by Richard Subber | May 13, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Revolutionary War
It’s historical, but it’s not history…
Book review:
The Liberty Bell
by Gary B. Nash
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010
The Liberty Bell is lavishly detailed, and it’s a quick read. Give it a try.
Much of what you “know” about the Liberty Bell isn’t quite right. For starters, the dramatically cracked icon sitting in the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia isn’t the “real” bell ordered in 1752 by the Pennsylvania Provisional Assembly. The original bell cracked the first time it was rung, and it was melted and recast as the one-ton bell we now think of as “the” Liberty Bell. It was cracked in the middle of the 19th century. It doesn’t ring any more.
The bell wasn’t called the “Liberty Bell” until about 50 years after the Revolutionary War started, when it was “adopted” as an icon of freedom by anti-slavery advocates.
I remember seeing the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia in the 1950s when I was a kid. I think the guards said nobody could touch it, but I think I put my finger on it when they weren’t looking.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
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many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Apr 22, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature
toil and trouble….and craziness
Book review:
The Witches: Salem, 1692
by Stacy Schiff (b1961)
Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2015
498 pages
It may be that Stacy Schiff has neglected to include some fact or sentiment about the Salem witch trials, but I can’t imagine what it might be. The Witches is an expansive compendium of the whos and whats and whys and wherefores of this compelling—yet essentially impenetrable—story about a community gone crazy.
Maybe you had to be there to understand it.
It’s too easy to suggest that the McCarthy Communism hunting in 1954 is a modern analogy, but it won’t work. The whole dreadful McCarthy thing was a political football, approaching a sideshow even though it attracted the nominal attention of the nation and destroyed many lives.
The Salem witch trials (and the witch hunting that went on in neighboring towns) consumed the waking hours of all the townsfolk, who were deeply convinced that witches exist and that they were in league with satanic forces.
For my taste, Schiff tells too much of the story. I would have been content with a less detailed account. There is repetition that is dispensable.
For my taste, she struck a good balance between telling the story as it happened, and inviting the reader to suspect that the teenage girls were fooling all along, and that too many accusers had a personal reason to “get” the accused, and that too many religious and civic leaders who struggled unsuccessfully with their religious faith and the opposing impulses of their arguably decent selves had quickly figured out that the witch craze was a very nasty game.
You don’t need to read the whole book to figure out that there was some very destructive bogus stuff going on in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692.
You don’t need to read the whole book to be convinced that some folks aren’t continuously motivated by a decent streak of good will and a desire to support communal well-being.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Apr 16, 2022 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Revolutionary War
He didn’t mention the “k” word…
Book review:
Common Sense
by Thomas Paine
Isaac Kramnick, ed., intro.
New York: Penguin Books, 1986
When I re-read a classic, I try to prepare myself for a couple “aha!” moments and one or two “uh oh!” moments.
I wasn’t disappointed in reading Common Sense this time.
Paine first published (anonymously) his 47-page “pamphlet” on January 10, 1776, after the shooting at Lexington-Concord and before the Declaration of Independence was approved.
Of course, everyone knows Paine argued for “independance” (his 18th century spelling).
This time around, it’s of interest to me to note that Paine very carefully avoided directly challenging King George III by name or even by spelling out his title—the text is full of “k—” references. Paine fully and explicitly described and condemned the bad things that old George was doing and likely to do.
Also, it’s of interest to me that Paine notably includes in his arguments for “independance” that America’s trade and international commerce would be buttressed by separation of the British colonies from Britain. He freely uses “America” and “Americans” in referring to the colonies and the colonists, although a huge majority of English colonists likely thought of themselves as “British” citizens.
Paine gives ample space to biblical themes.
Common Sense was widely and repeatedly republished in 1776 and thereafter—it was astoundingly popular in America, Britain, and elsewhere. Historians suspect that 75,000-100,000 copies were printed.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
by Richard Subber | Apr 4, 2022 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews, Tidbits
…ready to pop…
Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey
Director: Emile Ardolino
100 minutes
Oscar for Best Music, Original Song: “The Time Of My Life”
I want to go deeper than the “ugly duckling/Prince Charming/red hot final dance” story—for me, highlights of the film are Baby’s naiveté, and her ingenuous embrace of the very hot Johnny, and her eager awareness of her rising woman’s heat…
Some context: in 1987 many Dirty Dancing viewers would have been more than slightly discomfited by the matter-of-fact abortion episode, and perhaps nonplussed by Baby’s casual deception to come up with the $250 to pay for it. Wowee. It’s great to help out a friend of a friend and all, but that seems like a baffling stretch for a timorous young girl of Baby’s obvious unworldliness.
On the other hand, Baby’s hormones are ready to pop.
You know, you really can say “dirty dancing” in a nice way.
Alone with Johnny, in the prelude to intimacy scene, Baby suddenly opens up: “I’m scared of everything…I’m scared of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”
That’s a heartbeat. You felt it, too.
Here’s hoping that you’ve had a moment, an embrace, a volcanic new feeling of desire that you feared you would never feel the rest of your whole life.
I have.
And now I know I didn’t have to be afraid.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
the summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 23, 2022 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading
a really good book about books…
Book review:
84, Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff
New York: Grossman Publishers, 1970
84, Charing Cross Road is a perhaps iconic epistolary opus and a minor delight for bibliophile readers.
Helene Hanff (1916-1997) was an antiquarian book freak in New York City who was thrilled to have a 20-year long-distance relationship by mail with the staff of a small book shop in London at 84, Charing Cross Road, namely, Marks & Co.
Her love of books, her humanity, and her blithe spirit are on display, as is the somewhat reserved and very British geniality of Frank Doel and the staffers at Marks & Co. who kept Helene supplied with the obscure old books that she loved so much.
If you’re still reading this review, you probably are ready to start reading the book.
Otherwise, you know…
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2022 All rights reserved.
Book review: Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood…it ain’t Shakespeare
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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