Summer Reading

Summer is around the corner. Yesterday was my sons' last day of school (for this spring). My sons' school district, Saint Louis County Library, and Saint Louis Public Library all have launched their summer reading programs, so we have a lot of "reading logs" attached to our small white board. While I need to work on my dissertation and will thus have less time to read other books, I have also been thinking, out of curiosity, what I would like to read if I have time to read this summer. Looking at my bookshelf, it is very easy to find some books that I could not find time to read in the spring semester since I needed to write and teach. Some of them came from my book-shopping at AHA, and some from my earlier purchases, and some others came from library. I have read some of the books in this list, but would like to revisit them. And some other books are just published lately and I wish I would have a chance to read it sometime in the future.

Books About Early American History

Joanne Freeman, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War

It is easy to be aware of the violence in our own time. However, we sometimes tend to ignore the violence in our past. I still remember that just few years ago, many Taiwanse people mocked the democracy of Taiwan because of the violence, or more specifically, the fighting, in our congress. Professor Freeman's book reminds us that violence also played a significant role in the early year of American democracy.

Patrick Griffin, The Townshend Moment: The Making of Empire and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century

I know Dr. Griffin in person. He is a smart, intelligent, and hard-working historian. The guiding concept of this book is marvelous. While Pocock used "Machiavellian Moment" to define the the sphere of the political ideas in early modern Atlantic world, I think it totally makes sense for Dr. Griffin to use "Townshend Moment" to indicate the imperial concept that was reshaped and transformed in this period of time shortly before the American Revolution. I really look forward to reading his insight about it.

Books About History of other topics

Matthew Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism

One issue that really intrigues me is the role that Christianity, especially Evangelicalism, plays in American politics.  Thomas Kidd and Patricia Bonomi have shown us the way that Christian religion provided the ammunition for the ideas of the American Revolution. This book shows us how the Evangelicalism shaped and influenced modern American politics. I think it is a crucial issue for me to study if I want to understand more about current American culture. (I use "more" instead of "truly" in this sentence because American culture could mean differently for different groups of people, so I don't want to imply that there is a "true" version of American culture.) 

Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook

I got this book at AHA Book exhibit. I was intrigued by the fact that it talked about network and power. I read several pages on my way home from Chicago and found its idea about the distinction between network and hierarchy interesting and edifying, but I never had a chance to revisit it. When I conducted the final exam with my advisor two weeks ago, I found him reading this book. He told me it is a great book and I should read it when I am not writing my dissertation. Let's see how it goes. 

Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States

Not many people are ambitious enough to write a history of the United States, and even fewer people could accomplish this task. I know there are some criticisms about this book, mostly about its interpretation, and about what it fails to include. But for me, a neutral history could be really dry to read, and we should learn to enjoy reading a book without necessarily agreeing with all the arguments within. Professor Lepore explains it clearly in her introduction what this book is and what it is not. I think it is a good read, and I am looking forward to reading it.

Non-History Books (Does these books exist since everything happened in the past could be history?)

Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

As a non-native speaker of English, writing is something I really need to learn diligently to accomplish. It is not just about grammar. In many cases, it is more about the problem of style, and some other unwritten rules or customs of English writing. Moreover, writing is not just about putting word together, but a display of arguments through properly arranging the words and ideas. In other words, it is not about writing, but about thinking. The reason that I cannot write like an American is not just because I make grammatical errors in my writings here and there, but because I think in ways not like the Americans. This book is not for a foreigner like me but is written for American writers. However, I think it will be very beneficial for me if I can learn to write not only as an international scholar, but also as an American writer.