Chris Scott

August 13, 2013 Peter Carlson’s third work of history, Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey, relates the true and little-known tale of two intrepid Yankee reporters captured and imprisoned in the Confederacy. This grand tale of adventure reveals much about the Civil War without rehashing the well-worn stories of battles and leaders. It is a gloriously entertaining book that should be on the reading list of anyone curious about the underbelly of the Civil War.

August 12, 2013 In Coup: The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor, Put Republican Lamar Alexander in Office Early, and Stopped a Pardon Scandal, Nashvillian Keel Hunt remembers a day in 1979 that will long stand as both a model of bipartisanship and a defense of the people’s right to honest government. Hunt will discuss Coup at the Nashville Public Library (where he will appear with journalist John Seigenthaler) on August 15, 2013, at 6 p.m.; at at Vanderbilt University (where he will appear with Senator Lamar Alexander) on September 20 at 4:30 p.m.; and at the Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 11-13. All events are free and open to the public.

March 26, 2013 Bob Thompson’s Born on a Mountaintop: On the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier is a fine example of what might be called road-trip history—the chronicle of a literal footstep-tracing journey through the life of some famous personage. That Davy Crockett spent much of his life in search of land on which he could scratch out a living makes a peripatetic narrative the perfect form for this new examination of the life and legend of an American hero.

February 25, 2013 As bestselling author Evan Thomas recounts in Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World, the thirty-fourth president was a master at both reading people and playing the odds, abilities that served him well whether at the bridge table or the negotiating table. Thomas argues that Ike bluffed his way through eight years of confrontation with the Russians and Chinese, preventing a war that he believed would leave civilization a smoldering heap. Thomas will appear with Jon Meacham to discuss Ike’s Bluff at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on February 28, as part of the Salon@615 series. The event is free and open to the public.