Goodbye to a Legend

Sad news,

Don Haskins died on Sunday. Haskins was the coach of the 1966 Texas Western team that started 5 African Americans and won the NCAA championship, beating powerhouse Kentucky and legendary coach Adolph Rupp who has fairly or unfairly received a reputation for snubbing black stars and not recruiting them. The link to ESPN writer Andy Katz's eulogy of Haskins is here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=3574928&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1

Some may remember the movie based on that season entitled Glory Road. Apparently that was the title of a memoir that Haskins co-authored about that season. The Amazon link for that memoir is here:

http://www.amazon.com/Glory-Road-Basketball-Championship-Triumphed/dp/1401307914/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220904981&sr=8-1

Quick Update

I just saw this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/08/iraq.usforeignpolicy

Bob Woodward is writing another book about the Bush administration.

Cool Tidbits

Hola!


Lots going on as we swing into the beginning of the school year. Just a couple of quick thoughts as I head into class:


1) For those who might be embarking on research projects and thinking about primary sources for U.S. History, remember to use your local/school libraries' databases. For example, the St. Paul public library has access to New York Times' archives dating back to the 19th century. It dates back all the way to the 19th century and is a fantastic primary source for American history papers. I use it for my own personal research as well. Stay tuned for some other cool websites to consult for primary sources.


2) For those of you who may be interested in legal history/Constitutional Law/Supreme Court issues, feel free to check out another one of my blogs at: http://www.courtcommentary.blogspot.com/ I haven't posted as of late, but do hope to update it sometime soon.

3) More summer reading thoughts: In addition to finishing up the David McCullough biography of John Adams, I also did some reading in more recent history. I read Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's account of their investigative journalism during the Watergate scandal, entitled All the President's Men. I think that the reader's level of enjoyment will depend on their interest in journalism. There's a lot of cloak and dagger stuff as well as firsthand descriptions about how the reporters get the story and are able to flush much of the Watergate scandal out. There is not much from the perspective of those involved in the scandal or in government. (That was mostly covered in their second book about Nixon's last days entitled The Final Days) Still, the more I read, the more I got into it. Perhaps, if you're interested in political history (especially since that moment was such a definitive moment for the presidency) you'll find the book interesting. It's also interesting because it was the beginning of the Bob Woodward's career as perhaps the definitive chronicler of Washington politics.

P.S. Woodward closed the book on the entire Watergate story by writing a book about his famous source Deep Throat. It was revealed that the source was a high-ranking official in the FBI by the name of Mark Felt. He wrote about his relationship with Felt in a book entitled The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat. To be completely honest, I found the book to be so boring and overly introspective that I couldn't finish it. But perhaps you can!!

Frederick Douglass Papers

U.S. History students:

For those of you who read Frederick Douglass' Narrative and would like to know more, there are a number of places that you can look. William McFeely wrote a fine biography of Douglass, here is the Amazon link for the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Frederick-Douglass-William-S-McFeely/dp/039331376X

Also, you might be very well interested in the fact that the Library of Congress has put Frederick Douglass' papers (a diary, letters, newspaper clippings etc.) online. This would be an excellent primary source for any research project. (Hint, Hint, Hint) Here's the link:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/doughtml/

Enjoy and welcome back to school!

Summer Reading

Students entering eleventh grade at SPA were required to read one of two books this summer. I did a little bit of summer reading myself during this vacation.

David McCullough
Truman
Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Truman-David-McCullough/dp/0671869205/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219420544&sr=8-1

McCullough might be the most respected popular historian in the U.S. I thoroughly enjoyed his biography of John Adams that was eventually turned into a HBO miniseries starrng Paul Giamatti. I remember seeing an interview with McCullough (might have been on the History Channel) in which he said that he was surprised by how much he enjoyed writing the section about Adams' life post presidency. (Adam lived quite long after his presidency, long enough to see his son become president in 1824) I thoroughly enjoyed that section, especially his treatment of the famed Jefferson-Adam reconciliation/correspondence. Of course it doesn't hurt that Adams may be my favorite president....

Truman is a massive tome (over 900 pages) and I finally finished it this summer. I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed. It was long on narrative and description and somewhat short on analysis -especially critical analysis. A little too often, I found myself thinking, "Why am I reading this? Why in the world is this important?"

Sometimes McCullough's style works and sometimes it doesn't. Truman is long enough to have plenty of instances where it works and plenty of instances where it doesn't work. While McCullough is largely sympathetic in his biography, he does hold his subject accountable at times and sometimes takes a moment to step outside of the narrative in order to applaud, condemn or explain Truman's actions. That helps give his account some credibility despite his obvious affection for Truman. It also helps establish the moral voice that pervades all of McCullough's works.

So, if you're interested in President Truman/the Cold War/post-World War II politics, you might want to visit or might be planning to do a research paper on any topics related to the aforementioned, you might want to get the book from the library. Even if you don't read the entire work, you can always skim (that's what my wife did), use the index or keep it around as a reference work.

Salve!

Hello History Buffs, Scholars and Students!

Welcome to my site. I hope to post here regularly with interesting historical tidbits, research ideas, angles on current events and comments on interesting books that might provide more in depth information about subjects that you find interesting. So, enjoy!