Booknotes: On American Character: People, Politics, and Conflict in American History
- Book Review,
by Brian Lamb (Compiler)
From Publishers Weekly
This rather desultory anthology gathers some 72 sessions of C-SPAN’s popular author-interview series, this time covering prominent nonfiction books on American history. As in the three previous Booknotes anthologies, the interviews are edited to remove host Lamb’s side of the dialogue; at their best, they read like chatty, informal essays. But the fact remains that no amount of editing can impart to conversational exchanges the kind of structure, focus and polish that makes an essay readable. In consequence, these pieces—lacking the orienting and framing clues that the host’s questions provide to the TV audience—tend to lurch from one topic to another, rarely settling down to a coherent theme. It doesn’t help that so many of the books discussed are biographies, which can give rise to perfunctory first-he-did-this-and-then-he-did-that narrative rehashes. The most coherent and interesting pieces are the polemical ones, like Victor Davis Hanson’s diatribe against American immigration policy and James Loewen’s critique of high school American history texts, both of which have the vigorous drive of an oft-rehearsed stump speech. But none of them really surmounts the problem that, no matter how lively it may sound on TV, conversational English can be very tedious to read—coarse and flat, stripped of inflection and rhythm, full of stammering repetitions and the sort of vivacious colloquialism ("For example, Union Station in Washington D. C., in 1909, she busted up a saloon and who knows? I’m not sure why she did that" blurts Fran Grace about temperance crusader Carrie Nation) that comes off as discombobulated rambling on the page. There are eminent personages aplenty in here, but they’re not shown in their best light. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
During the last 15 years, Lamb has been the host of C-SPAN's Booknotes and has interviewed more than 750 authors of nonfiction books. In this new collection, Lamb has selected 72 original pieces from these interviews and has edited them into essays. Their topics span 225 years of the American experience. They include Michael Moore (views from the Left), Ann Coulter (views from the Right), Michael Korda (memoirs of Presidents Reagan and Nixon), Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (American multiculturalism), Sandra Day O'Connor (the early years of the first female justice), Isaac Stern (his life and music), David Von Drehle (the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire), and Richard Lingeman (Sinclair Lewis). The book is divided into sections entitled "The Nation's Leaders," "Social and Political Movements in America," "America at War," "A Nation of Law and Order," "American Inventors and Businessmen," and "Our Cultural Heritage." Readers who watch Lamb's engrossing TV interviews will welcome the book. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
USA Today
"Historians and journalists unlikely to be seen on commercial tv....A dispassionate tour of American conflict..."
Time Out New York, March 25, 2004
"Presents 72 whip-smart perspectives..."
David Kinchen, Huntington News
"A good summary of books that have lasting importance and...are fun to read. Who could ask for more?"
The Weekly Standard, May 3, 2004
"Brian Lamb and his contributors provide a real service in putting so many fine American characters on display."
The Weekly Standard, May 3, 2004
"Brian Lamb and his contributors provide a real service in putting so many fine American characters on display."
Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 16, 2004
"a useful grab bag for both little peeks and thoughtful contemplations of U.S. history and its meanings for the present...
Book Description
The bestselling Booknotes series celebrates C-SPAN's 25th anniversary with a new collection examining our country and its character. Over the past twenty-five years, C-SPAN has established itself as a national treasure. And Booknotes, the flagship of its book programming, has become the premier place to see serious, thoughtful nonfiction get its television due. Over the past fifteen years, Brian Lamb, the CEO of C-SPAN and host of Booknotes, has interviewed 765 authors on the program, and these deep and wide-ranging interviews have been the basis for three bestselling Booknotes books. Now, in a new collection, Booknotes: On American Character, Lamb has selected seventy original pieces that reveal something about America: the nation's people, history, and character. Here are biographies of artists, businessmen, politicians, and inventors; stories of events famous, infamous, and less well-known in the nation's history; a look at how politics works in America and how the nation responds to conflict. Our leading historians, journalists, and public figures draw from a diverse set of sources to examine what kind of nation and people we are. The result is a valuable addition to the Booknotes legacy and a welcome read for any fan of the program.
About the Author
Brian Lamb, the founding CEO of C-SPAN, has been the host of Booknotes since its inception in 1989. He has read each of the 765 books that Booknotes has featured. Lamb lives in Arlington, Virginia.
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