James Madison, Climate Change Guru?
James Madison was a thoughtful fellow. Very. He and his pal Jefferson were amateur scientists, forever corresponding about their observations of natural phenomena or some new wacky theory coming out of those European know-it-alls. Jefferson usually gets all the credit for being a renaissance man while Madison gets credit for being . . . short. But Madison had some…
Read MoreNice Words From the Academy
History writers like me (that is, those without doctorates) sometimes develop a bit of a ‘tude about academics who occasionally sneer at our efforts. An Ivy League type wrote of my first book (and I paraphrase), “I don’t know why they publish books like this.” Because people like to read them! In any event, a distinguished historian…
Read MoreThe Dog-Eared Volume on the Shelf?
For a special section that will tout the National Book Festival next month, the Washington Post has invited authors who are speaking at the festival (including moi!) to write a piece about “what book is most dog-eared in your library — and why.” Though I was eager to use this opportunity to write for a wide audience, the assignment was…
Read MoreThe Shadow of Gore Vidal
Anyone who writes about Aaron Burr — like me, for example, in American Emperor — has to wrestle with the shadow of Gore Vidal. Vidal rendered Burr as a marvelous three-dimensional character in his rollicking historical novel with the admirably simple title, Burr. I read Vidal’s Burr when it came out in 1973 and ate it up. It was…
Read MoreWe have met the enemy and he is us
James Madison and Walt Kelly, creator of the Pogo comic strip, had this much in common: they both concluded that we are the problem. Kelly issued his most famous pronouncement — “We have met the enemy and he is us” — on a poster for the first Earth Day in 1970. For those of us sweltering through…
Read MoreNow for something Very Different!
David O. Stewart, novelist? Pretty soon. The following notice just ran on Publishers Marketplace: “Author of SUMMER OF 1787, the recently published AMERICAN EMPEROR, on Aaron Burr, and a forthcoming history of James Madison, founder and president of The Washington Independent Review of Books David Stewart’s MR. BINGHAM’S SECRET, about a deathbed confession that reveals…
Read MoreWednesday marked the 208th anniversary of the duel between Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury. In the dawn hours, each traveled to a lonesome outcropping of New Jersey’s Palisades to try to kill each other in a savage ritual. Burr succeeded, dispatching his long-time nemesis with a pistol shot…
Read MoreThe Past Is Never Dead. It's Not Even Past
Three recent events reinforce the wisdom of this remark by William Faulkner in Requiem for a Nun. First, the New York Times is starting a series of pieces to be written by Adam Goodheart and Peter Manseau that will aim at correcting the historical statements, misstatements, and abuses of this political campaign season. Titled “History Corrected,”…
Read MoreI Always Liked That Colin Powell
This coming Sunday’s New York Times Book Review begins with an interview of General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, in which he reveals that The Summer of 1787 is on his bedside table! I should let General Powell speak for himself: What book is on your night stand now? “The Summer of 1787,” by…
Read MoreColonel Burr is going to the National Book Festival
I am very happy to report that I will be talking about Colonel Burr and his Western expedition at the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, DC. I’m scheduled for Sunday afternoon, September 23, thought the exact time has not been set. The festival is a great two-day event which was first organized…
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