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Articles by Stephen Puleo
June events at Robbins, Fox
UPDATED June 2: Robbins library has announced its list of June programs and events, to take place at its 700 Mass. Ave. location and the Fox branch (175 Mass. Ave.). Holiday Hours in June Robbins and Fox Libraries plan to be closed on Wednesday, June 19 in observance of the Juneteenth holiday. Robbins and Fox Libraries are also expected be closed on Sundays from May 26 through Sept. 29. Fox Library is set to be closed on Saturdays through July and August.
The Great Abolitionist
CHAPTER 1 "WE ARE BECOMING ABOLITIONISTS … FAST" Charles Sumner was saddened, though not overly sympathetic, when he saw his first slaves in 1834 at the age of twenty-three.
A Hound Dog Tale: Big Mama, Elvis, and the Song That Changed Everything
Ben Wynne. Louisiana State Univ, $29.95 (184p) ISBN 978-0-8071-8114-0 Music historian Wynne (Something in the Water) scrupulously documents how Elvis’s 1956 hit song “Hound Dog” helped catapult rock ’n’ roll “into the American cultural mainstream.” Written for and performed by “blues belter” Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thorton in 1953, the song was covered by multiple artists before Elvis saw Freddie Bell and the Bellboys perform a sanitized and comedic rendition in Las Vegas in 1956.
Under a Rock: A Memoir
Chris Stein. St. Martin’s, $30 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-28672-7 Blondie guitarist Stein (Point of View) chronicles in this knockabout personal history the colorful scenesters, grueling gigs, and desperate scrounging for drugs that have marked his musical career.
The World Is Yours: The Story of ‘Scarface’
Glenn Kenny. Hanover Square, $32 (320p) ISBN 978-1-335-44962-7 This raucous study from film critic Kenny (Made Men) examines the making and enduring cultural significance of Brian De Palma’s 1983 film, Scarface. Kenny describes how Al Pacino, impressed after watching Howard Hawks’s 1932 mobster flick of the same name, approached producer Marty Bregman about shooting a remake.
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
Hanif Abdurraqib. Random House, $28 (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-44879-3 Cultural critic Abdurraqib (A Little Devil in America) returns with a triumphant meditation on basketball and belonging. Serving as a love letter to Abdurraqib’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and the state more broadly, the book is structured like a basketball game, divided into four “quarters” with game clock time stamps demarcating section breaks.
Token Supremacy: The Art of Finance, the Finance of Art, and the Great Crypto Crash of 2022
Zachary Small. Knopf, $32 (368p) ISBN 978-0-593-53675-9 “The contemporary art market has served as an economic laboratory for the rich to develop a shadow banking system of alternative assets and hedged liquidity,” according to this trenchant debut investigation. New York Times reporter Small argues that non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are “financial tools branded as digital art” and traces the rise and fall of the NFT market through vivid profiles of artists swept up in it.
Hip-hop Is History by Questlove
Roots drummer Questlove (Music Is History) lays down a kaleidoscopic chronicle of hip-hop’s 50-year history of “diversity and vision... flummery and flaws,” beginning with the 1973 Bronx party during which DJ Kool Herc began isolating and repeating songs’ beats on turntables.
Houston and the Permanence of Segregation: An Afropessimist Approach to Urban History
David Ponton. Univ. of Texas, $45 (290p) ISBN 978-1-477-32847-7 Historian Ponton debuts with a deeply researched and illuminating exploration of mid-century civil rights history in Houston.
The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union
The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner’s lifelong devotion to equal rights was akin to “digging a deep well with nothing more than a spoon... yet he never stopped digging,” according to this rousing biography from historian Puleo (Voyage of Mercy). As a young lawyer in 1849, Sumner coined the phrase “equality before the law,” a concept that rapidly propelled universal suffrage to the forefront of abolitionism.
Kubrick: An Odyssey
Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams. Pegasus, $35 (640p) ISBN 978-1-63936-624-8 Kolker and Abrams—film professors at the University of Maryland, College Park and Bangor University, respectively—follow up Eyes Wide Shut, their deep dive into Stanley Kubrick’s final film, with an authoritative portrait of the director, who died in 1999.
The Spice Must Flow: The Story of Dune, from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies
Ryan Britt. Plume, $18 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-593-47299-6 Britt (Phasers on Stun!) provides an entertaining crash course on Frank Herbert’s Dune series, a science fiction epic about a young royal heir who becomes the messiah of a desert planet.
Tabula Rasa: Vol. 1
John McPhee.
Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets
Jeff Horwitz. Doubleday, $32.50 (336p) ISBN 978-0-385-54918-9 Journalist Horwitz’s debut expands his reporting for the Wall Street Journal on the “Facebook Files,” a series of damning documents leaked by whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, into an unsettling account of the social media platform’s misdeeds.
Voyage of Mercy | AMERICAN HERITAGE
In the blackest days of the Great Potato Famine in Ireland, Americans responded by organizing the first international humanitarian mission, sending food and provisions in the refitted warship USS Jamestown. Editor’s Note: Stephen Puleo is the author of seven books of history including the bestseller Dark Tide, The Boston Italians, American Treasures, and The Caning.
America's First Humanitarian Mission: The Irish Famine
ôô Stephen Puleo, author of Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, describes the unprecedented relief effort by the American people on behalf of Ireland during the Great Famine of 1847—and how it changed the world. March 30, 2020 4-minute read More than 5,000 ships would leave Ireland during the famine era carrying passengers who were fleeing utter destitution in their home country.
"Voyage Of Mercy" By Stephen Puleo
More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.
'Voyage of Mercy' tells resonant story of Americans aiding starving Ireland
VOYAGE OF MERCY: THE USS JAMESTOWN, THE IRISH FAMINE, AND THE REMARKABLE STORY OF AMERICA'S FIRST HUMANITARIAN MISSION By Stephen Puleo 336 pages; St. Martin's Press $28.99 Last year, The New York Times published an essay titled "Why We Will Need Walt Whitman in 2020." Author Ed Simon lamented the dark, nationalistic chants echoing across America, and, as an antidote, proposed a generous dose of Whitman's more democratic, barbaric yawp.
VOYAGE OF MERCY by Stephen Puleo Read by Sean Patrick Hopkins | Audiobook Review | AudioFile Magazine
Sean Patrick Hopkins offers exactly the kind of narration this audiobook deserves. He adjusts his tone to fit the material, which is studied in the biographical portions and borderline outraged in the discussion of England's lack of response to the Irish famine. Because there are numerous quoted passages, Hopkins wisely resists giving even major figures unique voices. Instead, he pauses slightly before the quotes, providing aural quotation marks.
13 Compelling Books That Offer Fresh Perspectives on American History
American History Books: Our 13 Picks Title Author 1. Birdmen Lawrence Goldstone 2. Slavery by Another Name Douglas A. Blackmon 3. The Caning Stephen Puleo 4. The Island at the Center of the World Russell Shorto 5. A World on Fire Amanda Foreman 6. Coolidge Amity Shlaes 7. A Fierce Glory Justin Martin 8. The Factory Girls Christine Seifert 9. American Legend Buddy Levy 10. Harvey Milk Lillian Faderman 11. The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 12. In the Shadow of Liberty Kenneth C. Davis 13.
Tightrope Walker
By John Koster 7/1/2016 • Military History Magazine At the close of the Battle of the Atlantic a long-range German U-boat played a deadly cat and mouse with American warships and aircraft. The Print Collection/Alamy Stock Photo A few minutes after noon on April 23, 1945, USS PE-56, a World War I–era Eagle-class patrol craft, came to a dead stop in the Gulf of Maine a few miles off Cape Elizabeth.
Dark Tide Rev Ed
A new 100th anniversary edition of the only adult book on one of the odder disasters in US history—and the greed, disregard for poor immigrants, and lack of safety standards that led to it. Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston’s North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another.
The Secret Plan to Protect America’s Founding Documents During WWII
In the early evening of December 26, 1941, Secret Service agent Harry E. Neal stood alone on the platform at Washington’s Union Station and watched the train disappear into the darkness. It was 6:50 p.m. and the temperature had slipped into the 30s. For the first time in two days, he breathed a little easier. Agent Neal and his colleagues had rested little since the attack on Pearl Harbor three weeks earlier.
Calvin Coolidge and the 1919 Boston Police Strike: Francis Russell: 9780807050330: Amazon.com: Books
A City in Terror: Calvin Coolidge and the 1919 Boston Police Strike Paperback – May 15, 2005 On September 9, 1919, an American nightmare came true. The entire Boston police force deserted their posts, leaving the city virtually defenseless. Women were raped on street corners, stores were looted, and pedestrians were beaten and robbed while crowds not only looked on but cheered.
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