Writers Among Us: Seth Jacobs

Description

Professor Seth Jacobs traces his research into the history of the Vietnam War and the discoveries that he incorporated into his book America's Miracle Man in Viet Nam: Ngo Dinh Diem, Religion, Race, and US Intervention in Southeast Asia. Jacobs argues that a midcentury religious revival in America, as well as policymakers' racist perceptions of Asians, led the United States to support the disastrous, autocratic Diem regime in South Vietnam, when other candidates for U.S. support existed.

Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life

Description

Writer Charles C. Calhoun, author of Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life, shows how the American poet Longfellow Henry Wadsworth blended the Federalist politics and Unitarianism of his parents' generation with the German romanticism he discovered on his own travels. Calhoun discusses Longfellow's life and his influences.

African American Slave Trade in New England

Description

Three scholars present papers on the history of slavery and the African slave trade in New England. The papers are "The Removal of 'Cannibal Negroes' from New England to Providence Island," "A Colonial Tale of Slavery, Freedom, Contract, and Harvest," and "Unruly Slaves, Uneasy Masters, and Unmerited Favor: Wielding Discipline, Wrestling with Conscience, and the Construction of Race in Puritan New England."

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