It’s summer and reading lists abound, some more serious than others. This year has produced a number of books on or about certain aspects of the American Revolution. Some are battlefield histories, others discussions of the issues that both unite us and divide us, and still others, attempts to resurrect people or groups of people long since forgotten.
Rick Atkinson, who helped to develop the maps used in Ken Burns’ The American Revolution, has written two detailed studies of the war. This is not your high school textbook approach. And don’t think you can’t get through 564 pages of text (you don’t have to read the 100 plus pages of notes). It’s utterly engaging and makes you realize what a sturdy lot those old colonists were.
Almost any book by Joseph Ellis is worth reading. Any good history is written in a style that engages, and Ellis always engages. His book Founding Brothers won a Pulitzer and it’s not 564 pages long.
Charles Rappleye, a journalist, gave us Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave trade, and the American Revolution, a story of two brothers, John the slave trader and Moses, an early abolitionist. They represent two facets o the idea of liberty.
Prayer for the Day
O God, Source of life, help us in this confusing time
And grant us the ability to stretch across boundaries;
Give us the courage to confront fear and hatred
And to continue to search for justice, peace, and truth.
May we search for a future full of the promises we have made,
To our community, our Nation, and the world.
In the name of the One who gives us strength always,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
But you must remember that Arbitary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
Abagail Adams, letter to John Adams May 7, 1776 (1744-1818)
Never before in the history of the world has a sociopolitical document expressed in such profound, eloquent and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality.
Martin Luther King, sermon July 4, 1965 (1929-1968)
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Paul, letter to the church in Galatia – Galatians 3:23