Nonfiction
Holy War, Popular War
In a comprehensive history of the First Crusade, Jay Rubenstein weighs in on Apocalyptic fever, the advent of chivalric warfare, and the power of popular religion
by Paul V. Griffith
January 31, 2012 Of all the sayings about history––it’s one damned thing after another; it’s written by the winners, it’s doomed to repeat itself––none is more incriminating than the one attributed to Lenin: A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. Knoxville historian Jay Rubenstein takes this phenomenon into account in Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse.
Published Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Europe’s Bloody Borderlands
Timothy Snyder talks with Chapter 16 about the peoples and territories trapped between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia during the 1930s and 1940s
by Tim Boyd
January 24, 2012 In the bestselling Bloodlands, which has been critically acclaimed and widely translated, Timothy Snyder argues that the systematic killings in the Nazi death camps were part of the same arc of violence as the mass starving inflicted on the Ukraine by the Soviets in the 1930s and the extra-legal killings perpetrated by Germans and Russians alike during their occupation of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. Snyder answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to his appearance at the University of Memphis on January 26 at 6:30 p.m. in the UC Theater.
Published Tuesday, 24 January 2012
An Original Take on an American Original
Prize-winning historian Sean Wilentz provides a fresh perspective on Bob Dylan
by Paul McCoy
January 17, 2012 Few musical artists in the last century are as revered and reviled, discussed and dissected as Bob Dylan. With an eclectic career spanning fifty years, Dylan provides an astonishingly deep well of material for writers and critics to explore—and explore they have, though rarely to such critical acclaim as the work of Sean Wilentz has received. With The New York Times bestseller Bob Dylan in America, now out in paperback, Wilentz provides a unique series of takes on specific periods in Dylan’s life and work, including his time in Nashville. He answered questions from Chapter 16 by email.
Published Tuesday, 17 January 2012
The People’s Philosopher
Noam Chomsky talks with Chapter 16 about the Occupy movement, the language of popular culture, and Gen Y
by Paul V. Griffith
January 12, 2012 During the mid-60s, Noam Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar changed forever the debate about language acquisition and provided philosophers and psychologists a new way to think about the human mind. Chomsky’s work had political implications, too, and he has emerged as one of the left’s most implacable voices, challenging the often hidden structures that lie behind the abuse of power. Noam Chomsky will discuss the Occupy Movement in a talk at Rhodes College in Memphis on January 13 at 5 p.m.
Published Thursday, 12 January 2012
Every Picture Tells a Story
William B. Jones Jr. presents the second edition of his exhaustive history of Classics Illustrated
by Tina LoTufo
January 10, 2012 The publication of the first edition of Classics Illustrated: A Cultural History in 2001 was met with great appreciation among fans of mid-century comic books and comic-book artists. In the second edition, William B. Jones Jr. has incuded more than a hundred additional pages of historical facts, interviews, photos, and illustrations from the original comics, including full-color plates of iconic covers in the series. Jones calls them “as much a part of growing up in postwar America as baseball cards, hula hoops, Barbie dolls, or rock ‘n’ roll.”
Published Tuesday, 10 January 2012
A Remarkable Life
Robert K. Massie’s biography shows the human side of Catherine the Great, Russia’s brilliant eighteenth-century monarch
by Fernanda Moore
January 9, 2012 In his new biography, Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman, Robert K. Massie (author of the bestselling Nicholas and Alexandra and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Peter the Great) follows the legendary Russian monarch’s splendid trajectory from powerless teenage girl to brilliant ruler. Massie, a former Nashville resident, recently spoke by phone with Chapter 16 about Catherine’s fascinating life—and even more fascinating character—prior to his Nashville appearance as part of the Salon@615 series. Massie will discuss Catherine the Great on January 15 at the Nashville Public Library. The event will begin with a reception at 2:15 p.m., followed by the author talk at 3. Both are free and open to the public.
Published Monday, 9 January 2012
“A Biography Its Subject Deserved”
Critics loved Michael Sims's new biography of E.B. White
by Margaret Renkl
December 15, 2011 Despite the appearance this year of The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime, and the imminent arrival of The Dead Witness, his two most recent forays as an editor, for Michael Sims 2011 was unarguably the year of The Story of Charlotte’s Web. This slim volume—a biography not so much of E.B. White as of the book for which he is best remembered—has found its way onto best-of-the-year lists all over the media, and inspired rhapsodic reviews. Today Chapter 16 surveys the praise:
Published Thursday, 15 December 2011
Back in Town
As John Jeremiah Sullivan heads back to Tennessee, Chapter 16 takes a tour through the rave reviews for Pulphead
by Margaret Renkl
November 18, 2011 John Jeremiah Sullivan, a Sewanee grad, has somehow created for himself what can only be called the best writing job in the whole world. Magazines like GQ and Harper’s and The Paris Review and the Oxford American send him out to report on all manner of subjects high and low: cave paintings on the Cumberland Plateau, the grotesque celebrity afterlife of Real World stars, Christian-rock concerts, the waning days of the last living Fugitive, scientific opinion about the future of the human race. Sullivan does more than merely report on what he finds, and does more than merely tell the story in an outrageously original way that involves a page-to-out-loud-laughter ratio of something like 1:1. He also manages the kind of alchemy that all great writing ultimately achieves: John Jeremiah Sullivan transforms every subject he writes about into himself, and himself into the subject, and somehow the reader, too, gets transformed along the way. Sullivan will appear at the Nashville Public Library on November 19 at 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Published Friday, 18 November 2011
The Woods Are Lovely
Photographer James Valentine's new book captures the fine details of an ancient place
by Joe Nolan
November 17, 2011 Southern Appalachian Celebration is not just a big book filled with pretty pictures. It’s also laced with big ideas that call for bold actions, a book that poses important questions, literally asking its readers to put themselves in the forest’s place when we consider our role as its custodian. Despite such sentiments, the book never feels like a hippie tree hug. The combination of Chris Bolgiano’s sober, clear text and James Valentine’s resonant images gives the book a Zen-like stateliness that affirms the seriousness of its intentions without insisting on its own seriousness.
Published Thursday, 17 November 2011
Adding On
Robert Morgan retells the history of America’s westward expansion
by Chris Scott
November 9, 2011 In Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion, bestselling novelist and historian Robert Morgan tells the true stories of the men who added the territories from the Appalachians to the Pacific, thereby making a country out of a continent. Morgan will discuss Lions of the West at 7 p.m. on November 14 at the Hodges Library on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville.
Published Wednesday, 9 November 2011
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