Recovering the Past: A Historian’s Memoir by Forrest McDonald
by Robert C. Cheeks
April 24th, 2007
McDonald’s memoir is very good because Professor McDonald writes for those of us who delight in history; he does not write for his colleagues.
Archive for the ‘Biography’ Category
Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa: From Vermont to Italy in the Footsteps of George Perkins Marsh - by John Elder
by Peter Bridges
April 24th, 2007
This is a beautiful book. The author is a professor of English at Middlebury College whose writing has centered on our natural environment.
Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster by T.J. English
by Sam Stowe
April 24th, 2007
The genius of the Irish who emigrated to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries was to fuse both political clout and criminal enterprise into vast, urban political machines that helped uplift the Irish and create a place for them at the table of American bounty.
The Orientalist: Solving The Mystery of A Strange and Dangerous Life - by Tom Reiss
by Julia Braun Kessler
April 22nd, 2007
Admirers of a haunting gem of a novel called, ALI & NINO, a work that seemed to materialize from nowhere when it was reprinted in 1999, were excited to learn that finally, finally! there is definitive information about its mysterious author.
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream - by Barack Obama
by Peter Bridges
April 22nd, 2007
Senator Barack Obama, it seems, has far to go. As this is written, he is continuing to take steps toward running for President in 2008.
My Father Il Duce: A Memoir by Mussolini’s Son - by Romano Mussolini
by Peter Bridges
April 22nd, 2007
Benito Mussolini had more than one mistress but only one wife, whom he legally married five years after the birth of their first child, Edda.
Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America
by Sam Stowe
April 22nd, 2007
Since our society began its retreat into Social Darwinism tricked out in the guise of laissez-faire economics, those of us who enjoy our economic history red in tooth and claw have the guilty pleasure of reading about business scandals.
The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness - by Jack El-Hai
by Sam Stowe
April 22nd, 2007
Walter Jackson Freeman was a man gifted with energy, optimism and an ice pick.
James K. Polk by John Seigenthaler
by Robert C. Cheeks
April 22nd, 2007
Author John Seigenthaler has written an interesting and informative biography of the eleventh president of the United States, James Knox Polk.
Henry Adams and the Making of America - by Garry Wills
by Leslie Kitchen
April 22nd, 2007
In Adams, Wills has chosen a slippery, famously evasive subject. Henry Adams (1838-1918) was an eccentric, morbidly private little man.
