New Books in Biography

During the first half of the 20th century the American historian Charles Austin Beard enjoyed both professional success and a national prominence that suffered with his outspoken opposition to the direction of foreign policy under Franklin Roosevelt. In Charles Austin Beard: The Return of the Master Historian of American Imperialism (Cornell University Press, 2018), Richard Drake traces the development of Beard’s ideas in this area and his involvement in the contemporary discourse over current events. Drake identifies Beard’s time at Oxford University as key to the development of his thinking, with his introduction to the works of John Ruskin and John Atkinson Hobson. Though Beard’s early writings led to a friendship with the progressive politician Robert La Follette, the two men disagreed about America’s intervention in the First World War, a cause Beard supported. In its aftermath, however, Beard reconsidered his opinion, and by the 1930s emerged as a prominent critic of America’s involvement in overseas disputes. Beard held to his views even after America’s entry into the Second World War, establishing an unlikely association with former president Herbert Hoover and offering a prescient critique in its aftermath of the consequences of America’s postwar foreign policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Though not as well known today as some of her literary contemporaries, Charlotte Lennox wrote numerous works during the mid-18th century that won her critical acclaim and influenced subsequent generations of authors. In Charlotte Lennox: An Independent Mind (University of Toronto Press, 2018), Susan Carlile draws upon Lennox’s published works, her surviving correspondence, and the studies of her era to reconstruct the life and times of this remarkable writer. Growing up in Britain’s Atlantic empire, young Charlotte Ramsay’s preparations for a position in the court were derailed by her marriage to an impecunious Scotsman. In need of an income, the newly married Lennox attempted a career as an actress before turning to her pen for her livelihood. Though her early writing won both a wide audience and the admiration of such influential figures as Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding, Lennox faced the continuous challenges common to writers of the era of earning an income sufficient for her family’s needs. As Carlile details, this led Lennox to produce both fiction and nonfiction across a range of genres, which demonstrated the scope of her skills and inspired numerous imitators and successors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Though overshadowed today by more celebrated figures, Walter Francis White was one of the most prominent campaigners for civil rights in mid-20th-century America. As Ronald L. Lewis and Robert L. Zangrando detail in Walter F. White: The NAACP’s Ambassador for Racial Justice(West Virginia University Press, 2019), for all his relative obscurity today White’s accomplishments did much to lay the groundwork for the civil rights victories won later in the century. Growing up in Atlanta, White enjoyed the benefits of a middle-class upbringing and a college education. His work to establish a chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Atlanta brought him to the attention of James Weldon Johnson, who brought him to New York in 1918 to work full time for the organization. Throughout the 1920s White worked to expose the atrocities of lynching as part of the NAACP’s unsuccessful campaign to ban such violence. Upon succeeding Johnson as executive secretary of the organization in 1931, White dealt with both the ongoing problems of racism and the challenges imposed by the Great Depression, which he worked to surmount with constant organizing and lobbying. During the 1940s White used his relationships with both Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to win greater federal action to surmount discrimination, though in his later years he faced a series of frustrations that were exacerbated both by his ill health and the controversy surrounding his divorce and remarriage to a white woman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Music lovers and researchers alike have long been fascinated by the story of Ludwig van Beethoven who became profoundly deaf as an adult and could not hear some of his most famous compositions including the Ninth Symphony. Many people have written about Beethoven’s deafness and speculated how he might have been able to compose despite his disability. Robin Wallace, however, is the first musicologist to write about Beethoven’s life and music who has had an intimate experience with deafness. Hearing Beethoven: A Story of Musical Loss and Discovery published by University of Chicago Press in 2018 pairs a new consideration of the effects of Beethoven’s deafness on his life and music with a loving memoir of the last years of Wallace’s first marriage after his wife, Barbara, suddenly lost her hearing. Written for a general audience as well as musicologists, in Hearing Beethoven, Wallace applies what he learned from Barbara’s experiences to Beethoven’s life. Wallace focuses on three main areas: Beethoven’s social life, the technology he used to help him hear speaking voices and music, and his compositional method and music. While providing new insights into Beethoven’s biography and compositions, Wallace also undermines some of the most enduring myths about Beethoven. He reminds us that neither Beethoven nor his wife Barbara overcame the challenges presented by their deafness, instead they strove to find “wholeness by learning to live within them.”Robin Wallace is a Professor of Musicology in the School of Music at Baylor University. He has published widely on the critical reception of Beethoven’s music including his first book, Beethoven’s Critics: Aesthetic Dilemmas and Resolutions During the Composer’s Lifetime (University of Cambridge Press, 1986). In addition to his scholarly publications, Wallace is the author of an introductory music textbook from Oxford University Press titled Take Note: An Introduction to Music through Active Listening.Kristen M. Turner, Ph.D. is a lecturer at North Carolina State University in the music department. Her work centers on American musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has been published in several journals and essay collections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Even now, eighty years after its beginning in Europe, the Second World War continues to exert tremendous cultural and social influence on American historical writing. Perhaps one of the best testaments to this phenomenon is the increased interest in biographies of the war’s primary and secondary army commanders. Remarkably there are still quite a number of misplaced or even “lost” personalities who exerted tremendous impact on the course of the war. The guest for this episode of New Books in Military History, Mark T. Calhoun, directly engages the mysteries and legacies of one such individual in his book, General Lesley J. McNair: Unsung Architect of the U.S. Army (University Press of Kansas, 2018). In this pioneering study of one of the World War Two era US Army’s primary architects of victory, Calhoun presents a portrait of a deeply intellectual and loyal commander who took on responsibility for many unpopular doctrinal and ToE choices. From his early career as a young first lieutenant before the First World War, through to his sensationalized death in one of the war’s most infamous friendly fire incidents, McNair is presented first and foremost as a dedicated civil military servant, devoted to the institution and the welfare of the enlisted men and junior officers who depended upon his expertise and judgment. Mark T. Calhoun is currently attached with the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he is an associate professor at the School of Advanced Military Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Charles de Gaulle is one of the greatest figures of twentieth century history. If Sir Winston Churchill was (in the words of Harold Macmillan) the "greatest Englishman In history", then Charles de Gaulle was without a doubt, the greatest Frenchman since Napoleon Bonaparte. Why so? In the early summer of 1940, when France was overrun by German troops, one junior general who had fought in the trenches in Verdun refused to accept defeat. He fled to London, where he took to the radio to address his compatriots back home. “Whatever happens,” he said, “the flame of French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished.” At that moment, Charles de Gaulle entered history.For the rest of the war, de Gaulle insisted he and his Free French movement were the true embodiment of France. Through sheer force of his personality and the grandeur of his vision of France, he inspired French men and women to risk their lives to resist the Nazi occupation. Usually proud and aloof, but almost always confident in his own leadership, he quarreled violently with Churchill, Roosevelt and many of his own countrymen. Yet they knew they would need his help to rebuild a shattered France. Thanks to de Gaulle, France was recognized as one of the victorious Allies when Germany was finally defeated. Then, as President of the Fifth Republic, he brought France back from the brink of a civil war over the war in Algeria. And, made the difficult decision to end the self-same war. Thereafter he challenged American hegemony, took France out of NATO, and twice vetoed British entry into the European Community in his pursuit of what he called “a certain idea of France.”Julian Jackson, Professor of History at Queen Mary College, University of London, past winner of the Wolfson History Prize and the winner in 2018 of the Paris Book Award for his book on De Gaulle--De Gaulle (Harvard University Press, 2018)--has written a magnificent biography, the first major reconsideration in over twenty years. Drawing on the extensive resources of the recently opened de Gaulle archives, Jackson reveals the conservative roots of de Gaulle’s intellectual formation and upbringing, sheds new light on his relationship with Churchill, and shows how de Gaulle confronted riots at home and violent independence movements abroad from the Middle East to Vietnam. No previous biography has so vividly depicted this towering figure whose legacy remains evident in present-day France. In short Professor Jackson has written a superb book, which in every way possible is a glittering ornament in the biographical art.Charles Coutinho holds a doctorate in history from New York University. Where he studied with Tony Judt, Stewart Stehlin and McGeorge Bundy. His Ph. D. dissertation was on Anglo-American relations in the run-up to the Suez Crisis of 1956. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. It you have a recent title to suggest for a podcast, please send an e-mail to Charlescoutinho@aol.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

How did a Wall Street executive and “foreclosure king” like Steve Mnuchin become the Treasury Secretary for a populist like Donald Trump, and what is he doing to the country now that he’s there? David Dayen and Rebecca Burns tackle those questions in their book Fat Cat: The Steve Mnuchin Story(Strong Arm Press, 2018). They trace Mnuchin not-so-humble origins and his recurring presence in companies impacted by the 2008 market crash, which prompted Sen. Elizabeth Warren to call him “the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis.” They argue that as Treasury Secretary, he has pursued policies that betray Trump’s claim to the populist mantle, rolling back bank regulations and performing lax enforcement. And they criticize the tax reform bill that Mnuchin championed, asserting that it helped the wealthy at the expense of the middle-class.Bill Scher is a Contributing Editor for POLITICO Magazine. He has provided political commentary on CNN, NPR and MSNBC. He has been published in The New York Times, The New Republic, and The New York Daily News among other publications. He is author of Wait! Don’t Move to Canada, published by Rodale in 2006. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

While William Penn’s name is one familiar to many Americans thanks to his founding of the Pennsylvania colony, this accomplishment can overshadow both his role as a leading 17th-century English Quaker and his pioneering contributions to Western political thought. In William Penn: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2018), Andrew R. Murphy recounts the range of Penn’s achievements and the many obstacles he overcame in the process. The son of a Royal Navy officer, Penn spent many of his early years in a restless search for personal fulfillment. This he found when he turned to Quakerism, his conversion to which set him at odds with the dominant Anglican faith. Penn’s preaching and his campaigns against the state’s intolerance of religious dissent both fueled his status as one of the most prominent members of England’s Quaker community and led him to be jailed several times. Though he viewed Pennsylvania as a haven for Quakers, the many challenges of establishing a colony in North America both limited Penn’s time in the New World and left him with enormous debts that he spent his final years working to resolve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Black Elk witnessed some of the most monumental moments in the history of the Lakota and the Northern Great Plains: Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murder of Crazy Horse, Wounded Knee. In his compelling new biography, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2016), award-winning nonfiction writer and journalist Joe Jackson tells the story of this place and these events through the chronicle of Black Elk’s life. As one of the most globally famous practitioners of Lakota spirituality, Black Elk’s life is well known. Jackson uses an array of sources to breathe new life into his story and presents the complicated, sometimes tragic, sometimes hopeful figure within his historical context. Jackson’s prose is crisp and vibrant, and the narrative of Black Elk’s religious and personal lives make for a page-turning story. Black Elk: The Fife of an American Visionary won the 2017 Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians.Stephen Hausmann is a doctoral candidate at Temple University and Visiting Instructor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently writing his dissertation, a history of race and the environment in the Black Hills and surrounding northern plains region of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

While most people in the US are familiar with the ubiquitous Kellogg cereal brand, few know how it relates to US geography, science and technology around the turn of the 20th century. In A Geography of Digestion: Biotechnology and the Kellogg Enterprise (University of California Press, 2017), Nicholas Bauch explores the digestive system as a sociomaterial landscape developed from the Battle Creek Sanitarium, as run by Dr. John Kellogg. Bauch wants to focus less on Kellogg the man, but rather on Kellogg’s ability to enroll actants (a la Latour) in his geographical digestive network. Kellogg’s religious background as a Seventh-Day Adventist, and his scientific and medical training, made purity and cleanliness his central goals at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Responding to the social and personal problems of indigestion and stagnation, Kellogg instituted a regime of tests, procedures and strict dieting (amongst other restrictions) to cure such prevalent ills. Kellogg thought that natural food was too impure a diet, so instead he turned to highly processed foods as developed in his experimental kitchen, which incidentally was how the first cereal flakes were made. Even with such plain and processed dieting, Kellogg found the human digestive system unable to process substances efficiently on its own. This problem led Kellogg to conceptualize an extended digestive system by developing a sewage system. Eventually, Kellogg became reliant upon industrial farming in rural Michigan. New developments in industrial equipment, such as grain-threshing machines, and industrial chemicals, to enrich the soil, provided a relatively clean and efficient food production process to fulfill the sanitarium’s needs. Before his death, Kellogg thus purified the nature/culture binary of food in favor of scientific approach, and engineered a collective digestive system across Battle Creek and nearby areas.While some of Kellogg’s ideas seem antiquarian to today’s standards, Bauch makes a compelling argument for why we can see Kellogg’s paradoxical influence on today’s US food production and consumption. While Kellogg railed against the dominant “natural” cuisine of his day in favor of a new approach to processed foods, the new food movements of today are decidedly critical of processed foods; while Kellogg wanted zero bacteria in the gut, today there are numerous products that are probiotics. What the new food movements gain from Kellogg is not his precise views, but rather his focus on the gut and the potential medicinal properties of food.A Geography of Digestion presents not only a geographical history, but a methodology for exploring sociomaterial processes as landscapes for future researchers to use in other contexts. As such, scholars interested in the relation between science and space, food studies, and materialist approaches to the body will find much use of this recently published work.Chad J. Valasek is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology & Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests includes the history of the human sciences, the influence of the behavioral sciences on medical practice and health policy, and political activism around science and the arts. You can follow him on Twitter @chadjvalasek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography