January 2011

Shakespeare—that master limner of the ways of kings—probed the frequent conflict between sovereigns and their heirs- apparent in Henry IV, Part I. While the king concerns himself with fractious nobles, treason, and other cares of state, his son, Prince Hal, concerns himself with wine, women, and song. But Hal tells the audience early on that his loose behavior has a purpose, and he promises that, one day, “like bright metal on a sullen ground,/My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,/Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend to make offense a skill;/Redeeming time when men think least I will.”

Since Hal at this point in the play has just plotted both a felony and a practical joke on his fellow criminals, this statement might seem dubious. But Shakespeare’s audience, of course, knew that Hal was the future King Henry V and that he would indeed redeem time, and himself, on the field of Agincourt.

Discovering the black slave owner: an all-but-forgotten class of men whose lives were beset with the grimmest of ironies … our popular winter art show, back again (and this time you can come see it in the flesh) … Abraham Lincoln’s tormented marriage … why the ghastly Deerfield massacre became a symbol of the whole struggle for North America … seeking the American Bahamas … and, as the first augury of what we hope will be a prosperous New Year, more.

“No legs, no gags, no chance,” the producer Mike Todd famously assessed a new show that was trying out in New Haven. But when this particular turkey opened in New York, police had to hold the crowds back from the box office. It ran for half a decade. It won a special citation from the Pulitzer Committee. And it changed the musical theater forever. On the fiftieth anniversary of Oklahoma! John Steele Gordon tells what made it the most important musical in Broadway history.

Ethan Nadelmann is a historian at Princeton University; David Courtwright is a historian at the University of North Florida. Both men have spent years studying how past generations fought drug addiction, and they have come up with diametrically opposed historical lessons. Here, each presents his case on how best to cope with a national scourge.

Drug legalization Oklahoma! Plus…

When, some years ago, Nigel Hamilton, the English biographer of Field Marshal Montgomery, told an American friend that he hoped one day to write about John F. Kennedy, the friend protested that there were already far too many books about Kennedy and his family. Hamilton agreed, but he also added that “no one had ever written a complete life, in the English tradition.”

Having read the resulting volume, JFK: Reckless Youth, meant to be the first of three, I am not sure just what he meant. The Brits may have pioneered the multi-volume biography of statesmen, but they have long since been crowded out of the franchise, as a visit to the heavily laden biography shelves of any American bookstore will demonstrate. Hamilton manages to get his subject all the way to Congress in 928 pages, roughly the pace set by a good many American biographers of politicians who were far less important than John Kennedy.

by Alex Jaramillo; Abbeville Press; 96 pages.

Does the world really need a book on Cracker Jack prizes, you may wonder. When you have seen this one, you will be convinced. The prizes, selected from the author’s collection of about five thousand, are arranged by decade: tiny metal elephants and flatirons and whistles; paper eyeshades and eyeglasses; lithographed cards that do tricky things when you pull a tab or spin a wheel. As presented here, every one looks desirable, and the plastic trinkets from the 1940s manage to look as if they’re fashioned of jade.

Your special issue shows how and why historical novels have enticed so many of us into the past. This year, in recognition of the ways in which novels have stimulated and broadened our understanding of history, the Society of American Historians has inaugurated the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for the best historical novel on an American theme. The Cooper Prize, consisting chiefly of one thousand dollars, will be awarded every other year. Books must be copyrighted in 1991 or 1992 to be eligible for the first Cooper competition. Details can be obtained from the Society of American Historians at Butler Library Box 2, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.

In volume and quality Louis L’Amour positioned himself as a premier writer of the American West and the early American frontier and as a student of world history. The problem, I suspect, is that his novels have great public appeal and thus are not seen as “literature.” I would like to submit this prolific and creative writer as the dean of the historical novel. If nothing else, L’Amour has helped to educate the general public about the lives of our ancestors.