Steve Kemper, "Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor" (Mariner Books, 2022)
In the years leading up to the Second World War, the U.S. was represented in Japan by Ambassador Joseph Grew: born from a patrician family, Harvard-educated, ran away to the foreign service, and deepl...
2 Mar 202343min
Margaret Hall, "Gemignani: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond" (Applause Books, 2022)
Margaret Hall's Gemignani: Life and Lessons from Broadway and Beyond (Applause Books, 2022) is the definitive book on Broadway's greatest music director. From a youth playing in jazz bands to a storie...
1 Mar 202345min
Lara Gabrielle, "Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies" (U California Press, 2022)
From Marion Davies's humble days in Brooklyn to her rise to fame alongside press baron William Randolph Hearst, the public life story of the film star plays like a modern fairy tale shaped by gossip c...
27 Feb 202348min
Jonathan W. White and Lydia J. Davis, ed., "My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss" (U Virginia Press, 2021)
Between 1863 and 1871, Harriet M. Buss of Sterling, Massachusetts, taught former slaves in three different regions of the South, in coastal South Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Caroli...
26 Feb 202340min
Anthony Bale, "Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life (Reaktion Books, 2022) is a new account of the medieval mystic and pilgrim Margery Kempe. Kempe, who had fourteen children, traveled all over Europe and recorded a series o...
25 Feb 20231h 17min
Leonard C. Spitale, "Victorine Du Pont: The Force Behind the Family" (U Delaware Press, 2022)
Victorine Elizabeth du Pont, the first child of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont and his wife Sophie, was seven years old when her family emigrated to America, where her father established the humble beginnin...
24 Feb 202348min
Jeffrey J. Matthews, "Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot" (U Notre Dame Press, 2019)
Until he passed away in 2021, Colin Powell was revered as one of America's most trusted and admired leaders. Jeffrey J. Matthews' Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot (U Notre Dame Press, 2019) demonstrate...
24 Feb 202353min
Joseph T. Stuart, "Christopher Dawson: A Cultural Mind in the Age of the Great War" (Catholic U of America Press, 2022)
Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) was a British historian who was deeply shaken by the Great War (1914-1918) and sought to explore the history of different cultures and religions to understand the catast...
24 Feb 20231h 20min
