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…
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…
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…
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…
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 —…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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