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A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Name: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Author: Paul Johnson
ISBN: 0-06-016836-6

by Paul Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1998

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From veteran British popular historian Johnson, an overly exhaustive account of the vigorous and violent growth of several small British colonies into the modern American nation. Although Johnson (The Birth of the Modern, 1991, etc.) purports to present the history of the "American people," his account has an undeniably British orientation; No details can be found here of the cultures of pre-European inhabitants of North America or the history of areas not originally settled by British colonists, such as Louisiana or the Southwest. Johnson divides his account into eight periods, of which some dates seem dubious (one might question dating America's career as a superpower to 1929, the first year of the Great Depression). More troubling, though understandable in a book of this encyclopedic scope, are the author's omissions and occasionally provocative assertions. In his account of the Civil War period, for instance, Johnson fails to discuss the militarily significant Western War, and he asserts, contrary to most accounts and without much apparent authority, that Abraham Lincoln didn't love his wife and didn't like Secretary of State Seward. Johnson traces not only the military, but also the political, social, and cultural history of America. He treats such disparate topics as the poetry of Walt Whitman, the developing role of women in American society, the growth of vast business combinations in the early 20th century, immigration and urbanization, the Vietnam War, and the 1973-74 "putsch against the Executive" (which is what Johnson calls the Watergate scandal). He editorializes on virtually every subject, sometimes controversially. Noting the many problems faced by modern America, Johnson concludes nonetheless that "the story of America is essentially one of difficulties being overcome by intelligence and skill, by faith and strength of purpose, by courage and persistence." A vast tour-de-force of research and writing. Nonetheless, Johnson tries to do too much here, and the overall result is as much of a labor to read as it must have been to write.

Pub Date: March 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-06-016836-6

Page Count: 944

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1997

Categories:

HISTORY | UNITED STATES | GENERAL HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
EISENHOWER
by Paul Johnson

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STALIN
by Paul Johnson

- BOOK REVIEW
MOZART
by Paul Johnson

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WHO WROTE THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS?

THE SEARCH FOR THE SECRET OF QUMRAN

by Norman Golb ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1995

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The freshest, most elegantly written of the new books about the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls (see Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 1107, The Hidden Scrolls, p. 1108). In this very thorough study, Golb (Jewish History and Civilization/Univ. of Chicago) surveys earlier scholarship on the topic and finds it wanting. Almost all of the individuals and groups who have devoted themselves to piecing together and deciphering the scrolls and fragments found between 1947 and 1955 have believed they were written by scribes of the Essene community who lived in the ``monastery'' of Qumran not far from the shores of the Dead Sea. In 1980 Golb advanced his own explanation of the scrolls' origins: Qumran was not a monastery but a fortress, he argued, and the scrolls represent the remnants of the libraries of Jerusalem's various Jewish sects, who, in order to preserve their manuscripts from the Roman conquerors in the first century a.d., hid these religious and literary treasures in the Dead Sea area. Backing up his assertions here, Golb makes accessible some very technical material, demystifying the process of manuscript discovery, reconstruction, and decipherment. While many of his academic adversaries have depicted him as an upstart and a professional gadfly, he emerges from this volume as a reasoned, impassioned advocate of a more likely scenario for the concealment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He doesn't spring his solution on us suddenly; he includes the reader in the process by which someone who has been involved in scroll research for the better part of his life, who once accepted the ``Qumran Hypothesis,'' began to see problems with it in the early '70s and eventually developed a compelling alternative. While detailing that process, Golb also chronicles the battles for control of the scrolls' possession and publication, a story that has been told before, though not in such exhaustive detail. The legions of scroll aficionados around the world can now read of conflicts both ancient and modern in a lively and informative new book. (Book-of-the-Month/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selections; author tour)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-02-544395-X

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL HISTORY | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

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RAJIV GANDHI AND RAMA'S KINGDOM

by Ved Mehta ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1995

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Essays (most originally published in the New Yorker) providing a lucid account of the chaotic course of Indian politics since 1982. Mehta (Up at Oxford, 1993, etc.) tells the colorful story of Indian politics through a series of emblematic tales of envy, intrigue, and betrayal. The cast of characters encompasses Indira Gandhi's family, Congress Party politicians and their clients, and new Sikh and Hindu communalist leaders. With his characteristic attention to detail, Mehta illuminates the significance of the exact words used by Mrs. Gandhi to eject her late son Sanjay's widow, Maneka, from her home, resulting in Maneka's political counterattack; the particular British university degrees that Rajiv Gandhi falsely claimed (both Cambridge and London universities deemed him ``not a suitable candidate for a degree''); and the precise length and width of the enormous Indian paper ballots. The big story is of a country teetering toward collapse as Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi successively lose control of politics, endanger national unity by mishandling regional and religious conflicts, and die at the hands of assassins. Mehta deploys durable Western stereotypes of India to make his story intelligible. Indian women are dependent and helpless; Sikhs are fiery religious extremists; Indian mobs are elemental forces beyond anyone's control. Worst of all for a Western intellectual or tourist, the phones do not work. These exotic defects Mehta links explicitly to India's status as a medieval country where religious fanatics and old-fashioned Congress Party socialists stand in the way of a successful passage to the modern world. Mehta's innocent faith in market forces and progress make a complicated story meaningful but also perpetuate Western anxieties about the alien, unpredictable, and menacing character of modern India. (3 illustrations, not seen)