Join me for a reading at the Buena Vista Branch of the Burbank Public Library tomorrow night, May 30th from 7-8:30. More info here.
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Sacramento Bee
Yesterday the Sacramento Bee picked Man of War for their summer reading round-up. Learn more here.
If you’ve never been to Sacramento, it’s worth a visit. Very bike-friendly and full of a wide variety of imported trees. If you’re a history buff, like me, check out Sutter’s Fort while you’re there. Founded in 1839 by a charismatic (and complicated) Swiss named John Sutter, the fort was the epicenter of his colony, “New Helvetia.” Although it never materialized into the empire Sutter imagined, for nearly a decade the fortification functioned as a center of trade in what was America’s last frontier.
In 1848, John Marshall discovered gold on some of Sutter’s property fifty miles east of the fort. After the Gold Rush, Sutter fell on hard times, left California and settled on the east coast, dividing his time between Washington, D.C. and my hometown of Lititz, PA.
For further reading about this most complex frontier “king,” I suggest Albert Hurtado’s book, John Sutter: A Life on the North American Frontier.
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Wall Street Journal Review
The Wall Street Journal has reviewed Man of War. Read it here.
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Huffington Post Blog
The Huffington Post asked me to write about why I reenacted 2,000 years of history. Here’s what I said.
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It’s Man of War Pub Day!
No, I’m not going to drunkenly read my book, Man of War, at Los Angeles pubs. It means that today’s the day it’s published!
What’s it about? Check out the silly book trailer I made. Want to buy it? Shop here: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Powell’s or your local bookstore.
http://youtu.be/e0cCcbC8HEo
I’m on The Dinner Party this weekend talking about funny history stuff. It’s produced by the fine folks at American Public Media. Oh, look, there’s an embedded player below…
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Show them the Money?
From David McCullough’s “1776”:
“…the Americans of 1776 enjoyed a higher standard of living than any people in the world. Their material wealth was considerably less than it would become in time, still it was a great deal more than others had elsewhere. How people with so much, living on their own land, would ever choose to rebel against the ruler God had put over them and thereby bring down such devastation upon themselves was for the invaders incomprehensible.”
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The 2,000 Year Old Man
Like history? Like funny? This is a good place to start. For more on this classic routine, click here.
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Potato?
Pineapples aren’t the only food that came from the New World.
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Rent-a-Fruit
In the April 2012 issue of BBC History Magazine, Nick Rennison writes that pineapples were such elite fruits in the 18th century that they cost “about the same price as a new coach.” And that you could rent one to display on your table. (Like potatoes, tobacco and chocolate, they came from the New World, hence their exoticism.)
“Confectioners were able to rent out a single fruit for weeks to a succession of different customers eager to demonstrate their wealth and social status,” Rennison writes. As it got passed from customer to customer, the fruit naturally started to rot. “No one could eat it…and it grew more rotten each time…but its presence on the dinner table was enough.”
This story illustrates what I love about history. That some spiky fruit I’ve always taken for granted once meant everything to the upper classes of Europe. If that doesn’t change the way you look at present day status symbols-Louis Vuitton handbags for example-I don’t know what would. (If LV products are still around 200 years from now I can only imagine how people will view 21st century people’s obsession with handbags.)
I’ll remember this story every time I drink a cold slushy concoction from a pineapple. Unless that is, I go senile, in which case, I’ll have forgotten its storied past, and that will be quite a shame.
[A 17th century painting by Hendrik Danckerts. Charles II receives a pineapple from his gardener.]