Benjamin René Jordan describes how the Boy Scouts helped to define modern manhood
In Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910-1930, Benjamin René Jordan describes how the Boy Scouts of America adapted older ideals of manhood to fit a modern nation, making adolescent boys better corporate citizens and leaders. Jordan will discuss his research at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on September 24 at 2 p.m.
Daryl A. Carter reckons with the ambivalent racial legacy of President Bill Clinton
In Brother Bill: President Clinton and the Politics of Race and Class, historian Daryl A. Carter considers several critical episodes in the Clinton years, taking measure of the forty-second President’s racial policies and thinking, separating fact from fiction and history from memory. Carter will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 14-16. All festival events are free and open to the public.
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Michael Bess talks with Chapter 16 about Our Grandchildren Redesigned, a speculative look at the near future
January 20, 2016 Historian of technology Michael Bess talks with Chapter 16 about the human relationship to machines, representations of the future in science fiction, the problem of labor and work in a bioengineered society, and what it will mean to be human in the coming decades. His new book is Our Grandchildren Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future.
Meddling is philosopher John Lachs’s plea for the freedom that comes from leaving others alone
October 15, 2015 With Meddling: On the Virtues of Leaving Others Alone, John Lachs offers a defense of libertarian values that is full of workaday examples in a very readable form. Lachs will give a reading at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 22, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.
Irrepressible is Emily Bingham’s exploration of the scandalous life of her great-aunt
August 31, 2015 Irrepressible: The Jazz Age of Henrietta Bingham by Emily Bingham recovers the fascinating story of the author’s great-aunt, a violet-eyed, cherub-faced beauty who captivated social and cultural elites on both sides of the Atlantic with her hard-drinking, bohemian ways. Bingham will appear at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 9-11, 2015.
Michael A. Ross recovers the fascinating story of a forgotten kidnapping case that reveals the complexities of Reconstruction-era politics
October 21, 2014 In The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case, historian Michael Ross adapts the genres of true-crime narrative and courtroom drama to recover a forgotten story that captured national attention nearly 150 years ago. In clear, bright prose Ross deftly sorts through the complexities of Reconstruction-era politics to tell the story of two mixed-race women accused of abducting a white toddler. He will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on October 28, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.
