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Front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30, 1900 Source: Sudden Death: Boys Fell to Their Doom in S.F.’s Forgotten Disaster (SF Weekly News)I took the boys to a history class today where Tobin Gilman talked about his book 19th Century San Jose in a Bottle. During the talk Gilman touched on the “Thanksgiving […]
than this headline. I had read parts of Maier’s work over the last decade but when I listened to Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 I really became enamored with her wit, style, and ability. I followed up by revisiting her other works, notably From Resistance to Revolution and American Scripture, and enjoyed them […]
Paine found himself carried forward by the immense wave of his book’s popularity into the heart of New World society. If Common Sense isolated the fears and the angers of the average colonist and focused them into a strategy for the future, its impact was tenfold for the men who would face charges of treason […]
At his print shop here, Robert Bell published the first edition of Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet in January 1776. Arguing for a republican form of government under a written constitution, it played a key role in rallying American support for independence. Picture source at The Historical Marker Database We have it in our power to […]
Picture source at Wikipedia For the Fourth of July I thought I would do something different. The obvious choice would be to look at the Declaration of Independence or its philosophical history and background, but I wanted to re-read Common Sense and look at on one of America’s most problematic founding fathers, Thomas Paine. I […]
I recently discovered The William and Mary Quarterly, a historical journal published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. The current edition (no longer available online: edition 69_2) has a critical forum on Pauline Maier’s Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788, a book I enjoyed quite a bit. This comment came from […]
The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war. Mangled bodies, dead, dying, in every conceivable shape, without heads, legs, and horses! I think we have buried 2000 since the fight our own & the Enemy, and the wounded fill horses, tents, steamboats and Every conceivable place. . . . I still feel […]
In which I continue to use my blog as a personal notebook… A link to an outstanding article on and review of George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis. His fluency in German and Russian, as well as his knowledge of those countries’ histories and literary traditions, combined with a commanding, if […]
In the colonists’ use of classical literature, for example, “their detailed knowledge and engaged interest covered only one era and one small group of writers”: Plutarch, Livy, Cicero, Sallust, and Tacitus—those who “had hated and feared the trends of their own time, and in their writing had contrasted the present with a better past, which […]
“Jefferson’s Fiddle is a delightful collection of modern arrangements and readings of classical and traditional repertoire that showcase Thomas Jefferson’s extensive music library.” I expect the interest in the music on this recording to be limited but I also post this for the liner notes available. Here is the note for “Jefferson and Liberty: In […]
Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 Simon & Schuster, Hardcover, 608 pages ISBN-10: 0684868547 / ISBN-13: 9780684868547 From Simon and Schuster’s page on the book: When the delegates left the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787, the new Constitution they had written was no more than a proposal. Elected conventions in […]
The dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that […]
Good Newes from New England (1624) by Edward Winslow This particular copy was owned by Thomas Prince and later John Adams Picture source I confess we have come so far short of the means to raise such returns, as with great difficulty we have preserved our lives; insomuch as when I look back upon our […]
Mourt’s Relation is the earliest known eyewitness account of the Pilgrims’ first seven months in New England plus a few additional events up through November 1621. It was published in 1622 in London. Its writing precedes William Bradford’s account, Of Plimoth Plantation, by a decade and the subsequent publication of Bradford’s by 234 years. Mourt’s […]
William BradfordPicture source May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our faithers were Englishmen which come over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this willdernes; but they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voyce, and looked on their adversitie, etc. Let them ther fore praise […]
Picture source Before I knew what affliction meant, I was ready sometimes to wish for it. When I lived in prosperity, having the comforts of the World about me, my relations by me, my Heart chearfull: and taking little care for any thing; and yet seeing many, whom I preferred before my self, under many […]
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick Penguin, paperback, 480 pages, $16.00 ISBN: 0143111973 In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, […]
Albert Coady Wedemeyer Picture source “The first thing for a commander in chief to determine is what he is going to do, to see if he has the means to overcome the obstacles which the enemy can oppose to him, and, when he has decided, to do all he can to surmount them.” Napoleon I, […]
George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (1795)Picture source Yet another history book…one I’ve intended to read since its release… Joseph J. Ellis’ biography on George Washington weighs in at around 275 pages, which is a change from recent (literally) weighty tomes on the founding fathers. Ellis keeps the work shorter by summarizing surrounding historical details, going […]