Recent Recommended Reading

Two books that I've been reading both offer insights on the American psyche and the culture of our nation. They are seemingly unrelated.

Michael Lewis' "The Big Short" is the story of the 2008 collapse of Wall Street's big money "products" and the players themselves. It's told through the histories of some of the players who early on spotted the defects in these financial "products" and figured out how to cash in on them. One is torn between admiration for the criminal ingeniousness of the Wall Street
bonus-fueled workers and disgust with the regulators and the so-called legitimate business organizations that encouraged their greed. But you see an underlying American quality--striving for wealth as a measure of success.

The other side of the coin is the American drive to strive for intellectual excellence as a measure of success. Megan Marshall's historical group biography: "The Peabody Sisters" is outstanding. Ms. Marshall, who teaches at Emerson in Boston, has written a biography of three women (and their extended family which includes Abigail Adams). The book tells the history of these extraordinary sisters: Elizabeth, the unmarried one who by sheer force of intellectual ability and will is credited with the founding and development of the American kindergarten; Mary whose progressive instincts eventually united her with Horace Mann, and Sophia, the artist and sculptor, who married Nathanial Hawthorne. Each of their stories shows how women were chained to narrow choices in the post-revolutionary war society. And how they struggled to use their roles as teachers to study, argue and partner with the men who were playing larger roles to influence the direction of ideas.

It not only offers insights into feminist politics and ideas, but progressive education, the impact of economic change on regional fortunes, the way both men and women earned their livings, the development of transcendentalism from the struggles within the New England church, and more. If you are from the Boston area you will be interested in the rise and fall of the cities around Boston as it finally gained dominance as a commercial and shipping center. If you have religious interests you will be fascinated by the struggles between trinitarians and unitarians and the ultimate rejection of strict Calvinism in New England. And if you are interested in progressive school reform you will find the efforts to introduce humane education to the schooling of children-a struggle we are still waging.