Richard Cahan and Michael Williams. Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Chicago, CityFiles Press (2016). This remarkable book includes “beautiful” images by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and other government photographers. “Beautiful” is in quotes, of course, because the project that is portrayed is one that we look back on with horror More
Alex Kershaw and Richard Ernsberger, Jr. The General: William Levine, Citizen Soldier and Liberator, from Normandy to Dachau to Service in America. Chicago, Pritzker Military Museum & Library (2016). This book is, as the forward indicates, a portrait of “a family man, a businessman, and a devoted man of faith.” On that ground alone, it More
Ronald C. White. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant. New York, Random House (2016). Author Ronald C. White has the range of skills required to raise Grant’s standing as military leader, as president, and as human being. This is a tour de force, but promise me that you also will read—or reread—Grant’s Personal More
Lyn Millner. The Allure of Immortality: An American Cult, a Florida Swamp, and a Renegade Prophet. Gainesville, University of Florida Press (2015). How many visitors to today’s Fort Myers Beach, Florida, have any idea that this was the site of one of the most peculiar of America’s religious utopias? Cyrus Teed, who saw himself as a More
Timothy Stewart-Winter. Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press (2016). “The path of gays and lesbians to political power led through city hall and developed primarily in response to the constant threat of arrest under which they lived.” With this thesis, Timothy Stewart-Winter offers a carefully-researched and richly-textured More