Teacher and Author
Ian Toll‘s Pacific War Trilogy, coming in at more than 1,700 pages of text and 500 pages of notes and sources, obviously aims for comprehensiveness. Yet, in its breadth, there are nevertheless many moments of you-were-there intimacy. Instead of dry … Continued
Silly or serious? Silly and serious? The fight over American Dirt can seem either or both. “Mexicans have been writing about the border and borderlands published in English since the 1800s. It is a bit insulting that someone thinks we … Continued
To start with, only one lived to tell his tale. Only one could, in subsequent years, collect information from the public record and recollect his actions, thoughts, and emotions at the time. The other left only letters for a stranger … Continued
The physical suffering of the American detainees, most agree, was greater than their Japanese American counterparts. Psychologically, also widely acknowledged, the impact was the reverse. Both groups suffered similar deprivations in the early months, and many of these were discussed … Continued
Ten weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor Naval base, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which banned persons of Japanese descent from living in West Coast states. Four weeks after that, Congress put the order into law and more … Continued
Shelley Mydans approached her work for Life magazine with utmost seriousness. At the same time, she downplayed her role as primarily supportive of photographers. It was her job, she explained, to “mak[e]arrangements for their pictures, and writ[e] the background and … Continued
In 1941, Clark Lee was a reporter for the AP based in Shanghai, where “for more than four years,” he wrote, the city “had been living practically in state of siege, with bombs, bullets, and barbed wire for its daily … Continued
Every once in a while, a trove of source material makes an entire work of nonfiction possible. At least, it can turn a run-of-the-mill narrative into a tale that hums and sparks with energy. I made the related argument in … Continued
Roi Ottley thought of himself as a Negro. To him, Joe Louis, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, as well as the nameless dark-skinned American soldiers he reported on, were Negroes. To us, today, that noun never crosses our minds. If it … Continued