In American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon, Mark A. Johnson examines the complicated 400-year history of what some argue is America’s favorite food — and all the cultural baggage it carries. Johnson will discuss American Bacon at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 16.
In The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War, Tom Zoellner examines a little known but crucial driver of emancipation — the actions of enslaved people who fled their owners and forged their own destinies.
In Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense, Joe Manchin describes how he rose to political power as a Democrat, then quit the party when he felt it no longer reflected his values. The book is a political memoir that passionately warns his fellow Americans of the dangers of putting party ahead of country. He will discuss Dead Center in a conversation with Brad Paisley at Vanderbilt University on September 17.
Dad was never anywhere near the fighting. In one of his early letters from Africa he reassures his mother that he is over 1,000 miles from the fighting front. But war has a way of finding people who think they are safe.
It is impossible for me to read Twain without remembering that his life began and ended with the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1835 and 1910. He predicted his demise that year and hoped to ride the comet across the heavens.
How and when did the Civil War end? That’s the question examined by Michael Vorenberg in Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War. There is no simple answer, and his investigation leads to uncomfortable questions about the nature of war in today’s world.
