2010 Summer Newsletter - Travel/History/Politics

“Oh yes, he did,” is my response when people ask if Henry Ford really tried to re-create small-town America deep in the Brazilian rain forest. It’s almost too odd to be true. But Fordlandia (Picador, $16), by Greg Grandin, chronicles this strange chapter in the often strange life of Henry Ford. By the end of the 1920s, just as the U.S. was entering the Great Depression, Ford, one of the richest men in America, decided to bring his version of America to the Amazon. Ford thought he could single-handedly resurrect the failed Brazilian rubber industry while also helpfully bringing “civilization” to the natives. Without Ford’s usual brand of organization and planning, Fordlandia seemed to be fueled by hubris alone; Grandin makes it all a fun and fascinating story. - Susan Skirboll

Combining adventure, exploration, and biography, the multi-award-winning Age Of Wonder (Pantheon, $17.95) satisfies the needs for excitement, suspense, and plain-old good story-telling. Richard Holmes opens the treasure trove of knowledge and ambition that was Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, taking to the open seas with Captain Cook, experiencing the sensuous exotica of Tahiti with Joseph Banks and his crew, and surveying the night sky over England with William and Caroline Herschel. Then there’s Humphrey Davy and his experiments with laughing gas, unpredictable hot-air balloon flights, Mary Shelley’s examination of humanity’s Promethean aspirations, and the growth of the Royal Society. Holmes has a quick wit and an eye for the telling quirk, making his narrative as entertaining as it is informative. - Laurie Greer

The epic film Birth of a Nation transfixed the American public in 1915. Its depiction of the Civil War illustrated a unified modern American identity, tied to white Protestant militarism. Jackson Lear’s Rebirth Of A Nation (Harper Perennial, $15.99) traces how the memory of the Civil War inspired a country to glorify violence as a means to progress. Lear links the personal to the political—individuals worked to purify themselves for the good of the nation, and each political struggle determined the moral compass of that nation. This revitalized identity grew into a sense of global crusade, mobilizing Americans to expand overseas. While the violence of modern warfare in World War I may have shaken faith in positive military intervention, Lear’s concept of rebirth continues to echo in American politics and foreign engagements today. - Ginnie Palm