I can’t help it.
I have to keep reading, to feed my long habit in American history. I can’t kick it — and I’ve never wanted to try. With that in mind, here’s the latest from my library.
What I’m reading: William L. O’Neill, A Bubble In Time: America During the Interwar Years, 1989-2001
O’Neill has written a number of eminent books, among them Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s, and American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945-1960. Now he turns to a period featuring peace, prosperity and freedom from fear — contrasting sharply with the first decade of the 21st century that followed.
What I’ve just finished reading: Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815
This is the kind of book that makes you happy — and sad — at the finish: happy because you’ve just enjoyed an intellectual treat, sad because it’s the end of the treat (and this is one of the weighty volumes in the estimable Oxford History of the United States!). It’s a pleasure to learn from Wood, one of the leading historians of the American Revolution and the early United States. He offers you keen insight and an entertaining, fascinating read (though I believe his prose is sharper in the small gem that is The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Radicalism of the American Revolution).
