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A review by lieslindi
Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough
What a pleasure he is to read. I love his writing style. Unsurprisingly, some pieces appeared originally in Smithsonian.
I learned that Conrad Richter, who wrote the wrenching Light in the Forest, also wrote Sea of Grass. I watched the cinematization because of Hepburn and Tracy. I didn't know it was based on a novel. Now I'm drawing parallels between the themes of the two works, and thinking that, though rain didn't really follow the plough, and though the plough would ruin the land, nor did cattle-grazing suit it as well as oceans of bison. The two species eat in different patterns; their hooves affect the earth in different ways; and of course the needs of the rancher are not those of the bison.
I learned about the Humboldt for whom Pacific currents, a California county, and several species are named. He should be as familiar to the U.S. psyche as Lewis & Clark.
I learned that Harriet Beecher Stowe befriended Byron's widow on her Continental tour and that it was Stowe who, after the widow also died, told the world about Byron's alleged incest and the resultant child. I wonder how much evidence there is beyond the word of the reasonably bitter abandoned wife passed to a confidante decades after the birth. Wikipedia says the married mother's husband never questioned the child's paternity.
I learned that Conrad Richter, who wrote the wrenching Light in the Forest, also wrote Sea of Grass. I watched the cinematization because of Hepburn and Tracy. I didn't know it was based on a novel. Now I'm drawing parallels between the themes of the two works, and thinking that, though rain didn't really follow the plough, and though the plough would ruin the land, nor did cattle-grazing suit it as well as oceans of bison. The two species eat in different patterns; their hooves affect the earth in different ways; and of course the needs of the rancher are not those of the bison.
I learned about the Humboldt for whom Pacific currents, a California county, and several species are named. He should be as familiar to the U.S. psyche as Lewis & Clark.
I learned that Harriet Beecher Stowe befriended Byron's widow on her Continental tour and that it was Stowe who, after the widow also died, told the world about Byron's alleged incest and the resultant child. I wonder how much evidence there is beyond the word of the reasonably bitter abandoned wife passed to a confidante decades after the birth. Wikipedia says the married mother's husband never questioned the child's paternity.