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Roger Bishop

HistoryAmerican History

American power in the post-war era

Review by Roger Bishop

Americans have always been dreamers, beginning with the Founders, who aspired to liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness for all. At the end of World War II, the U.S. was alone in its power; of all the Allied and Axis countries, it was the only one stronger when the war was over than when it began. A chief lesson we learned from the war, according to noted historian H.W. Brands, was “that the U.S. could accomplish almost anything it put its mind to, within the limits of human nature.” What we dreamed, the many challenges we faced and how we have used our power in the post-war era are the subjects of Brands’ rich and incisive survey, American Dreams.

The author casts a wide net. While he tells of spectacular achievements in technology and space exploration, he also shows how crucial the strength of the economy was to Baby Boomers and their families, and how, with McDonalds, “no one contributed more to the creation of a single popular culture than Ray Kroc.” Brands notes that “the most contentious issues in American life continued to center on race,” and he writes of the civil rights movement and the women’s movement as well as the wars in Korea, Vietnam and our current involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brands, best known for his biographies of American figures like Benjamin Franklin and Franklin Roosevelt (both Pulitzer Prize finalists), makes political, social and cultural history come alive by focusing on seminal events and key personalities. He effectively inserts pithy excerpts from such sources as civil rights speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and President Johnson, President Reagan’s inaugural address, which sought to restore the nation’s self-confidence, Betty Friedan’s writing on “the feminine mystique,” and President Eisenhower’s farewell address warning of the dangers of a military-industrial complex. He also gives attention to key persons and events or policies not often remembered today, such as Senator Robert Taft, who led opposition to big government and interventionism in foreign policy, and President Nixon’s support for affirmative action, environmental and workplace safety legislation.

The sweeping narrative covers more than six decades in reader-friendly prose. In an overview of this scope, it is certainly possible to quibble with the author’s analysis of certain events, but Brands conveys a lot of information and lets the facts speak for themselves. American Dreams is an outstanding title for anyone who wants a solid introduction to the period.

Americans have always been dreamers, beginning with the Founders, who aspired to liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness for all. At the end of World War II, the U.S. was alone in its power; of all the Allied and Axis countries, it was the only one stronger when the war was over than when […]
LiteratureArts & Culture

Convincing answers to a centuries-old question

Review by Roger Bishop

One of the most persistent literary controversies is the question of who really wrote the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. The first documented challenge to his authorship of the works did not appear until 1785, 169 years after his death. But since then, as noted Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro demonstrates in his enlightening and highly entertaining Contested Will, it has never stopped.

In a marvelous display of literary detection, Shapiro traces the origins of the various alternative theories with candidates such as Francis Bacon and the Earl of Oxford. He shows why the theories arose when they did and exposes the forgeries and deception as well as the misunderstandings of Shakespeare’s age that kept them alive. Along the way we meet such fascinating and now-forgotten personalities as the two most influential persons in the controversy, popular lecturer Delia Bacon, the allegedly “mad” American woman (she spent the last two years of her life in an asylum) who first proposed Francis Bacon, and J.T. Looney, the British schoolmaster who was the first to put forth the name of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Henry James and Helen Keller were among the many others who were also certain that the glover’s son from Stratford could not possibly have written works of such sophistication and elegance.

Shapiro, the author of the widely praised A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599, which received the Samuel Johnson Prize in England, emphasizes that Shakespeare should not be seen as “our contemporary” and that he was not “as universal” as we often like to think of him. He also explores the process that, after Shakespeare’s death, led to setting the genius of his works apart from other writers of his age. Among other treats, there is a rich discussion of Henry James’ analysis of The Tempest, perhaps the best essay written when that play was regarded as the last one Shakespeare wrote and the most autobiographical.

The author is keenly aware that it is much easier to explain unfounded assumptions than to show that Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. In the brilliant last section of the book, Shapiro presents evidence that convinces him that Shakespeare was indeed the author. Among much else, the author of the plays had to have intimate knowledge of the actors in the King’s Men, Shakespeare’s company, and be a shrewd judge of each one’s abilities. In the printed text there are examples of Shakespeare’s writing the name of the actor playing the part rather than the character’s name. Secondly, much that his fellow writers wrote about Shakespeare has survived, and in even private documents, where his “true identity” surely would be acknowledged, Shakespeare is the name we read. Shapiro then presents documentation from the last years of Shakespeare’s working life, when he was working with collaborators, writing in a different style, and in a new kind of playhouse.

Shapiro is most concerned that those who think Shakespeare of Stratford did not have the life experience to write the plays overlook “the very thing that makes him so exceptional: his imagination.” This sophisticated and very readable title is pure delight. All readers may not agree with Shapiro’s conclusions, but he certainly convinced me.

One of the most persistent literary controversies is the question of who really wrote the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. The first documented challenge to his authorship of the works did not appear until 1785, 169 years after his death. But since then, as noted Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro demonstrates in his enlightening […]
Military HistoryHistory

The man who managed the war

Review by Roger Bishop

Winston Churchill’s foremost quality was his strength of will, according to Max Hastings, renowned British author of many widely acclaimed books of military history. In his superb new book, Winston’s War, Hastings relates how the great statesman and warrior used his rhetorical, military and diplomatic skills to triumph as Prime Minister in the first three years of World War II, and then shows how, from 1943 to 1945, events and Churchill’s own misjudgments often worked against him.

When Churchill became prime minister in 1940, many in the nation’s ruling class thought his administration would not last long and were skeptical of military victory. Numerous political leaders thought it inevitable that the country would negotiate with Hitler. Hastings says Churchill “survived in office not because he overcame the private doubts of . . . skeptics, which he did not, but by the face of courage and defiance that he presented to the nation,” primarily in the seven public speeches he gave over the BBC in 1940. Yet despite the usual view that 1940, when Britain stood alone, was the pivotal year for the country’s survival, Hastings believes that 1942 “was the most torrid phase” of Churchill’s wartime leadership. By that time, with crushing military defeats and bombardments from the air, the British people were weary of war.

Hastings is even-handed in his appraisal of Churchill. No other British statesman could have dealt as skillfully with President Roosevelt and the American people as he did, and Churchill was aware earlier than most that Russia must be an ally of his country. On the other hand, there was Churchill’s monumental egotism. He believed, for example, that he was exceptionally prepared to lead armed forces, although he had neither military staff training nor experience with higher field command. And he could be intolerant of evidence unless it agreed with his own instincts, though he could usually be reasonable at least on major decisions.

Hastings’ compelling and nuanced narrative not only weaves the complex story of Churchill’s military and diplomatic strategy, but also depicts his relationships with the British people, other politicians and his commanders in the field, as well as Allied leaders. There are glimpses into his personal life, and Hastings’ many sources include Churchill’s own six-volume history of the period (which Hastings calls “poor history, if sometimes peerless prose”). This very readable and insightful overview of Churchill’s wartime achievements deserves a wide readership.

Winston Churchill’s foremost quality was his strength of will, according to Max Hastings, renowned British author of many widely acclaimed books of military history. In his superb new book, Winston’s War, Hastings relates how the great statesman and warrior used his rhetorical, military and diplomatic skills to triumph as Prime Minister in the first three […]
Biography

Bridging the gap between life and fiction

Review by Roger Bishop

Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited was a bestseller in England and the U.S. in the 1940s and a huge success as a BBC and PBS series in the 1980s. In her compelling and insightful biography, Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, Paula Byrne shows how personal the book was for Waugh. He wrote the novel for himself, he said, with little regard for sales. He strenuously denied that the setting or the characters were based on a specific home or family, emphasizing this with an Author’s Note, signed E.W., that reads: “I am not I: thou are not he or she: they are not they.” Yet it has long been accepted that a real family, the Lygons, and their home, Madresfield, or “Mad,” as it was affectionately called by Waugh and the family, were the inspiration for the novel.

Byrne’s very readable book has several aspects. Her extensive research enables her to separate truth from fiction with regard to Waugh and the Lygons, demonstrating, for example, that the novelist made use of composite characters and the experiences of others, rather than creating portraits directly from his own life. Byrne’s depiction of the remarkable and tragic Lygons, often quite different from the family in the novel, would make for fascinating reading even if they had never known Waugh. His first visit to “Mad” was in 1931, shortly after his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1930. Byrne shows how Waugh, for whom friendship was an art, enjoyed his visits with the Lygons, in particular the daughters Dorothy and Maimie, and her detailed discussion of Brideshead helps us to better understand “the obsessions that shaped his life: the search for an ideal family and the quest for a secure faith.”

Byrne believes that Waugh has been misrepresented as difficult and unpleasant, often to those closest to him. By tracing his entire life, she gives us enough background to make our own judgments. Throughout much of his life he felt like an outsider; as a writer, this stimulated his imagination and his comic vision. Yet Waugh wrote that his years at Oxford were “essentially a catalogue of friendships,” many of which continued throughout his life. His life, his son Bron wrote, revolved around jokes; this was the witty Waugh whose company the Lygon daughters enjoyed. At the same time, he could be snobbish, acerbic and cutting. At Oxford in the 1920s he began drinking heavily, a habit that would continue until his death in 1966.

This superb book combines literary biography, family history and literary criticism. The result is an irresistible mix that is both an authoritative look at Waugh’s best-known novel and an excellent introduction to the life and work of one of England’s greatest 20th-century writers, and to the world he knew.

Roger Bishop is a frequent contributor to BookPage.

Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited was a bestseller in England and the U.S. in the 1940s and a huge success as a BBC and PBS series in the 1980s. In her compelling and insightful biography, Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, Paula Byrne shows how personal the book was for Waugh. He […]
History

New understanding of a critical summit

Review by Roger Bishop

The eight days of the wartime Yalta Conference in February 1945 had a major impact on history, down to the present day. Decisions made by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin affected the lives of many and led to much speculation about what really happened. With painstaking research, including documents from the Soviet archives that were only declassified in the 1990s, Harvard professor S.M. Plokhy gives us perhaps the most complete picture we are likely to get of the proceedings in his engrossing Yalta: The Price of Peace.

Plokhy demonstrates that, contrary to the opinions of some, the Allies did as well as could be expected at Yalta, despite serious missteps. Roosevelt, for example, is often criticized for yielding too much. But Plokhy argues that FDR was in command of the major issues and was able to achieve his main goals: to win the war against Japan with help from the USSR and to get Stalin to cooperate in establishing the United Nations. As the player with the most troops on the ground, Stalin was in a position of advantage, and his negotiating skills were aided enormously by Soviet espionage, which alerted him to issues that would be raised by FDR and Churchill and instances in which those two disagreed.

Plokhy touches on such particulars as FDR’s disdain for empires, Churchill’s desire to expand the reach of the British Empire and Stalin’s drive to expand the territory and control of the USSR, and readers will learn how each side misjudged the other’s intentions. Yet, as Plokhy writes, “by design and by default, the Big Three managed to put together elements of an international system that helped preserve the longest peace in European history.”

This balanced and detailed study is an excellent source for understanding the last 65 years of U.S. and European history. Although the Yalta Conference may remain controversial, it is hard to disagree with Plokhy’s judgment that when the leaders of democracies make alliances with dictators, there is always a price to be paid. 

The eight days of the wartime Yalta Conference in February 1945 had a major impact on history, down to the present day. Decisions made by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin affected the lives of many and led to much speculation about what really happened. With painstaking research, including documents from the Soviet […]
Military HistoryHistory

Untold story of a Cold War triumph

Review by Roger Bishop

In 1948, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered a blockade of Berlin to pressure the Western Allies into leaving the city or giving up the establishment of a state of West Germany. In response, President Truman, against the advice of his top defense and diplomatic advisors, declared that the United States was in the city to stay. For the next 11 months, under difficult and dangerous conditions, Allied planes delivered such necessities as food, mail, medicine and coal to the beleaguered residents of Berlin—whom those same planes had bombed only three years earlier. Richard Reeves, author of acclaimed biographies of Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan, tells this story in his riveting new book, Daring Young Men.

Reeves’ splendid narrative gives us various perspectives of the airlift, or “Operation Vittles,” as it was originally called. He quotes generously from Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Berlin’s most famous diarist of the period, who vividly described the bleakness of the city and was hopeful, but skeptical, that the Allies would help. Reeves also focuses on the 60,000 individuals who made the airlift work, including pilots such as Gail Halvorsen, who had volunteered for service in the airlift and thought he would return home in a few weeks. Instead, he became the famous “Candy Bomber” who dropped improvised parachutes filled with sweets for Berlin’s children.

From the beginning, the airlift faced many obstacles, not least that pilots were restricted to using carefully defined air corridors, and deviation from these meant attack by Soviet aircraft. An extraordinary leap in production occurred when Major General William Tunner was put in charge of the operation. An arrogant, cantankerous and incredibly imaginative man, Tunner had directed the first successful airlift in history, flying supplies over the Himalayas to Nationalist Chinese troops fighting the Japanese during World War II.

Reeves masterfully relates this story of a crucial mission that even American military officials considered nearly impossible—a pivotal chapter in the Cold War that had a profound effect on the course of European and American history.

In 1948, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered a blockade of Berlin to pressure the Western Allies into leaving the city or giving up the establishment of a state of West Germany. In response, President Truman, against the advice of his top defense and diplomatic advisors, declared that the United States was in the city to […]
Biography

An influential founding mother

Review by Roger Bishop

Abigail Adams is by far the most richly documented American woman of the Revolutionary era. There have been many biographies of this wife of our second president and mother of our sixth, and we think we know her. But, as historian Woody Holton demonstrates in his magnificent new biography Abigail Adams, she was a complex person who played many roles and is not easily understood. Drawing on more than 2,000 of her surviving letters and other sources, Holton, whose excellent Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution was a finalist for the National Book Award, has given readers a compelling and rounded portrait of an exceptional and multifaceted Founding Mother.

In some ways Adams was a conventional woman of her time. She usually agreed with her husband on political matters. On the most controversial legislation of his term as president, the Alien and Sedition Acts, perhaps the most devastating attacks on civil liberties ever passed by Congress, she felt that the legislation was not strong enough. But in many other areas, such as religion, educating the family’s children (and grandchildren) and almost everything else domestic—financial matters—she and John differed widely. As Holton shows, she was a shrewd investor and expert businesswoman who, in many ways, was primarily responsible for the family’s healthy finances.

Two persistent themes run throughout her life. The first is advocacy for more rights for women, especially with regard to education. One of Adams’ greatest regrets in life was her lack of formal education (though she was indeed educated and enthusiastic about learning; she was taught by relatives and shared books and ideas with groups of friends.) Holton demonstrates that, contrary to the beliefs of some historians, Adams’ interest in women’s rights was not a subject confined to letters to her husband, but was emphasized in her correspondence with many others, both female and male.

A second broad emphasis was on financial stability. From an early age she was aware that if she wanted to accomplish certain things in life, such as helping the poor (as her mother had done), she would need a husband who was reasonably well-to-do. But she was a wise investor in her own right, favoring government securities over property, which John preferred. She was also an expert businesswoman. When John served in various positions that took him away from home, as was often the case, she would give him orders for various products to be sent to her for resale. Money gained with her business acumen enabled her to help many others, most prominently her sisters and their families.

Perhaps the clearest expression of Adams’ interests and concerns is a will she wrote in 1816, a time when married women were not legally allowed to control property. Holton describes it as an act of rebellion. She mentions at the beginning of the document that there were certain gifts she had earlier given to her sons, but most of the beneficiaries in her will were her female relatives. Adamsl notes that her will was “by and with his [John’s] consent.” Of all of their collaborations during lives of significant accomplishments that involved great sacrifices, disappointments and tragedy, Holton writes that this previously unreported will “may have been the most extraordinary of all.”

This exceptional biography should be read by anyone who wants to understand life in the Adamses’ era, particularly with regard to the role of women. Holton’s insightful and sensitive work gives us a fresh perspective on a unique life and helps us appreciate anew Abigail Adams’ role in the founding of the new nation.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

Abigail Adams is by far the most richly documented American woman of the Revolutionary era. There have been many biographies of this wife of our second president and mother of our sixth, and we think we know her. But, as historian Woody Holton demonstrates in his magnificent new biography Abigail Adams, she was a complex […]
NonfictionEssays

An ode to books

Review by Roger Bishop

Through the centuries, technologies have profoundly affected the way people read. When the codex—that is, a book with pages to turn—replaced the scroll, readers approached the text differently. They could now concentrate easily on a single page and individual paragraphs and chapters. Printing with movable type made books available to thousands of people previously denied the reading experience. And electronic technology in our own day has again changed the communications landscape.

Robert Darnton knows this territory as well as anyone and views the subject from a unique perspective. As a scholar, he helped invent the modern discipline of the History of the Book and is the Director of the Harvard University Library. He loves rare book rooms but is also enthusiastic about creating a digital Republic of Letters. The stimulating and thought-provoking essays in The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future provide us with an excellent overview of where we have been and where we are likely to be headed.

Darnton points out that in each age the information technology has been unstable. Even in our day, there is no guarantee that copies made by Google Book Search—or anyone else—will last. He notes that digital copies are even more vulnerable than microfilm, the advanced technology of several years ago, to decay and obsolescence. “Paper,” he writes, “is still the best medium of preservation, and libraries still need to fill their shelves with words printed on paper.” He believes the strongest argument for the book is how effective it is for ordinary readers. Each of us can pick up a book and read it; a computer screen does not give most of us the same satisfaction. Darnton quotes Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, as admitting that for anything more than four or five pages he prefers printed paper to computer screens.

Darnton’s thoughtful and incisive essays on this important topic should be of interest to a wide range of book lovers.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller. 

Through the centuries, technologies have profoundly affected the way people read. When the codex—that is, a book with pages to turn—replaced the scroll, readers approached the text differently. They could now concentrate easily on a single page and individual paragraphs and chapters. Printing with movable type made books available to thousands of people previously denied […]
Biography

Chronicling the life of a less-celebrated founding father

Review by Roger Bishop

James Monroe served in more public positions than anyone else in American history. He was both a U.S. congressman and a senator, a governor of Virginia, secretary of state and secretary of war, ambassador to France and Great Britain and minister to Spain, and the fifth U.S. president, serving two terms. A hero of the American Revolution, Monroe served at Valley Forge and was seriously wounded in battle at Trenton. Despite such an imposing resume, Monroe’s contributions to the nation are usually overshadowed by those of his close friends Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

In his compelling new biography, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, Harlow Giles Unger demonstrates that Monroe was a major player with significant achievements, including the Louisiana Purchase. Even his supposed diplomatic failures look like impossible tasks. Unger, an award-winning author of 15 books, including four biographies of other founding fathers, deftly guides us through Monroe’s pre-presidential period, which includes assisting a wounded Lafayette during the Revolution and rescuing Thomas Paine from a French prison.

Unger argues that the three presidents between Washington and Monroe—John Adams, Jefferson and Madison—were merely “caretakers” whose administrations left the country divided and bankrupt, her borders vulnerable and, after the War of 1812, despite the heroic efforts of Monroe as acting secretary of war, the capital seriously damaged. Holding two top cabinet positions (secretary of state was the other) Monroe was hailed for his brilliant military strategy and astute management of peace negotiations. As president, Monroe was a transitional figure, the last of the founding generation, but also responsible for westward expansion and economic recovery. He worked hard to achieve unity, appointing representatives of a wide range of views. He made long tours of the country that helped to bring people together. Despite problems, including the Panic of 1819, there were good reasons to refer to his presidency as “the era of good feelings.”

Unger vigorously refutes those historians who claim that Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote what Monroe is best known for, the “Monroe Doctrine.” Monroe had almost eight years of experience as a seasoned diplomat in the most sensitive posts, was a highly regarded lawyer and a gifted politician. Once he decided to include in his seventh annual message to Congress a manifesto about the U.S. staying free of entangling alliances and defining America’s sphere of influence, he conducted a series of cabinet meetings in which he asked for written and oral arguments on the subject. Adam’s diplomatic experience did give him more influence than others, yet, Unger notes, only one of Adams’ submissions appears in the final policy statement.

The Monroes were a close-knit family and James’ beautiful wife Elizabeth was a formidable influence, especially in matters of taste and style. She also demonstrated extreme courage in 1795. Realizing that her husband, who had obtained the release of Americans from French prisons, might jeopardize his diplomatic status if he tried to rescue someone who had only honorary American citizenship, she decided to go herself. She was able to get Lafayette’s wife, Adrienne, freed after 16 months in prison.

Unger’s outstanding biography of Monroe is consistently illuminating and a fine introduction to its subject.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

James Monroe served in more public positions than anyone else in American history. He was both a U.S. congressman and a senator, a governor of Virginia, secretary of state and secretary of war, ambassador to France and Great Britain and minister to Spain, and the fifth U.S. president, serving two terms. A hero of the […]
HistoryAmerican History

Art inspires during time of crisis

Review by Roger Bishop

The arts and culture flourished in many ways during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Writers such as John Steinbeck and Richard Wright, photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange and the playwright Clifford Odets sought to understand and convey what was happening. Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers brought dancing to the screen in imaginative ways. George and Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter wrote musical standards. There was the elegant music of Duke Ellington and the audience-friendly populism of Aaron Copland, while Woody Guthrie’s songs evoked the open road and his concern for social justice.

Noted literary critic and cultural historian Morris Dickstein brings this period vividly to life in his richly insightful, endlessly fascinating and deliciously readable Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression. Dickstein believes the Depression offers an incomparable case study of the function of art and media in a time of social crisis. In addition to writers whose books were bestsellers at the time, he discusses in detail the diverse writers whose work read decades later helps us to understand the period: Henry Roth, Nathanael West, Zora Neale Hurston and James Agee.

Dickstein says the Depression was probably the first time in American culture when the great myth of “a man alone,” represented by such writers as Emerson and Thoreau, yielded to images of collective activity. A significant aspect of cultural life was the fascination with American history and geography, its diverse peoples, stories of its folk culture and social myths.

Dickstein knows that artists and performers are limited in what they can do “but they can change our feelings about the world, our understanding of it, the way we live in it. . . . They were dancing in the dark, but the steps were magical.”

Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

The arts and culture flourished in many ways during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Writers such as John Steinbeck and Richard Wright, photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange and the playwright Clifford Odets sought to understand and convey what was happening. Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers brought dancing to the screen […]
NonfictionPolitics

When Khrushchev’s comic escapades warmed up the Cold War

Review by Roger Bishop

Nikita S. Khrushchev was a walking bundle of contradictions. He rose to power in the Soviet system in the service of the dictator Josef Stalin. Following Stalin’s orders, Khrushchev was complicit in the deaths of many innocent people. Yet after Stalin’s death, Khrushchev, in a four-hour public address, courageously revealed the truth about Stalin’s many crimes against humanity. Khrushchev could, within a few seconds, be charming, funny, rude and frightening. All of those aspects of his personality were on display for the American public when he toured the United States for two weeks in 1959. It was a rare interlude in the Cold War, at a time when the possibility of war between the world’s two superpowers was on many minds throughout the world.

Peter Carlson, a former Washington Post feature writer and columnist, brings this unique trip vividly to life in K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude Starring Nikita Khrushchev, America’s Most Unlikely Tourist. American reaction to Khrushchev reveals much about the mood of our country at the time and makes for fascinating reading.

Khrushchev’s own reactions are equally engrossing. At banquets with speakers extolling the virtues of capitalism, the Soviet Leader defended Communism and threw tantrums, refusing to concede the U.S. any point of superiority. In Hollywood he met movie stars like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, and was invited to watch the filming of the movie Can-Can where, although he appeared to enjoy himself, he later objected to the dancing. He threw a major tantrum when told he could not go to Disneyland because police could not assure his safety. On a corn farm in Iowa Khrushchev was amused when his host, upset at the media circus on his property, started throwing corn stalks at the press. The foreign visitor also brought havoc to a supermarket in San Francisco. And these are only a few of the stories.

Carlson carefully explains the trip within the context of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations. Just weeks before Khrushchev’s visit, he had his famous “kitchen debate” with Vice President Richard Nixon in Moscow. Seven months after Khrushchev left the U.S., two weeks before a Paris summit of major powers, and six weeks before President Eisenhower’s planned reciprocal trip to Moscow, the Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane and captured the pilot. When Khrushchev returned to the U.S. for the 1960 U.N. General Assembly session, he did not get a warm welcome and is best remembered for banging his shoe in outrage over remarks by a Filipino delegate.

The invitation to visit the U.S. almost didn’t happen. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a short and purposely vague letter to the Soviet leader about a possible visit. The note was to be supplemented by an oral explanation from an undersecretary of state. Both sources were to make clear the visit to Camp David was contingent upon a successful resolution of deadlocked diplomatic negotiations in Geneva relating to Khrushchev’s 1958 ultimatum for the Western allies to leave Berlin. However, the state department official misunderstood his role and Khrushchev was not aware of the caveat.

Carlson’s account is extremely well researched and includes interviews with a number of participants, most notably Khrushchev’s son, Sergei. Many of the accounts and memos he quotes are from State Department historical documents. His book is enlivened by many direct quotes from Khrushchev and others. Anyone interested in cultural exchange, international diplomacy and fine writing should enjoy this unique book.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and frequent contributor to BookPage.

Nikita S. Khrushchev was a walking bundle of contradictions. He rose to power in the Soviet system in the service of the dictator Josef Stalin. Following Stalin’s orders, Khrushchev was complicit in the deaths of many innocent people. Yet after Stalin’s death, Khrushchev, in a four-hour public address, courageously revealed the truth about Stalin’s many […]
History

George Washington’s cultural legacy

Review by Roger Bishop

George Washington sat for at least 28 different portraits. As he became one of the best-known men in the world, he was increasingly in demand as a subject and though the process of "sitting‚" was uncomfortable for him, he recognized the importance of paintings—and by extension, engravings, etchings, woodcuts and mezzotints—to his new republic. In the delightful The Painter's Chair: George Washington and the Making of American Art, Hugh Howard develops the idea of Washington as a patron of the arts and examines how art and the painting of portraits developed in the United States.

Howard first introduces us to two artists who never painted Washington, Benjamin West and John Smibert, but who were crucial influences on those who did. However, it is Washington portraitists Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, Edward Savage and Gilbert Stuart who are among Howard's main interests. With quiet authority, he relates their quite different life stories and their struggles to reconcile their passion for painting with the necessity of earning a living. Their interactions with Washington and their approaches to him as a subject are told with verve and an intimacy that makes their personalities come alive on the page. Stuart's work is the best known to us today, especially his 1796 portrait of Washington, which is regarded as the best—and is reproduced on our dollar bill. Unlike Peale and Trumbull, who served in the military during the American Revolution, Stuart was not caught up in the cause. He left for London in 1775, returning in 1793 with a plan to paint a portrait of Washington that would make him a fortune and ease his persistent financial woes.

Howard also shows how during Washington's lifetime America changed from a group of colonies with little artistic culture to a new nation with art displayed in public buildings and galleries. As a much-painted cultural icon, Washington played a large role in those changes. "He was," as Howard notes, "a man who always agreed, admittedly with an air of resignation, to sit for yet another portrait."

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

George Washington sat for at least 28 different portraits. As he became one of the best-known men in the world, he was increasingly in demand as a subject and though the process of "sitting‚" was uncomfortable for him, he recognized the importance of paintings—and by extension, engravings, etchings, woodcuts and mezzotints—to his new republic. In […]
Biography

White Heat

Review by Roger Bishop

Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson corresponded for almost 25 years, yet met in person only twice. Beginning with a letter from the reclusive poet in 1862 to a literary figure she knew only through his essays and social activism, and lasting till her death in 1886, it is arguably one of the most important relationships in American literary history. In that initial letter, which included four of her poems, Dickinson famously asked, “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?” Their connection, as described by Brenda Wineapple in her luminous new book, White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was “based on an absence, geographic distance, and the written word.” After their first meeting at her home, in 1870, Higginson wrote that Dickinson “drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her.” But he recognized her unique talent and wished to help her if he could. Though he admitted after Dickinson’s death that he could not teach her anything, Wineapple shows how Higginson’s encouragement and support were meaningful for both of them.

Wineapple, the acclaimed biographer of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gertrude and Leo Stein, and Janet Flanner, makes a very persuasive case that Higginson, whose place in the poet’s life and work has often been downplayed, did indeed perform a singularly significant role. In their letters, she writes, “they invented themselves and each other, performing for each other in the words that filled, maintained, and created the space between them.” They shared a passion for the natural world and literature; Wineapple demonstrates how through the years Dickinson dipped into Higginson’s work and rewrote it for her own poetic purposes.

She trusted and liked him and, as far as is known, there was no one else except her sister-in-law to whom she gave more of her poems. Only a few of Dickinson’s poems were published during her lifetime. Higginson played a central role in the posthumous publication of her work, collaborating with Mabel Loomis Todd in selecting and editing the first two volumes of poems. He found a publisher and wrote an introduction for the first volume. Higginson has often been criticized for changing the poems – eliminating Dickinson’s dashes at certain points and substituting more “appropriate” words – but this charge is probably not fair. Mrs. Todd, who copied many of the poems, admitted that it was she who made most of the changes.

White Heat succeeds magnificently in shining a light into the work of two unlikely friends. Dickinson did not live as isolated a life as we might imagine, while Higginson was indeed a radical activist, a supporter of John Brown, a strong advocate for women’s rights, and the leader of the first federally authorized regiment of freed slaves during the Civil War. But his compassion and literary sensibility were also at the heart of what he was about.

This book is not, Wineapple writes, conventional literary criticism or biography. She lets Dickinson’s poetry speak largely for itself, as Higginson first read it. The result gives us a powerful insight into two extraordinary figures who were there, in a rather unusual way, for each other.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a regular contributor to BookPage.

An acclaimed biographer makes a persuasive case that editor Thomas Higginson performed a singularly significant role for poet Emily Dickinson.

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