Here is a list of the books mentioned in the video. Make sure to check out the publisher’s website as they often offer discounts not available elsewhere. David W. Blight, Yale and Slavery: A History (Yale University Press, 2024). Amazon / Yale
The most recent addition in hardback to my active reading shelf is a book called A Republic of Scoundrels. It's a collection of a dozen recent essays assembled by David Head and Timothy Hemmis extending from the colonial era to the War with Mexico and culminating with an essay by Timothy C. Hemmis called An American Scoundrel On Trial: Aaron Burr and His Failed Insurrection, 1805-1807. Hamilton has a long legacy as a founding father and the author of most of the Federalist Papers, but he didn't live to see his legacy realized. Aaron Burr, on the other hand, lived until 1836 when he was eighty years old. The two names most often cited in the book's index are Aaron Burr and James Wilkinson.
I'm also reading a book called The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. He's currently the poetry editor for Harper's Monthly. He's published three books of poetry, a non-fiction book called The Hatred of Poetry, a first novel called Leaving the Atocha Station about his year on a Fulbright Fellowship in Spain and how it coincided with a terrorist bombing attack on the Spanish rail system. The Topeka School is his third and most recent autobiographical novel. It's mostly about his parents, both Jewish clinical psychologists from Brooklyn, who established their respective careers in Topeka, where Ben was born and raised and won a national high school debate title while a public school student in Topeka. Between 1920 and the year 2000 Karl Menninger and his extended family set up and ran a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, the remains of which have since been transferred to the Baylor School of Medicine in Houston. My dad began his career in clinical psychology at the Topeka VA Hospital founded there by Karl Menninger for its proximity to his Menninger Clinic. I was born in Lawrence on the KU campus and most of my childhood memories up to age seven are set in Topeka, so his novel gives me the opportunity to compare my memories of Topeka from the Eisenhower Era with Lerner's impressions of Topeka from the Reagan Era and beyond.
I'm also reading The Poppy War by R F Kuang. She was born in China and moved to Dallas in time to start kindergarten shortly before 9-11-2001. She won a national high school debate title at a private school which got her a scholarship to Georgetown where she wrote The Poppy War in her spare time while in a track geared to passing the Foreign Service Exam. By the time she graduated it was the first book in a trilogy. I read the second book, The Dragon Republic, first, and am now reading The Poppy War front to back and the last book, The Burning God, back to front. Before reading the trilogy I read Babel, set mostly in England, but also in China, during the 1830s. It's about the translation industry at Oxford that's also a send-up of Harry Potter and everything Dickens ever wrote from a multi-cultural perspective. It's astounding and quite literally devastating. Her sixth novel, Katabasis, is complete and due for publication in 2025. She wrote that while working on a doctorate at Yale and touring the world doing readings and lectures promoting her first five books. She's signed contracts to write two more books. Harper-Collins is her publisher and movie and television rights are in the works for the Trilogy and for Babel. She's still in her twenties. Her first book, The Poppy War, was published in 2018. Much of her work is about education. She's been in school continuously since arriving in America at age 4 and holds degrees from Georgetown, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale. Her doctorate at Yale is under the supervision of Jing Tsu, a Chinese woman whose book Kingdom of Characters is an historical account of how the Chinese adapted typesetting, typewriters, telegraphy and digital writing technology to the 4,000 character Mandarin alphabet.
Thank you for the book review, Kevin. A lot of great stuff is coming out this year! :-)
And Congratulations on finishing your manuscript.
I have several things on my book stand. I am still doing a literature review for my own project, so many of these are a bit older. Here is a sampling of books:
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, by Leon Festinger
Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
"Gentlemen of Property and Standing:" Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America, by Leonard L. Richards
The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams, also by Leonard L. Richards
Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery, by James Brewer Stewart
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, by Joanne B. Freeman
Not to mention select primary source material such as various newspapers of the 1820s to 1860, as well as those same years in the Congressional Globe and the Register of Debates.
Just finished a book of essays by Michael Fellman and then listened to this talking about Gary Gallagher and I think a bit of static from latent disagreements poured through my earbuds for a minute.
Anyhow, is the Foster essay dissecting the polls a reprint of his piece from Zocalo Public Square ca. 2016?
The most recent addition in hardback to my active reading shelf is a book called A Republic of Scoundrels. It's a collection of a dozen recent essays assembled by David Head and Timothy Hemmis extending from the colonial era to the War with Mexico and culminating with an essay by Timothy C. Hemmis called An American Scoundrel On Trial: Aaron Burr and His Failed Insurrection, 1805-1807. Hamilton has a long legacy as a founding father and the author of most of the Federalist Papers, but he didn't live to see his legacy realized. Aaron Burr, on the other hand, lived until 1836 when he was eighty years old. The two names most often cited in the book's index are Aaron Burr and James Wilkinson.
I'm also reading a book called The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. He's currently the poetry editor for Harper's Monthly. He's published three books of poetry, a non-fiction book called The Hatred of Poetry, a first novel called Leaving the Atocha Station about his year on a Fulbright Fellowship in Spain and how it coincided with a terrorist bombing attack on the Spanish rail system. The Topeka School is his third and most recent autobiographical novel. It's mostly about his parents, both Jewish clinical psychologists from Brooklyn, who established their respective careers in Topeka, where Ben was born and raised and won a national high school debate title while a public school student in Topeka. Between 1920 and the year 2000 Karl Menninger and his extended family set up and ran a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, the remains of which have since been transferred to the Baylor School of Medicine in Houston. My dad began his career in clinical psychology at the Topeka VA Hospital founded there by Karl Menninger for its proximity to his Menninger Clinic. I was born in Lawrence on the KU campus and most of my childhood memories up to age seven are set in Topeka, so his novel gives me the opportunity to compare my memories of Topeka from the Eisenhower Era with Lerner's impressions of Topeka from the Reagan Era and beyond.
I'm also reading The Poppy War by R F Kuang. She was born in China and moved to Dallas in time to start kindergarten shortly before 9-11-2001. She won a national high school debate title at a private school which got her a scholarship to Georgetown where she wrote The Poppy War in her spare time while in a track geared to passing the Foreign Service Exam. By the time she graduated it was the first book in a trilogy. I read the second book, The Dragon Republic, first, and am now reading The Poppy War front to back and the last book, The Burning God, back to front. Before reading the trilogy I read Babel, set mostly in England, but also in China, during the 1830s. It's about the translation industry at Oxford that's also a send-up of Harry Potter and everything Dickens ever wrote from a multi-cultural perspective. It's astounding and quite literally devastating. Her sixth novel, Katabasis, is complete and due for publication in 2025. She wrote that while working on a doctorate at Yale and touring the world doing readings and lectures promoting her first five books. She's signed contracts to write two more books. Harper-Collins is her publisher and movie and television rights are in the works for the Trilogy and for Babel. She's still in her twenties. Her first book, The Poppy War, was published in 2018. Much of her work is about education. She's been in school continuously since arriving in America at age 4 and holds degrees from Georgetown, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale. Her doctorate at Yale is under the supervision of Jing Tsu, a Chinese woman whose book Kingdom of Characters is an historical account of how the Chinese adapted typesetting, typewriters, telegraphy and digital writing technology to the 4,000 character Mandarin alphabet.
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for the book review, Kevin. A lot of great stuff is coming out this year! :-)
And Congratulations on finishing your manuscript.
I have several things on my book stand. I am still doing a literature review for my own project, so many of these are a bit older. Here is a sampling of books:
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, by Leon Festinger
Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
"Gentlemen of Property and Standing:" Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America, by Leonard L. Richards
The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams, also by Leonard L. Richards
Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery, by James Brewer Stewart
The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, by Joanne B. Freeman
Not to mention select primary source material such as various newspapers of the 1820s to 1860, as well as those same years in the Congressional Globe and the Register of Debates.
Warm Regards To All. :-)
Nice that Otis dropped by; and thanks for an interesting list.
Just finished a book of essays by Michael Fellman and then listened to this talking about Gary Gallagher and I think a bit of static from latent disagreements poured through my earbuds for a minute.
Anyhow, is the Foster essay dissecting the polls a reprint of his piece from Zocalo Public Square ca. 2016?