It seems like a good time for long articles to read while at home. One article I highly recommend is Mike Shropshire’s article in the October 1987 D Magazine titled “The Silent Spring of Walker Railey” regarding the attack on Peggy Railey, wife of high-profile Methodist minister Walker Railey. I lived in Dallas at the […]
Tag: U.S. History
Last week, TCM aired the 1963 TV documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment directed by Robert Drew. From the linked DrewAssociates link: When Governor George Wallace literally stands in the schoolhouse door to block the admittance of two African-American students to the all-white University of Alabama in June 1963, President Kennedy is forced to decide […]
Found at Air Mail, an excerpt/adaptation from The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Ruin, by Douglas Smith, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux today. An engrossing read (no pun intended). The stories began to appear in the Soviet press in the autumn of 1921, each one more […]
God Struck Me Dead: Voices of Ex-Slaves Edited by Clifton H. Johnson, with a new introduction by Albert J. Rabateau The William Bradford Collection from The Pilgrim Press, 1993 (2nd edition) Paperback, 204 pages The reissue of a rare volume of ex-slave narratives is as timely now as it was when it first appeared in […]
The documentary film Rosenwald tells the inspiring story of Julius Rosenwald, an immigrant’s son who became CEO of Sears, Roebuck & Company and used his wealth to support equal rights for African Americans during the Jim Crow era. His support of education, the arts, and housing for middle-class African Americans left a legacy that influenced […]
In 1864 during the American Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman began his famous march to the sea. With an army of 60,000 men he swept into the South, destroying Atlanta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina, and dozens of smaller towns. His troops plundered homes, destroyed livestock, burned buildings, and left a path of destruction […]
A grab bag of articles I’ve recently enjoyed: “The Puzzles of Thermopylae” by Chris Carey The story is well known and easily told. But the battle throws up a number of lasting puzzles. We have no contemporary account. Our earliest source, Herodotus, began his research perhaps 30 years or more after the event. He had […]
My oldest expressed interest in seeing The Cold Blue tonight instead of waiting for it on HBO, and who was I to say no? So we’re excited about going tonight for the movie and the extra “making of” short. Plus I’m happy to see the score is provided by Richard Thompson. A good article on […]
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou Alfred A. Knopf, 2018 Hardcover, 352 pagesBad Blood, the true story of the rise and collapse of a medical device start-up in Silicon Valley that blew through $900 million dollars on a product that never worked, was on many “Best Of” book […]
Last week I decided to take the long way back to Atlanta for my plane ride home. It turned out to be a meditative trip. Driving across the Florida panhandle, from the Alabama border to Tallahassee, allowed me to see some of the devastation from Hurricane Michael, which had hit the area a few weeks […]
“[G]reat power involves great responsibility.” Sounds like something from Spiderman, but it’s part of a line from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s undelivered Jefferson Day Speech. Coincidentally, Jefferson Day was officially recognized by FDR beginning in 1938. Anyway…the speech can be found at The American Presidency Project. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia the day before this […]
I seem to be all over the place in reading lately, but with little time to post about it. I seem to focus on big-brush topics at times and while I always hope to post on them, it never seems to work. So I’m hoping with a little prodding on my own part, I’ll follow […]
Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes by Ronni Lundy Photography by Johnny Autry Penguin Random House, 2016 Hardcover, 320 pages 2016 seems to be be the year of the redneck, at least when it comes to books. Or is it the hillbilly? White trash? Given the news, literary and otherwise, it looks like I’m up […]
How to Catch a Russian Spy: The True Story of an American Civilian Turned Double Agent by Naveed Jamali and Ellis Henican Scribner, 2015 Hardcover, 304 pages I’m not sure where I heard about this book or what caused me to place a hold on it at the library, but it followed me home one […]
The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling Emerging Civil War Series Savas Beatie; Fall 2015 192 pp.; 211 images ISBN: 978-1-61121-189-4 I first became aware of this book when our local bookstore was touting an upcoming talk by its author, Meg Groeling. I wasn’t able to make that […]
The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg GroelingEmerging Civil War SeriesSavas Beatie; Fall 2015192 pp.; 211 imagesISBN: 978-1-61121-189-4 “After the battle, what did they do with all the bodies?”— common question from U.S. Civil War battlefield visitors I recently stumbled across the Emerging Civil War Series, which […]
Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S. C. Gwynne ISBN: 978-1451673289 (Scribner, 2014, hardcover) It is a matter of record that, a mere fourteen months earlier [than June 1862], the man everyone from Charlottesville to Washington was so breathlessly concerned about had been an obscure, eccentric, and unpopular college professor […]
Pulgas Water Temple Photo by Dwight Green Another post on a local spot I like… Located in Woodside, California, the Pulgas Water Temple commemorates the completion of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct (more on that below). The original temple, erected in 1934, was replaced four years later with the current structure of fluted columns supporting a […]
General Jackson’s “Chancellorsville” portrait (Picture source) Stonewall Jackson, wrapped in his beard and his silence, Cromwell-eyed and ready with Cromwell’s short Bleak remedy for doubters and fools and enemies, Hard on his followers, harder on his foes, An iron sabre vowed to an iron Lord, And yet the only man of those men who pass […]
Come, stack arms, men! Pile on the rails, Stir up the camp-fire bright; No matter if the canteen fails, We’ll make a rousing night! Here Shenandoah brawls along, And burly Blue-Ridge echoes strong, To swell our brigade’s rousing song Of “Stonewall Jackson’s way.” We see him now, – the old slouched hat, Cocked o’er his […]