dec. 7, 1941. Additional features include maps, breakouts such as “Did Roosevelt Know?” and a look at another surprise attack on American soil: Sept. 11, 2001. And in a nod to tradition, archival pages from Life coverage of the attack on Pearl Harbor are replicated at the end of the book. One indication of how things have changed: No photos from the actual attack appeared until the Dec. 29 issue.

GOING BIG
If you like your gift books with a little ambition, look no further than Big History: Examines Our Past, Explains Our Present, Imagines Our Future. As the subtitle indicates, all it seeks to do is “ponder some of the most exciting and enduring questions about life, the universe, and what the future holds for humans.” A project of the Big History Institute at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, this is a fascinating book with vivid illustrations and—despite its high-flying ambitions—easy-to-understand, forthright text. Divided into eight sections, from “The Big Bang” to “Industry Rises,” it presents an array of maps, graphics and text to educate the reader on what it terms a “grand evolutionary epic.” Particularly useful are the “Goldilocks Conditions” charts that open each section, laying out how the right conditions occurred at just the right time to trigger fundamental change—including the emergence of life. Also useful: back-of-the-book timelines of world history, with breakouts on such topics as culture, inventions and great buildings. Even at more than 400 pages, it’s a book you don’t want to see end.

 

This article was originally published in the December 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Gift-buying trends come and go, but for some readers, history books are a sure source of enlightenment and pleasure. Here are five of our favorites this season, sure to brighten the holidays for any history buff.
NonfictionBlack History

New perspectives on slavery and freedom

Feature by Priscilla Kipp

Black History Month is an annual celebration of black achievements as well as a reminder of the ongoing struggle against adversity. In three new books, George Washington’s runaway slave achieves freedom, members of the black elite in post-Reconstruction Washington, D.C., wrestle with Jim Crow and a Mississippi murder re-invigorates the civil rights movement.

FREEDOM FROM THE FIRST FAMILY
George Washington beat all odds to win the American colonies their independence, then surrendered his private life to serve as the nation’s first president. What he never gave up were his slaves. The remarkable story of the female slave who got away, Never Caught, is a testament to her tenacity on both sides of bondage.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s impressive research reveals the details: Ona Judge, Martha Washington’s personal slave, slipped away from the couple’s official residence in Philadelphia, the seat of the new government. She had served the family since birth, but when Martha planned to “give” Judge away to her volatile granddaughter, she decided to risk escape. Aided by the free black community in progressive Philadelphia, where slave owners were required to free slaves after a six-month residency (a law that Washington subverted by rotating his slaves to and from his Virginia estate, Mount Vernon), Judge fled to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Using the power of his office, Washington pursued her. With winter on her heels, Judge had to find shelter and work, elude slave catchers and forget about the family she left behind. While there is scant historical record of her remaining days, the shadow Judge casts on the president is long and dark, as told in this obscure chapter of U.S. history.

REVERSING RIGHTS
In The Original Black Elite, Elizabeth Dowling Taylor meticulously traces the auspicious rise and steady decline of African-American influence and civil rights in Washington, D.C., and beyond, as seen through the Daniel Murray family. The ambitious and aristocratic Murray was assistant librarian at the Library of Congress and compiler of the first encyclopedia for “the colored race throughout the world,” but could do little to stop the degradations and injustices. 

After Emancipation and the Civil War, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution further guaranteed freedom, protection and civil rights to all African Americans—but not for long. Reconstruction led to political fence-mending between the North and South, spawning Jim Crow laws and institutionalizing racism in the largely black District of Columbia, once considered “a black man’s paradise.” 

Racial exclusions went mostly unremedied by President William McKinley, and later were allowed to flourish under President Woodrow Wilson. Even at the doorstep of Congress, buying a house, dining in a restaurant or burying the dead were matters decided by color. By the time black veterans of World War I returned home, jobless and castigated as threats to whites, Washington was ready to erupt. The Red Summer of 1919 followed, and as race riots spread to other cities, it became clear that equality would be hard won.

MURDER AS CATALYST
In The Blood of Emmett Till, Timothy B. Tyson delivers a riveting, richly detailed account of the crime that reignited the civil rights movement. Tyson begins with an exclusive interview with Carolyn Bryant, in which— decades later—the white woman at the center of the crime admits to lying about that summer day in Money, Mississippi. 

Emmett Till was a bright, church-going 14-year-old with a slight stutter. He liked doo-wop and baseball. Before his mother, Mamie, sent him by train from Chicago’s south side to Mississippi to spend the summer with his cousins and great-uncle Moses Wright, an ordained preacher, she warned him about the “Delta way of life,” a culture of strict segregation demanding black subservience, especially regarding white women. 

Raised by his mother and grandmother, Till had never been known to cause trouble. Yet, days before he was to return home, he visited the small general store operated by Roy Bryant, where he allegedly touched Carolyn’s hand as he paid for his candy and “smart talked” to her. An alleged wolf whistle sealed his fate. Till’s bloated, mutilated body soon bubbled up in the Tallahatchie River; these murders were so common in Mississippi, and so overlooked elsewhere, it might have gone unaddressed. But Mamie called the Chicago press and insisted on an open casket: “Let the world see what they did to my boy.” Thus began a new era in the civil rights movement.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Black History Month is an annual celebration of black achievements as well as a reminder of the ongoing struggle against adversity. In three new books, George Washington’s runaway slave achieves freedom, members of the black elite in post-Reconstruction Washington, D.C., wrestle with Jim Crow and a Mississippi murder re-invigorates the civil rights movement.
NonfictionMilitary HistoryMemoirAmerican History

Clueless about Dad’s gift? There’s hope

Feature by Keith Herrell

With Father’s Day approaching, it’s time to wrap that present you’ve had hidden away for months. Wait, you have nothing hidden away and no idea what to buy Dad? Here are five books that will be even more welcome than a box of golf balls.

What Father’s Day list is complete without an unabashedly sentimental—yet realistic—look at the father-son relationship from first-person experience? Two and Two: McSorley’s, My Dad, and Me, by Rafe Bartholomew, fills that bill admirably. It also serves as a history of McSorley’s Old Ale House, a 163-year-old institution in New York’s East Village, as well as a compendium of anecdotes about things that can only happen at a beloved neighborhood bar (nowadays, alas, also a frequent tourist stop). Bartholomew, a sports writer and editor, writes lovingly of his father, known as “Bart” over the course of his 45-year bartending career, and also gives us some of his own coming-of-age glimpses along the way. If you can survive St. Patrick’s Day at McSorley’s, we learn, you can survive just about anything. But just when you think this is strictly a fathers-and-sons book, some of the best writing appears in the chapter dealing with the author’s mother, Patricia, who conquered alcoholism only to find life had an even bigger punch in store for her.

BROTHERS IN ARMS 
Fatherhood takes a back seat to brotherhood in The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home, but the family ties are just as strong. They extend to the author, Sally Mott Freeman, a former speechwriter and public relations executive who is the daughter of one of the brothers. Her curiosity piqued by a family argument, she sought to unravel the story of her uncle Barton’s life as an MIA naval ensign during World War II (it’s no spoiler to note that he was actually a prisoner of war) and the efforts of his two brothers—also Navy men—to find and rescue him even as they fight their own battles. Meanwhile, the home fires are tended by a tenacious mother who never hesitates to pick up her pen and give the powers that be—all the way up to President Roosevelt—a piece of her mind. Tenacious in her own way, Freeman uses archives, interviews and diaries to uncover Barton’s tragic story along with those of his brothers and fellow prisoners, who endured unspeakable horrors in Japanese prison camps as war raged in the Pacific.

TEAMS AT THE TOP
Want to see Dad exercise his long-dormant debating skills? Just give him a copy of The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams and watch him search for his favorite team in author Sam Walker’s Tier One ranking. He’ll hunt in vain for baseball’s Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s, or the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. (Hint: He’ll find Jordan in the chapter titled “False Idols.”) Rest assured, the New York Yankees (1949-53 edition) did make the cut, along with the Collingwood Magpies of Aussie Rules football and 14 other teams. If your team isn’t on the list, Walker is ready with the reasoning for the snub (for example, the lack of a “true championship,” i.e., Super Bowl, for part of their existence kept the 1960s Green Bay Packers from Valhalla). And perhaps not surprisingly, given Walker’s background at The Wall Street Journal (he founded its daily sports report), the book doubles as a guide to success in business, with pointed commentary on what makes leaders effective or ineffective (go easy on the vitriol directed at teammates, Mr. Jordan).

WHAT A CATCH
Dad can get in touch with his inner Walter Mitty with Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean. The seemingly sane author, Morten Strøksnes, and an eccentric artist friend decide they want to haul up a Greenland shark—bigger than the great white, and thus the world’s largest flesh-eating shark—from the oceanic depths off the coast of Norway. Think ­Moby-Dick, but shorter and funnier with enough random factoids to fill a whale’s belly. Waiting for a shark to bite (the line, that is) gives ­Strøksnes plenty of time to muse on such topics as Norwegian history and mythology, seafaring tales, space exploration and even the shark itself. (The “drunkenness” referred to in the title comes from eating the flesh of the Greenland shark, which contains compounds used in the nerve gas trimethylamine oxide.) Ranging over a full year, the quest for more than a nibble yields satisfying insights into friendship, aspirations and the thrill of the chase. When the end comes, it’s almost anticlimactic.

CLIMBING HIGH
Warning: Reading The Push: A Climber’s Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits can be a queasy experience, for at least a couple of reasons. For starters, the author of this absorbing memoir, expert rock climber Tommy Caldwell, spends a fair amount of time thousands (yes, thousands) of feet above ground level, protected only by a web of ropes, attempting to conquer the Next Big Climb. His targets include El Capitan’s 3,000-foot Dawn Wall in Yosemite National Park, which he conquers in 2015 with climbing partner Kevin Jorgeson. But Caldwell’s relationship with his gung-ho, adventure-guide father is also cringe-inducing and provides insight into his motivations and doubts, along with at least one failed relationship. If Caldwell’s name rings a bell, it’s possibly because one of his international expeditions ended with him and his companions—including the woman who would become his first wife—being held hostage by militants in Kyrgyzstan in 2000, escaping only when Caldwell pushed a captor off a nearly sheer dropoff. Somehow the captor survived, but it’s clear the incident still haunts Caldwell. Between the thrills, this book will haunt the reader, too.

 

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

With Father’s Day approaching, it’s time to wrap that present you’ve had hidden away for months. Wait, you have nothing hidden away and no idea what to buy Dad? Here are five books that will be even more welcome than a box of golf balls.

NonfictionPoliticsBiographyAmerican History

America’s fascinating past and present

Feature by Keith Herrell

How has the United States changed over the past 250 years, and how has it remained the same? Here are five gift ideas for readers with a serious interest in where we’ve come from, how we got this far and just how far we have left to go.

The word “frenemies” wasn’t around during the founding of the United States, but it could certainly be applied to the relationship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, which is detailed by Gordon S. Wood in Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The acerbic Adams and the idealistic Jefferson were divided by geography and social standing in addition to temperament. Yet they forged a friendship in the early days of the nation before later falling out over issues large and small as the years rolled by and both served presidential terms. The rift was healed with the help of a mutual friend in their later years, providing a heartwarming ending to the intertwined biographies of two men who famously both died on the Fourth of July, 1826. Their differences remained to the end, but as Wood shows—with the help of the numerous letters between the pair that survive—the combatants’ jousting took on a mutually respectful tone. A 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood is a skillful guide to Revolutionary-era principles, both profound and personal.

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND
Historian Mike Wallace is a Pulitzer Prize winner for his co-authorship of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, and he has now produced the second volume in the series, Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, and it’s a worthy sequel packed with insight and information. Organized by topic, it can be read straight through (just not all in one sitting) or approached as an encyclopedia, jumping from section to section while savoring the photos and illustrations. If you want to start with dessert, flip to the Cultures section, with its histories of Broadway, the Bronx Zoo, Coney Island and more. But don’t overlook the more serious fare, most notably the excellent explanations of the rise of Manhattan’s skyscrapers and the history of the island’s famous tunnels and bridges. Through it all, Wallace holds to a historian’s tone that maintains an easy appeal with the casual reader.

WE HAVE HIT BOTTOM
If anyone ever appeared to be eminently qualified to be president of the United States, it was Herbert Hoover. A self-made millionaire largely untainted by politics, Hoover had a long history of rolling up his sleeves and getting important work done when he was elected to the job in 1928. So how did things go off the rails, ending with his defeat by Franklin Delano Roosevelt four years later? Kenneth Whyte tackles that question and more in Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. While no apologist for the man who became synonymous with the Great Depression, Whyte details how Hoover was up against worldwide economic forces that he had no way of controlling and points out that the hard times continued long into Roosevelt’s presidency. Just as interesting, however, are Whyte’s accounts of Hoover’s early life, from his rise from orphanhood to world-traveling problem solver, and his post-presidency attempt to restore his image and regain his place among the 20th century’s most admired people.

A KEN BURNS COMPANION
Another Ken Burns PBS series? Delightful! And with the series comes the companion book, The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, by Burns and historian Geoffrey C. Ward. Burns’ style has proven irresistible over the years: It’s straight history inter­spersed with personal vignettes and peppered with photographs. The iconic images from the war are here, of course, but look for the lesser-known shots, such as President Lyndon B. Johnson watching television coverage of the war in bed with his wife, Lady Bird, or an overhead shot of the famed Ho Chi Minh Trail, which continued to be used despite multiple American airstrikes. Still, the personal stories—from all sides—will grab the reader most tightly, as individual soldiers are followed from enlistment to, in one case, the day an obituary appears in a hometown newspaper.

RACE AND DEMOCRACY
The winner of the 2015 National Book Award for Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates has produced a new book of essays—some new, some previously published in The Atlantic—titled We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, which refers to a quote from a Reconstruction-era congressman but also, of course, to President Barack Obama’s two terms as president. Coates, a black man, was astonished by Obama’s election, and in a scathing epilogue, sees his successor, Donald Trump, as a return to the natural order of things. Indeed, Coates views him as the nation’s “first white president,” because “his entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president.” But it’s not all presidential politics with Coates—two of the most thought-provoking essays included in the book are “The Case for Reparations” and “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.”

 

This article was originally published in the December 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

How has the United States changed over the past 250 years, and how has it remained the same? Here are five gift ideas for readers with a serious interest in where we’ve come from, how we got this far and just how far we have left to go.

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