Twenty Clerks
Those of you have read my review of the recent Wilson biography XX know that I have strong views on footnotes. Every historian, I believe, owes footnotes to future historians. It is only through good footnotes that one historian can retrace the steps of a prior historian, confirm whether the work is accurate, assess whether…
Read MoreHarvard Mock Trial
This past weekend I took about twenty Exeter kids to Harvard for a mock trial training weekend. The weekend has two main components: lectures by the Harvard students, in which they explain some of the basics of mock trial, and a scrimmage among the various high school students, in which they get a chance to…
Read MoreIndex Issues
I am reading today Washington In Lincoln’s Time, by Noah Brooks. Most scholars work with the edited version, published by Herbert Mitgang in 1958. Mitgang’s book has some useful notes and pictures, but I am working instead with the online version of the original version, published by Century in 1896. Why? The INDEX. According to…
Read MoreNational Book Festival
I spoke yesterday to perhaps three or four hundred people at the National Book Festival on the mall in Washington. Then signed books and posters and programs for perhaps a hundred people–including some old friends. For those who were not there, and want to see what I said, CSPAN was there and taped it, and…
Read MoreGoodbye Again
John Denver, in his song Goodbye Again, sings that “I have to go to see some friends of mine, some that I don’t know, some that aren’t familiar with my name. It’s something that’s inside of me, not hard to understand, it’s anyone who’ll listen to me sing.” Well, I am not that bad, but…
Read MoreEnd of Summer
Summer is coming to an end. We are in southern California, starting tomorrow to drive back to New Hampshire, which we hope to reach in five days. As you can see from the events list, I have a number of Seward events this fall: in New England, New York, and Washington. I did not really…
Read MoreNantucket Notes
I spent this past weekend on Nantucket, for the Nantucket Book Festival. I flew with my parents from Los Angeles, and we were met and hosted by their old friends the Shacklefords, the best hosts possible. We also saw our friend Jane Moore, another friend from my father’s law school days, and from my own…
Read MoreSummer
A few months back I had envisaged this as a summer devoted to Stanton. And it still will be, to some extent. But it is also a summer devoted to other things. I am headed tomorrow to Nantucket, where I will speak about Seward, but also spend time with parents, friends, hopefully meet some other…
Read MoreGraduation
It is seven am on what promises to be a beautiful graduation day here at the Phillips Exeter Academy. In one sense I do not have any of my own children graduating; my son graduated from Exeter in 2011 and my daughter (God willing) will graduate one year from now. In another sense though I…
Read MoreThomas & Hyman
A serious biographer has a love-hate relationship with the prior biography of his subject. At least, that is my relation with the biography of Stanton by Benjamin Thomas and Harold Hyman in 1962. On the one hand I love the book because it presents a full and fair view of Stanton: the best life of…
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