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Reading. . .Friday
Jan. 15th, 2021 05:07 pmI've been reading The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation by Brenda Wineapple, because . . .why not! I've been in a place where I need to stop doomscrolling the news but also can't focus on pure escapism, so this has been a good compromise with my mental state. I'm appreciating, if not enjoying, it so far; it's filling in a lot of detail to the broad overview of the era that I know, but it reads easily and doesn't get bogged down in that detail. I'm not yet to the actual impeachment proceedings, but just reading Wineapple's account of Johnson's presidency has been a bit harrowing; I have, for instance, just finished a chapter in which she describes a speaking tour Johnson went on in 1866, during which he gave incoherent and ranting speeches full of self-pity and calls to violence against his perceived enemies. History doesn't repeat itself, etc. etc., but the rhymes can be awfully jarring.
In a similar vein, I also just finished listening to the podcast Slow Burn's first season, on Watergate. I had listened to much of this a few months ago, on the recommendation of a professor I TA'd the second half of US history for (twice!), and I'm glad I ended up finishing it. While not a huge podcast person generally, I liked the narrator/presenter, loved the archival audio clips, and really appreciated the overarching emphasis on trying to reconstruct Watergate as in unfolded, picking apart some of the received wisdom on it and focusing on what it was like to watch it all happen. This one too was somewhat jarring in (at least some of) its parallels; the clip of the White House counsel calling the House investigation word-for-word a "partisan witch-hunt" perhaps especially so. If you want to just try out an episode or two, I would recommend the last one ("Going South"), which is maybe the most relevant at the moment, or else episode five ("True Believers"), which I also thought was particularly resonant and interesting.
In a similar vein, I also just finished listening to the podcast Slow Burn's first season, on Watergate. I had listened to much of this a few months ago, on the recommendation of a professor I TA'd the second half of US history for (twice!), and I'm glad I ended up finishing it. While not a huge podcast person generally, I liked the narrator/presenter, loved the archival audio clips, and really appreciated the overarching emphasis on trying to reconstruct Watergate as in unfolded, picking apart some of the received wisdom on it and focusing on what it was like to watch it all happen. This one too was somewhat jarring in (at least some of) its parallels; the clip of the White House counsel calling the House investigation word-for-word a "partisan witch-hunt" perhaps especially so. If you want to just try out an episode or two, I would recommend the last one ("Going South"), which is maybe the most relevant at the moment, or else episode five ("True Believers"), which I also thought was particularly resonant and interesting.
