More book recommendations, these ones from my friend Roy in Sante Fe, New Mexico:
As for books…I’ve read some interesting ones lately. The most recent was “Tacky’s Revolt”, by Vincent Brown. It’s a history of the 1760 slave revolt in Jamaica, which back then was owned by the British and was a huge revenue source for Britain because of the sugar plantations there. I’d never heard of any of this, but it was a bloody and anxious time, and terrible things happened on both sides. Also recently finished “This Land Is Their Land”, by David Silverman. The subtitle is, The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the troubled history of Thanksgiving. It’s the story of what REALLY happened around the time of the 1620 landing of the Pilgrims on Cape Cod. Reader alert: it doesn’t end well. I never knew that for 2 or 3 years just before the Pilgrims landed, the entire area had been hit with a pandemic that wiped out up to 90% of the native population. It’s assumed the virus/pandemic was introduced by European sailors who’s increasingly shown up along the coastal areas. I grew up in CT, but never knew anything of this.
Also recently finished a book I really enjoyed, “Spying on the South”, by Tony Horwitz. Back in the 1850s, the guy who designed Central Park in NYC, Frederick Law Olmsted, took a trip from New England into the South, ending in TX. He wrote a book about it. Fast forward to today…Horwitz (who also wrote an earlier book I enjoyed, “Confederates in the Attic”) decided to retrace, as much as he could, the Olmsted’s route from the 1850s. So, it’s a commentary on not only the book, but his observations of modern life. Really enjoyed it, and was saddened to learn that Horwitz recently died while on a book tour to promote “Spying on the South”. Very good writer, and I’m sorry he’s gone.
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