Historically Speaking

January 2004 Historically Speaking33 What have Historians been Reading? WE ASKED A FEW HISTORIANS to comment on what they have been reading over thepastyear. We encourage readers ofHistorically Speaking to submit brief 500-wordnotices ofbooks thatfall into one ofthree categories: (1) recently published books thatareparticularly noteworthy, (2) seminal books that have influenced one's historical thinking , or (3) great books that never receivedtheirdue. —the Editors John Ferling, University ofWest Georgia In recent weeks I've read two exceptionally good new books in my field, the American Revolution. I've liked David Hackett Fischer 's work for years, and his latest effort, Washington's Crossing (Oxford University Press, 2004), which deals with the TrentonPrinceton campaign in 1776—77, is just as good as his wonderful Paul Revere's Ride, published in 1995 by Oxford University Press. As usual, his writing is exceptional and he exposes some myths that have lingered about the campaign; in addition, he adequately treats the British and Hessians, who have often gotten lost in the shuffle. I also recently read An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation ofAmerica (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003), authored by Henry Wiencek, and found it to be a provocative and moving account ofslavery in early America , though not quite as groundbreaking on Washington as the author imagines. Not long ago I readJohn K. Alexander's SamuelAdams: America's Revolutionary Politician (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), an excellent biography ofthat popular leader. Stimulated by it, I dug outJohn C. Miller's earlier biography, Sam Adams: A Pioneer in Propaganda (Stanford University Press, 1936), which I had not looked at in years. While Alexander's is now the definitive life history, I found Miller's biography to be surprisingly modern. Fascinated by my discovery, I went on this summer to reread his Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (Harper, 1959) and The Federalist Era (Harper, I960), and found that each has held up well and remains worthwhile. My rediscovery of Miller, and my discomfort with the recent romanticizing and glorifying ofwar in the movies and on television , led me to pull from the shelfone of my favorite anti-war novels, a relatively little known book by William Hoffman entitled The Trumpet Unblown (Fawcett, 1957). I read it when in high school and again during the Vietnam War era, and loved it both times. Now I am approaching retirement and still find it to be apowerful account ofan American soldier in World War II whose disillusionment and despair ultimately overwhelm his initial zeal for war. Carol Thomas, University ofWashington This historian of the ancient world has now read twice and assigned as class reading another "new" magisterial work ofFernand Braudel, Memory and the Mediterranean (Knopf, 2001) which tracks the longue durée of the Mediterranean from the Paleozoic era to the Roman encirclement of its shores, deftly interweaving place with people and people with one another. Originally written in the late 1960s, the manuscript was rescued and edited to include more recent data. In the same broad sweep is Barry Cunliffe 's The Extraordinary Voyage ofPytheas the Greek (Penguin, 2002) which also explores the Mediterranean sphere, in this case the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. Since his subject , Pytheas, traveled beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, the account reaches to Ultima Thule as the author retraces Pytheas's journey by his own travel. Merlin Donald offers another sort of journey in A Mind So Rare (Norton, 2001), namely the development of human consciousness as a result of the interplay between the biological structure ofthe brain and the increasingly complex cultures constructed by humankind. The story is told carefully and engagingly. Jeremy Black, University ofExeter I'm unhappy with the "great books" approach. All too many ofthe major works applauded in that light seem to me to be the self-validated products of the "thing" or academic establishment, with the added finesse that the economics ofthe publishing trade ensure that major efforts are made to puffthem up (e.g., special deals are offered for sale via reviewing journals that then always seem to carry favorable reviews, display space in bookshops is paid for, etc.). So let me put aside such work, much ofwhich anyway displays an obsession with...