Steve Goddard's History Wire

FOCUS: New York City History -- Orpheus in Manhattan / On the Irish Waterfront

Orpheus in Manhattan -- William Schuman and the Shaping of America's Musical Life by Steve Swayne, Oxford UP '11, $39.95, 692 pages, ASIN #0195388526. Index, composition index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

Among transformative musical influences on New York City, there spring to mind such names as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. But as author Steve Swayne argues, composer and educator William Schuman belongs in the top tier of any such listing. President of the Juilliard School of Music from 1945--1961 and of Lincoln Center from 1962--1968, "he was able to expand the boundaries of music education and to shape the direction music would take in the next several decades." His institutional contributions are legion: he founded the Juilliard String Quartet, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art. And Schuman won the first Pulitzer Prize in music. Not only did he compose 10 symphonies, but other compositions bear a New York stamp: George Washington Bridge (1950), Cooperstown Fanfare (1987), Ode to Leonard (1980), and For A.C. (Aaron Copland, 1981). Steve Swayne is associate professor of music at Dartmouth College.

On the Irish Waterfront -- The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York by James T. Fisher, Cornell UP '09, 370 pages, ASIN #0801448042. Index, no bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

For the uninitiated, the "Irish waterfront covered a broad expanse of political and spiritual geography on both sides of the North River, the portion of the Hudson lying between the West Side of Manhattan and Hudson County, New Jersey," and provides the locale for the stories told in this book. From the introduction:

"It was Irish immigrant workers who dug the Erie Canal beginning in 1818. The canal secured the port's future by opening a vast hinterland to trade. Many of these canal workers found their way back to newly established Irish neighborhoods in Lower Manhattan, especially the teeming Five Points, a short remove from the bustling piers near South Street on the Lower East Side. The year 1818 also marked the inception of regularly scheduled transatlantic service between New York and Liverpool.....That was only the beginning. With 771 miles of wharfage, relatively little fog or ice to hamper shipping, and a growing supply of cheap labor, the Port of New York boasted natural and human resources unlike those anywhere else in North America."

 

FOCUS: Great Britain History -- The Fabulous Dark Cloister / Edward VI / Ireland in Focus

The Fabulous Dark Cloister -- Romance in England After the Reformation by Tiffany Jo Werth, Johns Hopkins UP '11, 234 pages, ASIN #1421403013. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text. No DJ, illustrated laminated cover instead.

 

How little some things change. Tiffany Jo Werth tells us that among both Protestant and Catholic readers in the 16th and 17th centuries, "romances were among the most popular books..." But post-Reformation English authors had to walk a fine line, disciplining romance by "appropriating its popularity while diluting its alleged Catholic taint." In her new book, Werth probes the period's most renowned romances -- Sir Philip Sidney's The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen, William Shakespeare's Pericles, and Lady Mary Wroth's Urania, deconstructing how writers of the day "struggled to transform the literary genre. As a result, the romance, long regarded as an archetypal form closely allied with generalized Christian motifs, emerged as a central aspect of the religious controversies that divided Renaissance England." Tiffany Jo Werth is an assistant professor of English at Simon Fraser University.

Edward VI -- The Lost King of England by Chris Skidmore, St. Martin's Press '09 paperback. $17.95, 346 pages, ASIN #0312538936.  Index, notes, select bibliography, grouping of b&w images.

 

From the book's cover:

"In his desperate quest for an heir, King Henry VIII divorced one wife and beheaded another. The birth of Prince Edward on October 1, 1537, ended his father's twenty-seven-year wait. Nine years later, Edward was on the throne, a boy-king of a nation in religious limbo and in a court where manipulation, treachery, and plotting were rife. Chris Skidmore describes how, in the six years of Edward's reign, court intrigue, deceit and treason very nearly plunged the country into civil war while the stability that the Tudors had sought to achieve came close to being torn apart. Even today, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are considered the two dominant figures of the Tudor period. But Edward's reign is equally important. It was one of dramatic change and tumult whose impact is still felt today--certainly in terms of his religious reformation, which not only exceeded Henry's ambitions, but has endured for over four centuries since Edward's death in 1553. Chris Skidmore is an honors graduate of Oxford University and is adviser to the British Shadow Secretary for Education.

Ireland in Focus -- Film, Photography, and Popular Culture, Edited by Eoin Flannery and Michael Griffin, Syracuse UP '09, 207 pages, ASIN #0815632037. Index, works cited, notes in text, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

"Ireland in Focus," write the editors, "is the first book to address the diverse range of iconography of national and communal identity in Ireland."  To create such a collection, they have gathered essays from ten writers of note on subjects ranging from such early productions as The Dawn (1936) to prison films about "The Troubles," from the evolution of feature-length Irish films in the 1990s to Guinness as a signifier of Irish cultural transformation. The essayists draw from such areas as cultural theory, postcolonial studies, art criticism, documentary and archival history, and gender studies. Editors Eoin Flannery and Michael Griffin teach English -- Flannery at Oxford Brookes University and Griffin at the University of Limerick.

 

FOCUS: American History -- A Slave in the White House / Fort Clark and its Indian Neighbors / America's Death Penalty / The New Jim Crow

A Slave in the White House -- Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, foreword by Annette Gordon-Reed, Palgrave-MacMillan '12, $28, 304 pages, ASIN #0230108938. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w images.

 

In the early days of the Republic, it was not uncommon for presidents to invite a mixed-race slave to be a servant in the White House. One such person was Paul Jennings, who was a slave in the household of James and Dolley Madison from their pre-White House days until James Madison's death at 84. In her first book, independent scholar Elizabeth Dowling Taylor recounts the life of Jennings, whose lifelong dream was to become a free man. "Fiercely intelligent," writes Taylor, "as the constant servant in James Madison's study, he absorbed lessons meant for those of high stature."

Late in life, he penned a seven-page tract entitled A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison. As one might expect from a person who worked day-in and day-out in the White House, Jennings recalls anecdotes from his service, such as this: "He (Madison) often told the story, that one day riding home from court with old Tom Barbour (father of Governor Barbour), they met a colored man, who took off his hat. Mr. M. raised his, to the surprise of old Tom, to whom Mr. M. replied, "'I never allow a negro to exceed me in politeness.'"

Elizabeth Dowling Taylor spent 22 years in museum education and historical research at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and James Madison's Montpelier after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Fort Clark and its Indian Neighbors -- A Trading Post on the Upper Missouri, Oklahoma UP '11, $34.95, 328 pages, ASIN #0806142138. Index, references, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

 Fort Clark is named after William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. It commemorates a fur trade post in what is today western North Dakota, which authors Randy H. Williams, William J. Hunt, Jr. and W. Raymond Wood write "also served as a way station for artists, scientists, missionaries, soldiers and other western chroniclers traveling along the Upper Missouri River."  The authors argue that Fort Clark carries not only a rich lode of information for anthropologists but for archaeologists as well, since "it has never been plowed...." They  probe the history and culture of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, who met the first fur traders in the area. After the 1837 smallpox epidemic decimated the Mandans, their village was occupied by Arikaras until they abandoned it in 1862.

America's Death Penalty -- Between Past and Present, Edited by David Garland, Randall McGovern and Michael Meranze, New York University '11 paperback, 232 pages, ASIN #0814732674. Index, about contributors, endnotes follow each essay.

 

America today finds itself among a shrinking minority of Western nations which still impose the death penalty and yet its imposition is the subject of intense scholarly debate. In this volume, two historians and a sociologist have gathered essays with a vast array of points of view on this controversial topic. These essays cover such subjects as modes of capital punishment, the American experience with the death penalty, the judicial politics of retention and abolition; segregation and capital punishment; and civil and natural death in the American prison. Editors Randall McGowen and Michael Meranze are historians -- McGowen at the University of Oregon and Meranze at the University of California/Los Angeles. Editor David Garland teaches sociology and law at New York University.

The New Jim Crow -- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander with a new foreword by Cornel West, The New Press '12 revised and updated paperback edition. 312 pages, ASIN #1595586431.

  

From the book cover, this passionate statement:

"Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as 'brave and bold,' this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that 'we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.' By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control -- relegating millions to a permanent second-class status -- even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a 'call to action.'"

Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and formerly served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun.

FOCUS: Historical Fiction -- The Crown / Crossbones / Black August

The Crown -- A Novel by Nancy Bilyeau, Touchstone '12, $24.99, 409 pages, ASIN #1451626851.

 

Someone somewhere keeps track of the number of novels in which British King Henry VIII plays a major role. In her debut novel, magazine writer/editor Nancy Bilyeau adds to that massive total as she recounts the fictional 1537 tale of Dominican nun Joanna Stafford, who risks her life to defend her favorite cousin and ends up in the Tower of London. In a brief Q&A, the author discusses the writing of her new book:

Q. What attracted you to historical fiction as a genre and to the Reformation era in English history?

A. I picked England's Reformation for my first novel because the Tudor period is so mesmerizing. I've been fascinated with sixteenth century Europe for many years. I am especially drawn to writing about a society under great strain -- and what greater turmoil could be caused than the English church's split from Rome. There were grisly executions, imprisonments, and martyrs from every level of society, a serious rebellion, and the king's excommunication by the Pope. Yet Henry VIII would not stop.

Q. The Crown reads like a sixteenth century thriller. To what extent did you make a conscious decision as a writer to depart from the more usual romance-driven plot for a female protagonist?

A. I love thrillers almost as much as I love historical fiction. Weaving a story that is filled with suspense is what I wanted to do. And it was important to me that a woman be at the center of the book and that she be very active. I wanted my protagonist to be strong and intelligent and courageous -- and yet vulnerable....Events move quickly in The Crown and people's motives aren't clear. Joanna has to think on her feet. Having said that, Joanna has romantic feelings in this book, though her being a novice sworn to chastity obviously complicates what she does with such feelings.

Nancy Bilyeau has worked on the staffs of InStyle, Good Housekeeping, Rolling Stone, and Entertainment Weekly. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

Crossbones -- A Novel by Nuruddin Farah, Riverhead Books '11, $27.95, 389 pages, ASIN #1594488169.

In his latest offering, veteran Somalian novelist Nuruddin Farah completes his Past Imperfect trilogy. "An aging Jeebleh has returned to Somalia to visit old friends in his beloved Mogadiscio," writes the author. "He is accompanied by his son-in-law, Malik, a journalist intent on covering the region's ongoing turmoil. Instead of the chaos Jeebleh remembers from his last visit, however, the two are greeted by an eerie calm, enforced by ubiquitous white-robed figures bearing whips." Any reader of novels knows the eerie calm won't last, as Somalis brace for an Ethiopian invasion. After the nation's borders are breached, "the country's uneasy quiet (is) shattered, and Malik and (brother) Ahl experience firsthand the derailments of war." Nuruddin Farah's ten previous novels have been translated into seventeen languages and won numerous awards. He teaches at the University of Minnesota and divides his time between Cape Town and Minneapolis.

Black August -- A Novel by William Harrison, Texas Review Press '11, $24.95, 220 pages, ASIN #1933896752.

 

From the book's cover:

"Six couples from Austin, Texas, have vacationed on Lake Como in Italy during the month of August for the last seven years. This year they learn that during this month for the last seven years little girls have gone missing around the lake. Harry, the photographer, suspects that one of their group is the killer. His accusations eventually alienate him from the group -- and even his wife. When they all return to Texas, he continues his investigations until he discovers the identity of the killer and faces him in the violent climax. A mystery with a set of vivid characterizations, Black August explores Americans abroad, the question of evil, and the story of a marriage in crisis."

William Harrison has written nine novels, three collections of short stories, two major screenplays, essays and travel pieces. He co-founded the writing program at the University of Arkansas.

FOCUS: Cultural History -- Girl Land / Culture Club / Ethics at the Cinema / Coco Chanel

Girl Land by Caitlin Flanagan, Reagan Arthur/Little Brown '12, $25.99, 207 pages, ASIN #0316065986.

 

Between childhood and womanhood, writes author Caitlin Flanagan, has always lain girlhood. But "Every generation's Girl Land looks different from the one that preceded it. Once it was unthinkable for a girl to learn about her period anywhere but in her own home; once a girl would pay a stiff price for being seen with a boy without a chaperone in attendance." Or take sexual initiation, the subject of one chapter. Time was when the sexual act of introduction occurred on a wedding night, implying the sanction of family and society. But with the onset of women's liberation came the question for parents as well as girls whether it was possible "for a girl -- living at home, loved, protected from many of the requirements of adulthood -- to have the sexual life of a liberated woman, free from the expectation of marriage, and designed purely around her own pleasure." Technology, in the form of contraceptives, sped this process along. Teacher-turned-writer Flanagan probes just what girls have gained and lost over the generations and how these changes shape the women they will become.

Culture Club -- The Curious History of the Boston Athenaeum by Katherine Wolff, UMass. Press '09, 204 pages, ASIN #1558497145. Index, notes, biographies, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

As increasing leisure led to intellectual pursuits in America, the question of access arose to institutions that fostered a life of the mind. Independent scholar Katherine Wolff examines how this played out in Boston, with the Boston Public Library epitomizing the goal of those who espoused maximum public access to books and ideas while the Boston Athenaeum, the subject of Wolff's book, stood for limited access by an intellectual elite. "Yet from the outset...the Boston Athenaeum was more than a library; it was also a breeding ground for evolving notions of cultural authority and American identity." It drew on European aesthetic models "to reinforce an exalted sense of mission," but the Athenaeum leaders also "struggled to balance their goals with their concerns about an increasingly democratic urban populace," one that opened its doors outside its inner circle to women as well as men. Katherine Wolff received her Ph.D. in American literature and history from Boston University.

Ethics at the Cinema, Edited by Ward E. Jones and Samantha Vice, Oxford UP '11, $27.95, 341 pages, ASIN #0195320409. Index, references, contributors, endnotes follow each essay, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

From the book's cover:

"The editors of Ethics at the Cinema invited a diverse group of moral philosophers and philosophers of film to engage with ethical issues raised within, or within the process of viewing, a single film of each contributor's choice. The result is a unique collection of considerable breadth. Discussions focus on both classic and modern films, and topics range from problems of traditional concern to philosophers (e.g. virtue, justice, and ideals) to problems of traditional concern to filmmakers (e.g. sexuality, social belonging, and cultural identity). Among contributors are Lawrence Blum, Julia Driver, Andrew Gleeson, Peter Goldie, Karen Hanson, Ward E. Jones, Deborah Knight, Joseph Kupfer, Tom Martin, Murray Smith, Torbjorn Tannsjo, Paul C. Taylor, Samantha Vice, Thomas Wartenberg, and Stephen Williams. Editors Ward E. Jones and Samantha Vice are both teachers of philosophy at Rhodes University.

Coco Chanel -- An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney, Viking '11, $27.95, 448 pages, ASIN #0670023094. Index, bibliography, notes, two groupings of b&w glossy images.

 

How many folks know the identity of Gabrielle Chanel? A lot fewer certainly than know the woman who created not only an iconic career but an industry, to boot, the woman known worldwide as "Coco" Chanel. "She defied convention and gave us a new conception of glamour," writes author Lisa Chaney. "When she cut her hair short on a whim, the world followed. Costume jewelry, the pant suit, sunglasses, the little black dress -- where would we be without Coco Chanel?" But it wasn't easy, Coco Chanel would readily admit. She was packed off to an orphanage as a young girl when her mother died. The nuns taught her how to sew, but she had no intention of remaining a seamstress. And remain she didn't. Chaney traces her evolution into "the muse, patron, or mistress to some of the century's most celebrated artists, including Stravinsky and Picasso." Author Lisa Chaney is the biographer of Elizabeth David and J.M. Barrie and has written for and produced numerous British TV and radio shows.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Trampling Out the Vintage / Out of Many, One People / Islam and the English Enlightenment, 1670--1840

Trampling Out the Vintage -- Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers by Frank Bardacke, Verso '11, $54.95, 836 pages, ASIN #1844677184. Index, sources, notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

 

 

Republican presidential nominees have sneered when calling President Obama a disciple of labor organizer Saul Alinsky. It's a label that the president actually wears proudly.In his new book, Watsonville, CA educator and labor organizer Frank Bardacke reprises the role of Alinsky and Catholic Social Action in the founding four decades ago of the United Farm Workers and its controversial leader Cesar Chavez. He describes how Chavez used as his rallying cry the slogan "Yes we can" in a form more familiar to hispanic workers -- "Si Se Puede." If that language is familiar to you, it may take you back four years to Barack Obama's race for the presidency when it fired up millions, especially the young. Bardacke traces the career of Cesar Chavez, drawing on "many years of interviews -- with farm workers, organizers, and opponents and friends of the UPW," telling "a story of collective action and empowerment rich in evocative detail and stirring human interest."  Frank Bardacke worked the fields as a labor organizer in the Salinas Valley for seven years and has written and translated other books.

Out of Many, One People -- The Historical Archaeology of Colonial Jamaica, Edited by James A. Delle, Mark W. Hauser, and Douglas V. Armstrong, Alabama UP '11 paperback. 332 pages, ASIN #0817356487. Index, references, contributors, endnotes follow each essay, b&w images sprinkled through text.

From the book's cover:

"As a source of colonial wealth and a crucible for global culture, Jamaica has had a profound impact on the formation of the modern world....This volume assembles for the first time the results of nearly three decades of historical archaeology in Jamaica. Scholars present research on maritime and terrestrial archaeological sites, addressing issues such as: the early Spanish period at Seville la Nueva; the development of the first major British settlement at Port royal; the complexities of the sugar and coffee plantation system, and the conditions prior to, and following, the abolition of slavery in Jamaica. The everyday life of African Jamaican people is examined by focusing on the development of Jamaica's internal marketing system, consumer behavior among enslaved people, iron-working and ceramic-making traditions, and the development of a sovereign Maroon society at Nanny Town. The editors all teach anthropology -- James A. Delle at Kutztown University, Mark W. Hauser at Northwestern University; and Douglas V. Armstrong at Syracuse University.

Islam and the English Enlightenment, 1670-1840 by Humberto Garcia, Johns Hopkins UP '12, $70, 346 pages, ASIN #1421403536. Index, works cited, notes, two appendices, occasional b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

In this revisionist tract, English professor Humberto Garcia re-reads 18th century and Romantic-era British literature, adding original research on Anglo-Islamic relations. In doing so, he makes the somewhat surprising conclusion "that far from being considered foreign by the era's thinkers, Islamic republicanism played a defining role in Radical Enlightenment debates, most significantly during the Glorious Revolution, French Revolution, and other moments of acute constitutional crisis, as well as in national and political debates about England and its overseas empire." As contributors to his thesis, Garcia draws on such writers as Edmund Burke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Robert Southey, and Percy and Mary Shelley. Humberto Garcia is an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

 

FOCUS: European History -- The Winter Palace / The Ghosts of Europe / The Expert Cook in Enlightenment France

The Winter Palace -- A Novel of Catherine the Great by Eva Stachniak, Bantam '12, $26, 444 pages, ASIN #0553808125. 

  

Catherine the Great, the minor German duchess who rose to become Empress of Russia, is the kind of rags-to-riches character that historians love. She has been the subject of biographies over the decades but none quite so well-written and lush as Robert Massie's Catherine the Great, reviewed in these pages a couple of months ago. But, according to Random House, there is no novelistic adaptation of her life in print, paving the way for Canadian Eva Stachniak. According to Booklist's starred review, Stachniak's new work "proves the Tudors don't have a monopoly on marital scandal, royal intrigue, or feminine triumph." In a brief Q&A, the author discusses the writing of this new biographical epic:

Q. There are no novels in print about Catherine the Great. Why do you think that's the case, and what drew you to write about her life in The Winter Palace?

A. She was a powerful woman who survived and triumphed in a misogynist world, and she was shaped by the 18th century, the Age of Reason -- a time I find irresistible. Like me, this German princess who came to Russia when she was fourteen was an immigrant. Like me, she had to re-invent herself in a new country, learn to understand it and change it in the process.

Q. Your narrator is a young Polish woman who serves as a spy in the Winter Palace. How does she offer unique insight into the court life and politics that transformed Princess Sophie into Catherine the Great, and to what extent does she reflect your own background and cultural history?

A. Varvara or Barbara (her Polish name) is an outsider who has to survive in difficult and dangerous circumstances. She is an orphan, and she has no allies but her own intelligence and perseverance. Cast adrift in the Winter Palace, she has to watch and listen to find her way into safety. Unlike Princess Sophie, she is not an aristocrat, and if she perished no one would notice. The evolving friendship between Varvara and the future Catherine the Great forms the novel's backbone. Both women have to define themselves in a world of shifting loyalties, both have to weigh the price such transformations exact.

Eva Stachniak was born in Wroclaw, Poland. She moved to Canada in 1981 and has worked for Radio Canada International and Sheridan College, where she taught English and humanities.

The Ghosts of Europe -- Central Europe's Past and Uncertain Future by Anna Porter, Thomas Dunne Books '11, $25.99, 310 pages, ASIN #0312681224. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

 

Of all the political upheavals the world has experienced in the last century, relatively little has been written about the rise of central European democracy after the fall of communism. No doubt that is because it is barely two decades old. In her new work, Hungarian refugee Anna Porter travels to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, interviewing such movers and shakers as "Vaclav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first of the Czech Republic; Adam Michnik, whose idealism helped bring down the Iron Curtain; former Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurscany and his sworn enemy, the new prime minister, Victor Orban. On her journey, Porter witnessed anti-Semitism and anti-Hungarian sentiments, old ethnic rivalries lurking underneath a shared Communist past." Porter not only brings alive the history of the affected nations and their uncertain present but her view of the prospect for their future. Anna Porter, founder and publisher of Key Porter Books, fled Hungary with her family after the '56 Revolution and now lives in Canada.

The Expert Cook in Enlightenment France by Sean Takats, Johns Hopkins UP '11, $60, 203 pages, ASIN #1421402831. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

A sampling from the book's introduction:

"Operating at a unique intersection of domestic service and occupational expertise, cooks worked particularly unstable ground. They labored as domestic servants without the guild oversight that regulated most other urban trades, and unlike in almost every other occupation, large numbers of both women and men served as cooks. They toiled in kitchens that were perceived as sites of pollution and decay threatening the comfort and hygiene of residential space. They were entrusted with tremendous financial responsibility and yet remained widely suspected of fraud. In the face of this disorganization, cooks audaciously proposed to reconfigure their lowly occupation as a profession. By introducing something they called la cuisine moderne, or 'modern cooking,' during the 1730s, cooks aimed at establishing themselves as expert engineers of taste through the fusion of a new theoretical knowledge with existing mechanical skill. Although largely formulated in cookbooks, la cuisine moderne's most important contribution was not its recipes but rather its new cook: a 'taste professional' who, along with decorators, architects, and fashion merchants, drove France's consumer revolution; a health practitioner who, along with doctors, surgeons, dentists, midwives, and pharmacists, advanced his professional status by capitalizing on the Enlightenment's new concern for bodily and material happiness over eternal salvation and the life to come. This book is about these cooks and how they sought to establish themselves as professionals and used the tools of the Enlightenment to do so."

Sean Takats is an assistant professor of history at George Mason University.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- Gossip / Aristocrats / Lineages of Political Society

Gossip by Joseph Epstein, HMH '11, $25, 242 pages, ASIN #0618721940. Index, bibliographical note, unillustrated.

 

Celebrated essayist Joseph Epstein's latest book takes on gossip. It must take one to know one, for the author confesses to being a master of the art. But lest you think it's all frivolity, consider his case that "gossip has morphed from its old-fashioned best -- clever, mocking, a great private pleasure -- to a corrosive new-school version, thanks to the reach of the mass media and the Internet." In a brief Q&A, Epstein discusses his subject:

Q. Who do people have a natural inclination to gossip?

A. The answer, I believe is that gossip has for its subject that most interesting of all topics: other people. All religions have tried to eliminate gossip, but without any genuine progress, at least that I can discover. The subject of gossip -- other people, and usually what they would prefer not be known about them -- is simply too compelling.

Q. You chose to profile four "Great Gossips of the Western World": Louis de Rouvroy, the Duc de Saint-Simon; Walter Winchell; Barbara Walters; and Tina Brown. How did you select these four as the greatest of the great?

A. I chose them in part because I thought them inherently interesting figures; but in even greater part because I thought them representative of how gossip works and of the historical changes in the nature of gossip when they came upon the scene. Gossip for the Duc de Saint-Simon was a form of significant, even crucial information; for Winchell it was a way for a man without conscience to make a living, and quite a large one; for Barbara Walters, it has been psychotherapy by other means; for Tina Brown, it is part of the Zeitgeist of our time, of the air she breathes, so that gossip and news and opinion are one and the same.

Q. What, in your opinion, is the most controversial piece of gossip you reveal in your book?

A. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you directly afterward, for I wouldn't want it to get out and cause readers to forego reading my book.

Author Joseph Epstein is author of the best-selling Snobbery and of Friendship, and was formerly editor of the American Scholar.

Aristocrats -- Power, Grace, and Decadence - Britain's Great Ruling Classes from 1066 to the Present by Lawrence James, St. Martin's Press '11 paperback. $19.99, 438 pages, ASIN #0312583796. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of color glossy images.

 

Is it unfair to categorize aristocrats as among those we love to hate? Certainly not if "we" includes those very aristocrats. Historian Lawrence James's gossipy millenium-long survey of British history probes how aristocrats came to be, how they maintain their stature, and the good and bad they do. "They created the constitution, made laws, commanded armies and navies, and established codes of conduct for the rest of society," writes the author. The book tempts the reader with priceless anecdotes, recounting "a dinner party where a ferret jumped onto the table from the Lady Strange's cleavage, gnawed on a bit of lamb chop, and promptly returned to its hideout." Lawrence James was educated at the University of York and Merton College, Oxford and became a narrative historian of some note. He lives in Scotland.

Lineages of Political Society -- Studies in Postcolonial Democracy by Partha Chatterjee, Columbia UPress '11, $27.50, 296 pages, ASIN #0231158130. Index, bibliography, footnotes, grouping of b&w images.

 

From the book's cover:

"Using the example of postcolonial societies and their political evolution, particularly communities within India, (author Partha) Chatterjee undermines the certainty of liberal democratic theory in favor of a realist view of its achievements and limitations. Rather than push an alternative theory, Chatterjee works solely within the realm of critique, providing political difference is not always evidence of philosophical and cultural backwardness outside of the West. Resisting all prejudices and preformed judgments, he deploys his trademark, genre-bending analysis to upend the assumptions of postcolonial studies, comparative history, and the common claims of contemporary politics."

Partha Chatterjee is honorary professor or political science at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and professor of anthropology at Columbia University. He has written several books.

FOCUS: A Little of This, A Little of That -- Vanished Kingdoms / The Terror of God

Vanished Kingdoms -- The Rise and Fall of States and Nations by Norman Davies, Viking Adult '11, $40, 830 pages, ASIN #067002273X. Index, no bibliography, notes, two groupings of color glossy images, other b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

In his latest work, acclaimed historian Norman Davies responds to his fellow Brit Winston Churchill, who once wrote that "History is written by the victors," that the losers' side of the story remains untold because they are dead or out of power. In this thought-provoking volume, Davies writes that the little-known stories of such kingdoms as Aragon, Etruria, or the Two Burgundies should change our conception of the past. "If the barbaric (and Catholic) Frankish warriors led by Clovis had not defeated the far more sophisticated (and Arian) Visigoths," he argues, "France as we know it might never have come into being, and the pope -- championed by Catholic Frankish kings -- might never have emerged as a powerful figure. If the Britons had repelled the Celtic Scots and Picts, there would have been no Scotland, and the English (descendants of Anglo-Saxon invaders) might have remained a marginal tribe." Norman Davies has written histories of Europe, the British Isles, and Poland and is a fellow of the British Academy.

The Terror of God -- Attar, Job, and the Metaphysical Revolt by Navid Kermani, Polity '11, 266 pages, ASIN #0745645275. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

 

From the book's cover:

"How can suffering and injustice be reconciled with the idea that God is good, that He loves humans and is merciful to them? Job's question runs through the history of the three monotheistic religions. Time and again, philosophers, theologians, poets, prophets and laypersons have questioned their image of God in the light of a reality full of hardship. Some see suffering as a proof of God's existence, others as a demonstration that there can be no God, while others still respond by rebelling against Him: why would a God who loves his creations make them suffer so?" In his new book, author Navid Kermani cites this reaction to God as "the central motif of one of the great but neglected works of world literature: The Book of Suffering, by the thirteenth-century Persian poet Faridoddin Attar." Navid Kermani is a writer and Islamic scholar living in Cologne, Germany.

FOCUS: American History -- The Obamas / Justice Kennedy's Jurisprudence / Knights of the Sea

The Obamas by Jodi Kantor, Little Brown '12, $29.99, 359 pages, ASIN #0316098752. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w glossy images.

 

Jodi Kantor, a Washington correspondent for the esteemed New York Times, has met a firestorm of criticism since publication of this book, not a little from one of its subjects, Michelle Obama. The First Lady zeroes in on the fact that since early 2009, the author hasn't interviewed either her or the President and yet purports to report what Michelle was feeling at particular times. True enough, Kantor did interview such Obama intimates as Valerie Jarrett, yet Ms. Obama's point is well taken.

However, in portraying a couple from humble backgrounds -- and African-American at that -- Kantor's book does communicate well the sense of awe and awesome responsibility that came over the Obamas, particularly in the early days of Barack's presidency, and their getting used to the fact that they didn't need to clear their dinner plates, let alone cook a meal. Yet Michelle makes clear that she insists that the Leader of the Western World pick up his dirty socks from the floor. I doubt that Kantor's work will be considered the authoritative portrait of the Obamas, but on such quotidian matters as running a household, scheduling, and parenting, it has the ring of truth and is worth the read.

Justice Kennedy's Jurisprudence -- The Full and Necessary Meaning of Liberty by Frank J. Colucci, UKansas Press '09, 243 pages, ASIN #0700616624. Index, bibliography, notes, two appendices, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

The appointment of liberals Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court tilted the Supreme Court to the left and erased the pivotal role of Justice Anthony Kennedy, right? Not at all, because the two appointees replaced progressives David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively. So the role of Kennedy as the Court's swing vote is likely to continue until the next court appointment if not longer. Political scientist Frank J. Colucci argues that Kennedy is more than a swing vote, that he has a consistent and coherent philosophy in which "liberty and human dignity trump even democracy." Colucci comopares Kennedy's rhetoric to Catholic teaching and shows him "struggling to disassociate his personal beliefs from his official duties. Separate chapters offer close readings of Kennedy's jurisprudence regarding abortion, free speech, equality, and government structure." Frank J. Colucci is assistant professor of political science at Purdue University, Calumet.

Knights of the Sea -- The True Story of the Boxer and the Enterprise and the War of 1812 by David Hanna, NAL Caliber '12, $25.95, 271 pages, ASIN #0451235622. Index, bibliography, notes, two appendices, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

If you were a natural bettor, you'd never give odds on that September day of 1813 to the U.S. Navy over the British Navy. At the time, the British Navy was at the peak of its power and the American Navy barely formed. Yet you'd regret your bet later when you learned the outcome of the match between Britain's brig Boxer and the U.S.S. Enterprise. "The battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise was the only major sea engagement of the War of 1812 witnessed by people on land," writes author historian David Hanna, "and though it lasted less than an hour, it was a brutal contest whose outcome was uncertain. When the cannon smoke cleared, good men had been lost, and the U.S. Navy's position in the war had changed." The author writes that the battle "became emblematic of a maritime era that was soon gone forever." David Hanna teaches history at University Neighborhood High School in New York and lives with his family in New Jersey.

FOCUS: A Potpourri -- How it All Began / God is Red / Tudors / City at the Center of the World

How it All Began by Penelope Lively, Viking '12, $26.95, 229 pages, ASIN #0670023442.

 

In her latest, Booker Prize-winner Penelope Lively probes what one might call a literary butterfly effect. She "explores the powerful role of chance in people's lives and deftly illustrates how our paths can be altered irrevocably by someone we will never even meet....The Daltons' marriage broke up because Charlotte Rainsford was mugged. They did not know Charlotte, and never would; she would sit on the perimeter of their lives, a fateful presence." In the hands of a master storyteller, Lively's narrative will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Penelope Lively is an award-winning novelist and author of children's literature. She lives in north London.

God is Red -- The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China by Liao Yiwu, HarperOne '11, $25.99, 231 pages, ASIN #0062078461. Unillustrated. Translated by Wenguang Huang.

 

Journalist Liao Yiwu was raised to believe that religion is evil, but he developed a kinship with Chinese Christians in their unwavering commitment to the freedom of expression and to finding meaning in a tumultuous society. This inspiration led him to document "untold stories of brave believers whose totalitarian government could not break their faith in God."  Among his subjects: A 100-year-old nun who persevered in spite of beatings, famine, and decades of physical labor; a surgeon who gave up a lucrative career as a Communist hospital administrators to treat poor villagers for free; and a Protestant minister executed during the Cultural Revolution as "an incorrigible counterrevolutionary." Liao Yiwu is a Chinese author, reporter, musician, and poet, whose work has won awards and grants.

The Tudors -- The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty by G.J. Meyer, Bantam Books '11 paperback. $18, 623 pages, ASIN #038534077X. Index, sources and notes, grouping of color glossy images.

 

From the book's cover:

"Acclaimed historian G.J. Meyer provides a fresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty -- and some of the most enigmatic figures ever to rule a country. In 1485, Henry Tudor, whose claim to the English throne was so weak as to be almost laughable, nevertheless sailed from France with a ragtag army to take the crown from the family that had ruled England for almost four centuries. Fifty years later, his son, Henry VIII, seemed to seize even greater powers -- ultimately leaving behind a brutal legacy that would blight the lives of his children and the destiny of his country. Edward VI, a fervent believer in reforming the English church, died before realizing his dream. Mary I, the disgraced daughter of Catherine of Aragon, tried and failed to re-establish the Catholic Church and produce an heir, while Elizabeth I sacrificed all chance of personal happiness in order to survive. The Tudors presents the sinners and saints, the tragedies and triumphs, the high dreams and dark crime, of this enthralling era." British writer G.J. Meyer has written three other books and numerous pieces for leading American publications.

City at the Center of the World: Space, History, and Modernity in Quito, UPittsburgh '11 paperback. $27.95, 312 pages, ASIN #0822961660. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

"In the seventeenth century," writes British historian Ernesto Capello, "local Jesuits and Franciscans imagined Quito (Ecuador) as the 'new Rome.' It was the origin of crusades into the wilderness and the purveyor of civilization to the entire region. By the early twentieth century, elites envisioned the city as the heart of a modern, advanced society -- poised at the physical and metaphysical centers of the world." In this fascinating work, Capello writes through the eyes of Quito's diverse populations to analyze the formation of memory, myth, and modernity. This deconstruction takes the reader through Ecuadorian architecture, museums, monuments, tourism, art, urban planning, literature, religion, indigenous rights, and politics. Ernest Cepello is assistant professor of history at Macalester College.

FOCUS: American Politics -- 11/22/63 / Immigrant Prince / A Saving Remnant

11/23/63 by Stephen King, Scribner '11, $35, 850 pages, ASIN #1451627289.

 

I confess that I picked up this book because I'm a political junkie, not because of any love for Stephen King novels. The only King works I've read are slim nonfiction volumes on baseball and on writing. The date in his latest title is emblazoned into American history as firmly as 12/7/41. It requires suspension of belief like other King books, but it does suck the reader into its vortex quickly as the author creates compelling characters. Jake Epping, the protagonist, is introduced to his future by a dying diner counterman, who has discovered a way to transport oneself from 2011 to 1958 America. Both men are fans of President Kennedy and appalled at his assassination, which in 1958, still lies in the future. And that's the point. Why wouldn't it be possible for a person in 1958, with knowledge of the future, to block the assassination and, therefore, change history? But as this narrative plays out, King cleverly demonstrates that changing one future event doesn't necessarily alter the world for the better. For those of us with white hair, King's 1958 to 1963 prose, replete with rock 'n roll lyrics and such, is a trip in itself. Jake's love affair with a 1958 contemporary who later returns as an elderly lady is worth the price of the book. Stephen King, who has already written more than 50 books, has hit a grand slam with this one.

Immigrant Prince: Mel Martinez and the American Dream by Richard E. Foglesong, University Press of Florida '11, $32, 320 pages, ASIN #0813035791. Index, bibliography, notes, grouping of color glossy images. 

 

From the book's cover:

"Mel Martinez, the United States' first Cuban-American senator, came to Florida in 1962 as part of Operation Peter Pan. His rag-to-riches climb through county, state, and national politics has the character of a storybook saga. In this even-handed, inspiring, and deeply satisfying biography, Richard Foglesong demonstrates that Martinez became a politician not from an ego-driven desire to exercise power and capture attention, but from a morally driven desire to return the favor for all that he and his family received from their adopted country. His personal story is here seamlessly tied to contemporary political, historical and social forces, including the role of religion in politics, increasing Hispanic power, and the contemporary debate over immigration policy."

Richard E. Fogleston teaches politics at Rollins College and has written a book about Walt Disney World.

A Saving Remnant -- The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds by Martin Duberman, The New Press '11, $27.95, 336 pages, ASIN #1595583238. Index, no bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w images.

 

Historian Martin Duberman returns to 1960's America in this dual biography, which melds two major themes of the era -- radical activism and homosexuality. His subjects are Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, who first met as leading figures on the American left, both of whom were on the same page in the black struggle and anti-Vietnam War protest. But there the agreement stopped, for they "strenuously disagreed about feminism, antipornography, and the course of the gay movement, with David expressing reservations about all three." Fast forward, and we see Barbara joining a lesbian combine and David running as a Socialist as the first openly gay candidate for the U.S. presidency. Weaving through the narrative are such iconic characters as Bayard Rustin, Alvin Ailey, Allen Ginsburg, Edmund Wilson, and Mary McCarthy. Martin Duberman taught history at Lehman College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. He has written more than 20 books.

FOCUS: American History -- In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark / Fatal Crossroads / After Custer

In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark -- Early Commemorations and the Origins of the National Historic Trail by Wallace G. Lewis, Colorado UP '10, 229 pages, ASIN #1607320266. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

Every grade schooler has learned of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their expedition, spurred by President Thomas Jefferson, to the West Coast. But, as author Wallace G. Lewis writes, a century elapsed after the 1806 conclusion of their journey before the pair were celebrated as national heroes. The Colorado historian examines "how public attitudes toward their explorations and the means of commemorating them have changed, from the production of the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905 to the establishment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in 1978 and the celebrations of the expedition's bicentennial from 2003 through 2007." Wallace G. Lewiis is a professor of history at Western State College of Colorado.

Fatal Crossroads -- The Untold Story of the Malmedy Massacre at the Battle of the Bulge by Danny S. Parker, DaCapo '12, $26, 390 pages, ASIN #0306811936. Index, no bibliography, notes, grouping of b&w images, other b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

A brief excerpt from the author's new book:

"When the pistol and machine-gun shots started, Jim Mattera had only a momentary vision of the gory scene as a hail of metal smashed into those standing with him. He dived for the dirt as the crackling sound of machine-gun fire continued. As Mattera hugged the ground, he listened to the rapid-fire hammer of the machine guns -- a sound he would never forget. Charles Haines was lying next to him. 'Mattera,' he begged quietly, 'I'm hit bad in the back.' 'Lie still," Mattera whispered, 'you'll be all right.' There were pitiful moans and cries from the wounded, some calling for their mothers, others for simple mercy."

Danny S. Parker, an expert on the Ardennes Offensive, has written extensively, including two books, about the military campaign and is regarded as a leading authority on the incident. He lives in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

After Custer -- Loss and Transformation in Sioux Country by Paul L. Hedren, Oklahoma UP '11, $24.95, 72 pages, ASIN #0806142162. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

 

The Great Sioux War is best known today as a series of U.S. Army military conflicts with the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians, which included the massacre of the intrepid U.S. Army Gen. George Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876. But, as historian Paul L. Hedren writes, U.S. military control of the northern plains following the War had transforming effects, the first of which allowed the Northern Pacific Railroad to extend westward from the Missouri River: "The new transcontinental line brought hide hunters who targeted the great northern buffalo herds and ultimately destroyed them. A de-buffaloed prairie lured cattlemen, who in turn spawned their own culture. Through forced surrender of their lands and lifeways, Lakotas and Northern Cheyennes now experienced even more stress and calamity than they had endured during the war itself. The victors, meanwhile, faced a different set of challenges, among them providing security for the railroad crews, hide hunters, and cattlemen."

Paul L. Hedren is a retired National Park Service superintendent and an award-winning historian living in Omaha, Nebraska. He has written several books about the Indian Wars.

FOCUS: American History -- The Historical Atlas of West Virginia / Americans All / The Making of the New Negro / John Brown Russwurm

The Historical Atlas of West Virginia by Frank S. Riddel, West Virginia University Press, $29.95, 256 pages, ASIN #1933202270. Index, references, two appendices, 127 maps, other b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

The book's cover offers a pithy summary of the book's contents:

"By means of a series of maps to chart geographical, historical, social, and cultural events through West Virginia's chronology, The Historical Atlas of West Virginia illlustrates the course of events, both as the result of human action and by chance, through which the state was transformed into an integral part of our nation.

"The Historical Atlas of West Virginia is divided into eight sections: Geography; History; The Evolution of Counties; The Development of Transportation; Natural Resources and Extractive Industries; Education; Population and Legislative, Judicial, and Congressional Districts. Each section presents a series of maps -- 127 in all -- with detailed keys, plus tables and charts, illustrating everything from geological deposits and strata that have fed the state's industries to the settlement patterns of immigrants who have made West Virginia their home. Using federal and state statistics, it also includes revelations from the national census figures since 1790. Introducting each of the eight sections and accompanying every map is a brief explanatory essay. Appendices provide a list of West Virginia governors and senators, and an exhaustive index directs readers quickly and easily to nearly a thousand subjects."

The Historical Atlas of West Virginia has been a career-long project of its author, Dr. Frank S. Riddel, who is a professor emeritus of Marshall University.

Americans All -- The Cultural Gifts Movement by Diana Selig, Harvard UP '11 paperback. $29.95, 384 pages, ASIN #0674028295. Index, bibliography, notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

 

Those unfamiliar with the American "cultural gifts movement," which flourished among progressives between the world wars, have nothing to be ashamed of. History's spotlight has rarely shone on this effort to enhance the American creed by confronting and overcoming the worst prejudicial complications of American diversity. Historian Diana Selig lays out the first major historical study of this movement, describing how progressive activists "celebrated the 'cultural gifts' that immigrant and minority groups brought to society and encouraged pluralism in homes, schools, and churches across the country. They incorporated new thinking about child development, race, and culture into grassroots programs. Countering racist trends and the melting-pot theory of Americanization, they battled against the entrenched forms of discrimination and disfranchisement, championing the idea of diversity as the hallmark American culture."

The Making of the New Negro -- Black Authorship, Masculinity, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance by Anna Pochmara, Amsterdam University Press '11 paperback. 280 pages, ASIN #9089643192. Index, bibliography, notes, unillustrated.

 

The book's cover offers an excellent summary of the book's contents:

"The Making of the New Negro examines black masculinity in the period of the New Negro/Harlem Renaissance, which for many decades did not attract a great deal of critical attention, until, in the 1990s, many scholars discovered how complex, significant, and fascinating it was. Using African American published texts, American archives and unpublished writings, and contemporaneous European discourses, this book, focuses both on the canonical figures of the New Negro Movement and African American culture, such as W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Alain Locke, and Richard Wright, and on writers who have not received as much scholarly attention despite their significance for the movement, such as Wallace Thurman. Its perspective combines gender, sexuality, and race studies with a thorough literary analysis and historicist investigation, an approach that has not been extensively applied to analyze the New Negro Renaissance." Anna Pochmara is Assistant Professor of English Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland.

The Struggles of John Brown Russwurm: The Life and Writings of a Pan-Africanist Pioneer, 1799--1851, by Winston James, New York University '10 paperback, $22, 288 pages, ASIN #0814742904. Index, notes, b&w images sprinkled sparsely through text.

 

 

The stirring words of Winston James's subject in 1829 evidence the passion of his thoughts:

"Sensible then, as all are of the disadvantages under which we at present labour, can any consider it a mark of folly, for us to cast our eyes upon some other portion of the globe where all these inconveniences are removed where the Man of Colour freed from the fetters and prejudice, and degradation, under which he labours in this land, may walk forth in all the majesty of his creation -- a new born creature -- a Free Man!" Even though John Brown Russwurm waas the first African American graduate of Bowdoin College, co-founder of pioneering, black-owned Freedom's Journal, and "following his emigration to Africa, the first black governor of the Maryland section of Liberia," his name "is almost completely missing from the annals of the Pan-African movement. Like many of his contemporaries, Russwurm "struggled internally with the perennial Pan-Africanist dilemma of whether to go to Africa or stay and fight in the United States." Winston James is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. He has written several books on racial history.

FOCUS: History's Lingering Effects / Haiti -- The Aftershocks of History / The Persistence of the Color Line

Haiti -- The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois by Metropolitan Books, $32, 434 pages, ASIN #0805093354. Index, notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

 

A little more than two centuries ago, "Haiti became the first and only country in the world to stage a successful slave revolution," writes historian Laurent Dubois. "This immediately triggered external outrage from the small Caribbean nations surrounding colonial powers that feared other territories would follow Haiti's example. The former French rulers forced Haiti to pay a crushing indemnity -- some $3 billion in today's currency -- to compensate the former slaveholders for their losses. This set up a cycle of debt that has lasted to this day." Such is the kind of eye-opening observation that Dubois uses to explain why Haiti today retains such stereotypes as the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, the land of voodoo, and a state of eternal chaos. Among the author's insights are that Haiti had a successful economy in the 19th century, with many people immigrating there, with the trend reversing only following a 20-year occupation by the U.S. in the 20th century. Laurent Dubois teaches history at Duke University and has written another book about Haiti and magazine pieces about it for major newspapers and magazines.

The Persistence of the Color Line -- Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, by Randall Kennedy, Pantheon '11, $26.95, 322 pages, ASIN #030737789X. Index, notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

 

In 1903, Harvard sociologist W.E.B. DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk that "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." We're now deep enough into the Twenty-First Century that it's possible to credibly deduce that the color-line will continue to be one of major forces determining America's future in this century. In his new book, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy draws "a keen and shrewd analysis of the complex relationship between the first black president and his African-American constituency." Among issues he deals with are the nature of racial opposition to Obama, how he presents himself to blacks as opposed to whites, electoral politics and cultural chauvinism, and whether the President has "a singular responsibility to African Americans." Randall Kennedy was a Rhodes Scholar and former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. He has written several other books on racial issues.