David McCullough is the grandpa of popular American history. He is mild-mannered, charming, and confident but not self-important. He lacks the hard arrogance of Gore Vidal, the practiced moxie of Stephen Ambrose, the manic striving of Doris Kearns Goodwin, or the nerdy self-congratulation of…
I recently watched the independent film Night Catches Us–and yes, I intentionally use the word ‘film.’ I’m not a snob about watching movies. I’ll watch about anything (I made it through most of Sex and the City 2), but I am a believer that analysis and…
People have granted Jonathan Franzen enough attention. I mean, someone actually compared Freedom to War and Peace. Yes, the cliché lives–and the comparison remains as unfortunately abused as ever (honestly, 21st-century upper-middle class America can never provide the intense characters, events, and conflicts of 19th-century Russia). Franzen…