This page is intended as a place where classmates can "advertise" the products of their heads and hands--books written and published, art works produced, music written and recorded, even consulting services offered--and where they can post information about their own websites (including those sites' URLs) and sets of photographs about themselves and their lives. The dates of such works can go back as far as the fall of 1953. For Classmates' Works, there is a limit of words--250 maximum--to each notice, exclusive of photos, brief descriptions, or lists of items or their contents. Photos of the products (say, of books, art works, or CDs) are acceptable, as is information about where the items are available for sale, especially if they are not available through conventional, national commercial outlets. A similar word limit pertains to Classmates' Websites and Blogs. 20 photos are the limit for Classmates' Photo Albums.

Click here for a list of books, with their authors’ commentaries, that were exhibited during the class’s 50th reunion in New Haven in 2007.

For a video of Bud Trillin's remarks at our 55th reunion, click here.

The contents of this page are:

Classmates' Works
Classmates' Websites
Classmates' Blogs
Classmates' Photo Albums

Classmates' Works

Dean, Edwin P., Getting it Wrong: The Price of Biased History (Austin Macauley) (posted Jan. 6, 2025)

McGowan, Alan H., The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (posted Mar. 18, 2024)

Wolf, Peter M. Wolf, The Sugar King: Leon Godchaux, a New Orleans Legend, His Creole Slave and His Jewish Roots. (posted Nov. 7, 2022)

Michelman, Frank I., Legitimation by Constitution: A Dialogue on Political Liberalism. (posted Oct. 26, 2022)

Michelman, Frank I., Constitutional Essentials. (posted Oct. 26, 2022)

Correll, Roderick W., Learning to be a Leatherman (Troy, NY: Troy Bookmakers, 2022) (posted Aug. 31, 2022)

Seymour, James D. Seymour (with Richard Anderson), New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998) (posted Dec. 27, 2021)

DeForest Mellon, Jr., The Physiology of Sense Organs. (W.H. Freeman 1968) (posted Sept. 13, 2021)

English Showalter, Françoise de Graffigny: Her Life and Works (Voltaire Foundation, 2004) (posted Sept. 13, 2021)

Alessandro Ferrara and Frank I. Michelman, Legitimation by Constitution: A Dialogue on Political Liberalism. (Oxford University Press 2022) (posted Sept. 3, 2021)

Josiah (Tink) Thompson, SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS - First book on Kennedy Assassination (1967) (posted August 12, 2021)

Josiah (Tink) Thompson, LAST SECOND IN DALLAS - Second book on Kennedy Assassination (2021) (posted August 12, 2021)

Richard I. Brown, Finite Human, Infinite Humanity: History of the Universe and Theory of Everything (posted April 8, 2021)

David S. Clarke, Essays on Pragmatic Naturalism (posted April 8, 2021)

James M. Banner, Jr., The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History (posted March 22, 2021)

Kimberly B. Cheney, New Memoir (posted March 15, 2021)

Donald F. (Frank) Melhorn, Jr., Books on an important 19th-century Ohio legal issue and a forgotten work by Frederick Grimke. (posted Sept. 9, 2020)

Arthur F. Wertheim, New Book on W.C. Fields (posted Aug. 7, 2020)

James M. Banner, Jr., New Book on Presidential Misconduct (posted July 29, 2020)

Arthur Wertheim, New Book on W.C. Fields's Stage Career (posted July 15, 2015)

Larry Kramer, New Historical Novel (posted May 20, 2015)

Henry (Sam) Chauncey, Jr., New Book on 1970 May Day at Yale (posted April 5, 2015)

Peter M. Wolf: Memoir (posted March 10, 2013)

John Leinenweber: New book on St. Augustine's Homilies (posted November 18, 2012)

David A. Johnson: Two books on regional planning (posted September 4, 2012)

James M. Banner, Jr.: New book on the discipline of history (posted June 20, 2012)

Gerald Jonas: Collection of poems, monograph on stuttering (posted June 20, 2012)

C. Brian Kelly: New editions of books on the Civil War and WWII (posted December 21, 2010)

Peter M. Wolf: New Book on Land Use (posted September 29, 2010)

Andreas Braddan (pseud.) [Hint: BSME '57, lived in Branford]: New Nautical Adventure Tale (posted April 29, 2009)

Donald D. Hester: New Book on 60 Years of American Monetary Policy and Banking (posted April 29, 2009)

James M. Banner, Jr.: New Book on the Historical Profession (posted April 4, 2009)

C. Brian Kelly: New Book on Winston Churchill (posted September 18, 2008)

Brian R. Walsh: Book on How Boys Learn (posted June 13, 2008)

Harold S. (Hal) Russell: Biography of Horace Capron (posted April 23, 2007)

Walter Benenson: Handbook of Physics (posted April 20, 2007)

Johannes Somary: New Music (posted March 17, 2007)

John Fistere: MultiGraph (posted February 8, 2007)

Courtney H. (Court) Haight: Steel Drum Music (posted December 7, 2006)

Jonathan P. Swinchatt: Book about Napa Wines (posted October 28, 2006)

James F. (Jim) Ziegler: New Book on Soft Errors in Electronics (posted October 9, 2006)

Arthur F. Wertheim: New Book on Vaudeville Wars (posted August 12, 2006)

Otis L. Graham, Jr.: Book on Immigration Crisis (posted August 7, 2006)

Robert D. (Bob) Bentley: My Paintings (posted August 2, 2006)

Norton W. (Nort) Wright: "Jazzworks" Paintings (posted July 29, 2006)

Robert W. (Bob) Ganger: New Book on the Vanderbilt Family (posted July 29, 2006)

Jerome H. (Jerry) Farnum: New Book on Roman Legions (posted July 22, 2006)

Classmates' Websites

Robert D. Bentley
Kenneth J. Gergen
Walter J. Loesche
J. Edward Meyer III
Malcolm Mitchell
Vic Norton
Zachary H. Sacks
J. Morgan Thomas
Robert Weinmann
Pat Wilde
Robert M. Young

Classmates' Blogs

John C. Fistere, Jr.
Bart Gage
J. Morgan Thomas
Brian R. Walsh '

Classmates' Photos

Eli's Chosen Six, June 2012 (posted September 9, 2013)
Hawaii "reunion", November 2011 (posted November 29, 2011)
Washington, DC classmates, September 2010 (posted September 14, 2010)
Chris Sonne and Roly Machold among Adirondack Peaks, Summer 2010 (posted September 11, 2010)
Psi Simons: With His Sons (posted April 21, 2010)
Bob Bentley: His Undergraduate Roomates in 2007 (posted March 24, 2010)

Edwin P. Dean, Getting it Wrong: The Price of Biased History (Austin Macauley) (posted Jan. 6, 2025)

Raised in St. Paul's Summit Avenue neighborhood made famous by F. Scott Fitzgerald (a schoolmate of his father), Edwin Dean came of age in mid-20th century America, graduated from Yale, and spent more than 50 years in business and finance. In other words, a highly conventional life. However, books, especially books on history, have been his constant friends since childhood and now, after three quarters of a century of reading the works of others, especially those of the highly credentialed, he is determined to have his own say. He offers in “Getting it Wrong, the Price of Biased History” a response from one of the many who come home from a long day at work to seek solace in Ancient Rome or on the field of Waterloo --from a comfortable chair by the fireplace, of course. Socially if not politically conservative, he is firmly convinced that "Business Casual" portends the end of civilization as we know it. One might therefore expect him to line up resolutely on the side of Establishment perspectives on, well, pretty much everything. Nevertheless, in "Getting it Wrong" he offers a series of reasoned arguments against numerous long-held conventional historical perspectives. Why? Dean is an avowed amateur, one in the orginal Latin sense of the word which means "to love,” to love knowledge, scholarship, and erudition. An unapologetic partisan of the classical liberal and enlightenment traditions, he is a believer in reason and a frequent skeptic of conventional wisdom. His book is definitely not a formal work of academic history but rather a sort of extended essay. Into his narrative, Dean weaves certain personal anecdotes and reflections, as well as mention of heretofore obscure ancestors who found themselves from time to time acting as bit players in historic events. Above all, "Getting it Wrong" is a defense of a liberal education from someone grateful to have received one

Alan H. McGowan, The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) (posted Mar. 18, 2024)

Franz Boas, one of the world’s most productive and influential anthropologists known as the “father of American anthropology,” made critical insights in several areas, especially in studies of race and of culture. Through meticulous work, able to show that culture was not biologically specific, he freed the field of race studies from its previous biological determinism. He was also able to show that the notion of a permanently biologically inferior “race” was false. The Boasian discourse on race played an important role in the landmark 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education.

A fervent pacifist, he also protested vigorously against American involvement in World War I. After the war, he railed against the Versailles Treaty.

A crowning achievement was the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, which Boas co-founded in 1938 after issuing a “Manifesto.” The statement, signed by more than 1,000 scientists, criticized a widely publicized article by Johannes Stark in Nature magazine that condemned so-called “Jewish science” and proclaimed a Nazi vision of science.

ACDIF soon became active in defending the many teachers and other professionals who lost their jobs and reputations as a result of being associated with the Communist Party. The “Rapp-Coudert Committee” established by the New York State legislature was particularly aggressive in seeking out Communists in the school system. ACDIF responded by defending the free speech of members of the professional community. Boas took a leading role in these activities.

Peter M. Wolf, The Sugar King: A New Orleans Legend, His Creole Slave and His Jewish Roots (posted Nov. 7, 2022)

My new book, THE SUGAR KING: Leon Godchaux, a New Orleans Legend, His Creole Slave and His Jewish Roots, is a biography that traces the astonishing rise of my great-great grandfather from illiterate, penniless emigrant at age thirteen from Lorraine, France, to become one of the most important men in nineteenth century Louisiana. Our own Bud Trillin wrote the Foreword.

By the end of his life in 1899, Leon was the owner of fourteen plantations and the largest sugar producer in the region. He refused to enter the sugar economy until after the Civil War -- until slavery was abolished. Before becoming a titan in the agricultural economy, he established the premier retail clothing company in New Orleans. He was also the first to manufacture men’s clothing in the city, stimulated by obtaining a Singer sewing machine he brought to New Orleans from New York where he briefly moved in the early days of the Civil War.

Most pertinent today, my book reveals that Godchaux relied on the accomplishments of two Black men: Joachim Tassin, a slave whose birth status both men concealed, and Norbert Rillieux, a free man of color whose overlooked ingenious invention enabled Godchaux to build his sugar empire. Known routinely during his lifetime as “The Sugar King,” Leon was also dubbed “The Duke of Clothing.”

Frank I. Michelman, Legitimation by Constitution: A Dialogue on Political Liberalism (Oxford University Press) (posted Oct. 26, 2022)

Legitimation by Constitution: A Dialogue on Political Liberalism, co-authored with Italian political philosopher Alessandro Ferrara, collects and combines a series of friendly exchanges between the two of us, occurrent over a stretch of years, all inspired by a proposition from the renowned American philosopher John Rawls. As what he named a “principle of legitimacy” for societies standing in the broad tradition of liberal constitutional democracy, Rawls offered that citizens, engaged in explaining to each other their mutual expectations of willing compliance by all with laws approved by democratic majorities but nevertheless deeply opposed by some citizens, would appeal to the country’s higher-law constitution – including guarantees respecting basic rights of citizens – as a framework for the conduct of the country’s politics that all might share, despite other deep disagreements over policy and even over the demands of morality on our laws. From a shared standpoint of sympathetic identification with Rawls’s statement of the problem and his constitution-centered offer for a solution, these exchanges take up difficulties arguably standing in the way of this proposal's fulfillment. Our chapters, each authored by one of us, consider such matters as the tensions between liberal-democratic ideals of government-by- the-people and government-by-consent and the magnification of these tensions under the lens of ambition towards transnational legal ordering. These discussions engage with other leading contemporary theorists of liberal-democratic constitutionalism including Bruce Ackerman, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas. This book goes together with my sole-authored Constitutional Essentials: On the Constitutional Theory of Political Liberalism, published eight months later.

Frank I. Michelman, Constitutional Essentials: On the Constitutional Theory of Political Liberalism (Oxford University Press) (posted Oct. 26, 2022)

Constitutional Essentials, like many of my publications over the years, crosses lines between the topical field of constitutional law as lawyers would confront it and a field of debate that politics scholars and some political-philosophy types might name as “constitutional theory.” It takes up a series of perennially troubled questions faced by lawyers and judges in constitutional democracies around the world: Do we read constitutional prescripts as abstract or detailed? According to what history might arguably tell us the authors had in mind or what more current generations might have in view? As purely negative restraints on exercise of state powers or as commitments to state support of basic needs of persons? To what extent are these decisions about constitutional signification to be left in the lap of a Supreme Court and to what extent made by elected representative responding to popular will and social movements? My book takes up such questions in the light of a proposition from political philosopher John Rawls (in his work on what he called “political liberalism”) that a body of constitutional law is to serve, in a democratic country, as basis for a widespread willingness on the part of people who disagree deeply over the real merits of various laws (concerning say, restrictions on abortion) to abide by the laws duly worked out with support from democratic majorities. A slightly earlier co-authored publication, Legitimation by Constitution, introduces aspects of the Rawlsian proposition by way of a dialogue with Italian political philosopher Alessandro Ferrara.

Roderick W. Correll, Learning to be a Leatherman (Troy, NY: Troy Bookmakers, 2022) (posted Aug. 31, 2022)

This book, a memoir, was conceived as a way to tell my children and grandchildren who I am and how I came to be that way. It started out as a coming-of-age story focused on a voyage I took “across the pond” when I was seventeen years old. Arranged by my father, this trip was meant to teach me how to tan leather and, either by design or inadvertently, how to spread my wings. Over the course of writing it, I developed a clear, conversational voice and in the process came to terms with my relationship with my father and the world of work he had carved out for me. It is a bittersweet, yet ultimately uplifting, story full of warmth and love—for my dad, the business my grandfather founded, and everyone in my family, most of all for my wife Chloe.

James D. Seymour (with Richard Anderson), New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998) (posted Dec. 27, 2021)

By the 1990s, there was considerable literature in many languages about the Chinese prison system—none of it very solidly grounded. Some writers apologized for a system that supposedly helped wayward citizens undergo reform and be returned to society. At the other extreme, writers described the system as a hell on earth, filled with huge numbers of unlucky miscreants and innocents. The latter writers were somewhat closer to the truth, but they over-shot. In particular, they greatly exaggerated the size of China’s prison system, sometimes by as much as tenfold. (In fact, China, which has many times the population of the US, has generally had roughly the same absolute number of prisoners.)

In the mid-1990s, I happened to befriend a former Shanghainese political prisoner, who had spent a decade in the notorious prison complex of northwest China—the Xinjiang area. Of course, there are lots of such people whom I could interview, but he turned out to be very knowledgeable, level-headed, and objectively analytical. Before I knew it, based largely on what this man told me, I had written a ton of material about the subject of prisons in Xinjiang—too much for an article, if not enough for a book. I then connected with a colleague who was doing similar research on two other northwestern provinces, so we decided to join forces. Later, I added a few chapters about China’s prisons in the country as a whole, and in due course the book was published.

The reviews were gratifying. The important academic publication China Journal published an exceptionally long commentary; what we had written was said to be a book that “nobody who is concerned about China and its relations with the west can afford to ignore.” The work was also widely noticed by the main-stream media. According to the New York Times review, it cleared “away both the pro-Chinese apologies and the anti-Chinese hysteria that has often surrounded this question, providing instead the most objective and dispassionate evaluation of the real situation that we are likely to have.”

DeForest Mellon, Jr., The Physiology of Sense Organs (W.H. Freeman 1968) (posted Sept. 13, 2021)

By the mid-1960s, the field of neurobiology, which could trace its roots back to the eighteenth century, was approaching maturity. As a new faculty member in that field, I thought the time was right to pull together what was then understood about sensory neurobiological concepts and mechanisms into an abbreviated review of the field. Biophysical events underlying neural mechanisms are pretty much identical across metazoan species. I received my baptism in sensory neurobiology through my thesis project, which was primarily studying the binding of alkali cation molecules to taste receptors on the mouthparts of blowflies, an excellent model system, it turned out, to examine the general principles of stimulus-receptor binding. At the time, major questions were emerging about the earliest events in sensory neuron activation.

As a postdoctoral research associate at Stanford, I pursued the electrical events leading to the excitation of mechanoreceptors on the crayfish exoskeleton, a preoccupation which, fifty years later, constituted the subject of the final research paper of my career. When I became a faculty member in the Biology Department at the University of Virginia, my first graduate student, George Mpitsos, advanced the conceptual scope of our understanding of sensory neurobiological principles by discovering that the primary response to light by photoreceptor neurons could be inhibitory, as well as excitatory--a new discovery at that point in time. Later findings, enabled by the development of exquisitely sensitive new electrophysiological techniques, permitted observation of single ion channel activity in the plasma membrane of sensory neurons during application of mechanical and olfactory stimuli in various crustacean sensory neurons, findings that postdated the principles elaborated in the book. Nonetheless, I believe that the book remains an accurate contemporary view of our understanding of fifty-plus years ago.

English Showalter, Françoise de Graffigny: Her Life and Works (Voltaire Foundation, 2004) (posted Sept. 13, 2021) and Le Correspondence de Madame de Graffigny, 15 vols. (Voltaire Foundation, 1985-2015) (posted Sept. 13, 2021)

The second of those titles is a 15-volume edition of the letters of Françoise d'Happoncourt de Graffigny (1695-1758). The first title is a biography of the lady, largely based on the second. These books were produced by literary historians, primarily for other literary historians, and they are unlikely to be found anywhere except in major research libraries. Yet from 1750 until her death in 1758, Madame de Graffigny was the most famous living woman writer in the Western World. Her 1747 novel, Lettres d'une Péruvienne (Letters of a Peruvian Woman), was an international bestseller. Her 1750 play, Cénie, was one of the ten most successful new French plays of the century. The élite of French society and travelers from all over Europe flocked to her salon in Paris. Such is the fleeting nature of fame, however, that by 1850 her name was all but forgotten. At the suggestion of Georges May, my mentor at Yale, I wrote my 1964 doctoral dissertation on her, and by an odd twist of fate, the Beinecke Library acquired a massive collection of her papers in 1967, which included many literary manuscripts and more than 2500 of her letters, all previously unknown. As part of an international team of scholars, I co-edited and published those letters between 1985 and 2016. My biography came out in 2004. With strong support from post-colonial and women's studies scholars, our work has helped make Mme de Graffigny sort of famous again. Her novel is once again in print, and has been freshly translated into English. It is a popular text in literature classes in France, Britain, and the United States. I was gratified to see it recently being used as a textbook in a class called "Strangers on our shores", about people of color coming into contact with Euopean societies. The class was sponsored by my neighborhood bookstore. My work has not been in vain!

Alessandro Ferrara and Frank I. Michelman, Legitimation by Constitution: A Dialogue on Political Liberalism. (Oxford University Press 2022) (posted Sept. 3, 2021)

This book collects a series of exchanges I've had over the past twenty years with Alessandro Ferrara, a political philosopher based at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. The exchanges all center on a proposal from the philosopher John Rawls for what Rawls called a "liberal principle of legitimacy" for constitutional democracies. Rawls thought that the only path to justification of the coercive rule of political majorities over strongly dissentient minorities, in free societies where views on political policy and morality often must diverge and clash, could lie only through what he called a "dualist" form of democracy in which ground-level majoritarian lawmaking is subjected to constraint from a higher-law constitution, where most or all citizens could and should at least find that constitution acceptable as a framework for their politics.

"Legitimation by Constitution" is our tag line for that key proposition from Rawls. From a shared standpoint of sympathetic identification with Rawls's statement of the problem of political disagreement for which legitimation-by-constitution is advanced as a solution, our exchanges take up difficulties standing in the way of that proposal's possible fulfillment on terms consistent with Rawls's own liberal starting points about an underlying respect for the freedom and equality of all the individuals whose cooperation makes a working society. The exchanges touch on what it might mean for "the people" of a country to approve a constitution, on tensions between ideas of government by the people and government by consent, and on resulting challenges posed to courts and other authorities charged with administration of constitutional law. Along the way we deal with other leading contemporary theorists of liberal-democratic constitutionalism including Bruce Ackerman, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas.

Josiah (Tink) Thompson, SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (First book on Kennedy Assassination - 1967) (posted Aug. 12, 2021)

Through a remarkable series of breaks, in October 1966 I was hired by LIFE magazine as a consultant to help its investigation of the Kennedy assassination. A month later our little team produced a copy of the magazine with blazoned across the cover: "Did Oswald act alone? A MATTER OF REASONABLE DOUBT."

Between that October and the end of February, I was permitted to look into pretty much whatever I wanted to look into. This included interviewing Governor Connally's wrist surgeon, interviewing people close to the President when he was killed, examining physical evidence at the National Archives, doing the first interview with any of the autopsy surgeons, and visiting Parkland Hospital with clearance to interview hospital personnel. LIFE, of course, had purchased the Zapruder film, so for months I was able to examine copies of the film much clearer than anything seen by government investigators. LIFE provided me access to witnesses, evidence, and venues I could never have managed on my own.

My own research in the national archives turned up FBI interview reports on previously unknown eye-witnesses and private individuals who had taken photos of the event. The final result was a book entitled Six Seconds in Dallas, published in November 1967 and condensed in the Saturday Evening Post on December 5, 1967, backed by a cover and two editorials. Over the years, it has come to be known as "the classic" of the first generation of books on the case.

Josiah (Tink) Thompson, LAST SECOND IN DALLAS (Second book on Kennedy Assassination - 2021) (posted Aug. 12, 2021)

For years, the Kennedy assassination has been a free-for-all of competing theories, many developed by defenders of the Warren Report to make that account agree with the facts of the case. Among these efforts were studies arguing that individual bullets could be identified from their trace metals and that persons shot in the head might be moved by the bullet's impact back toward the weapon that shot them. Such theories made the core evidence in the case appear both internally contradictory and overly complex.

By 2010, however, everything had changed. The FBI had closed its bullet composition lab because the underlying theory had been proven worthless and the same applied to the so-called "jet effect" theory. A review of the evidence in 2010 showed that time itself — good science driving out bad science — had cleared away much of this junk "evidence."

During the last second of the shooting when the limousine made its closest approach to Zapruder's camera, it was not just Zapruder frames that had became clearer. Rather the whole story of the event had become simpler and clearer. Kennedy was killed by two bullets to the head fired just 0.75 seconds apart from opposite directions. Both shots produced the same effects. Both threw Kennedy's head and body along the trajectory of the impacting bullet and both blasted blood, brain and skull fragments along that same trajectory. The Zapruder film and the acoustics evidence match up in providing a filmed account plus soundtrack of the last second.

I do not know — and hence take no position — on who might have ordered or been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the President.

Richard I. Brown, Finite Human, Infinite Humanity: History of the Universe and Theory of Everything. Amazon & finitehuman.com March 2021 (posted April 8, 2021)

This book organizes and summarizes the vast knowledge of scientific materialism to simplify the overwhelming complexity of reality. To believe in something that science has not shown to exist runs the risk of believing in nothing at all. But intelligent decision-making does not always follow the evidence since belief in a false reality can serve a useful purpose. The book traces modern views of reality back to their origins 35,000 years ago: if science is the study of Nature, then religion was the first science.

The book’s short length (129 pages) overcomes today’s mantra "I don’t have time for that." The book is not targeted to the intellectual community but to the broad reading public with chapter titles Reality, Spirituality, Religion, Faith, Intelligence, Imagination, and Destiny/Success. Little-known historical incidents provide color commentary. The book is reader-friendly: each chapter starts with a summary at the beginning, followed by a background section, many sub-sections, and a conclusion.

The problems humanity faces in the near term are awesome: human population is increasing at the rate of 1 billion every 15 years and the UN estimates that there will be 1 billion "climate change migrants" by 2050. To counter these dire predictions the book supplies the inspiration of hope through concepts like "the Wonderful Arithmetic of Life," "Explore the upper regions of your human potential to find friendship for all," and "Humanity must achieve species permanence in order to acquire cosmic importance."

David S. Clarke, Essays on Pragmatic Naturalism. Lulu Publishers, 2015 (posted April 8, 2021)

The idea for Essays on Pragmatic Naturalism was hatched during my tenures as visiting professor at universities in Japan and Beijing, China. I could describe to classes there the cultural achievements of 20th Century Americans - their poetry, novels, and musical innovations. But what was the distinctive achievement in my own field of philosophy? The answer I thought was what was labeled by my colleague at Southern Illinois University, Morris Eames, as "pragmatic naturalism," and I resolved to try to describe how this philosophy evolved from its beginnings in the 19th Century to the later developments by John Dewey and Charles Morris. Central to pragmatism is its emphasis on the use of practical inferences combining descriptive and expressive premises with prescriptive "ought" conclusions guiding conduct. My central contention in Essays is that by making such inferences its focus, pragmatism enables contemporary philosophy to offset the effects of social specialization.

In the first essay I outline the logical features of pre-linguistic levels of signs interpreted in associative learning and animal communication, natural language discourse shared by all within a community, and the specialized language discourse frameworks of the institutions of science, religion, law, politics, and the arts. The second essay then discusses the discourse framework of religion. The third essay concentrates on aesthetic expression and its special features, while the fourth discusses the social role of philosophy in promoting social integration. 20th-Century philosophy has been successful in advancing the discussion of specialized topics in logic, epistemology, the philosophy of law, morality, and aesthetics and in criticizing the assumptions of Hegelian idealism. My hope is that these essays provide the outline of a viable alternative comprehensive system replacing what has failed in the past.

James M. Banner, Jr., The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History Is Revisionist History. Yale University Press, 2021 (posted March 22, 2021)

This book grows from a conversation I had some years ago with Justice Clarence Thomas in his Supreme Court chambers. He was spending the summer, he told me, reading about the history of slavery and the American south, but he wasn't reading what he called "the revisionists." It happened, however, that every book he named to me was, by any decent definition, a work of revisionist history. That lively conversation stayed with me until now, in 2021, its memory emerges as this book. Since this is the first work in 92 years, and only the second one ever, on the large phenomenon of its subject, I've had more or less to create the topic as I've gone along; there exist few scholarly signposts to guide me in defining the topic and then choosing what to write about--and to write about for both general audiences as well my professional colleagues. My principal conclusions, my main arguments? 1. Revisionist history--that is, changes in interpretations of the past due to new evidence, new viewpoints, new methods, and new needs-- dates back to no later than the days of Thucydides 2,500 years ago in Greece. 2) Revisionist history is embodied integrally in all historical thought. 3) Revisionist history cohabits with all kinds of politics and within all social and cultural communities; it is not exclusively of the Right or Left. 4) And finally, because historical interpretations are always provisional, subject to alteration, and never final or apodictic, there never is and never had been such a thing as "objective" history. All historical writing and thought emerges from its particular location, era, and intent and, equally important, from the particular minds, dispositions, and situations of the historians who create and convey it.

Kimberly B. Cheney, A Lawyer’s Life to Live. Rootstock Publishing, 2021 (posted March 15, 2021)

Laws are the forest of rules that grow up to control the behavior of everyone in a state or country. Lawyers are the foresters, cutting some down, planting and growing new ones, and often just pruning them by persuading courts to accept the meanings I advocated. I came to Vermont as the first lawyer ever assigned to its Education Department. With no background in education but a Yale education, Class of 1957 and Yale Law 1964, I wrote a comprehensive law for school governance. Although I had no experience as a prosecutor, I was elected Washington County’s State’s Attorney and became involved in crimes ranging from traffic tickets to multiple murders, as well as active involvement in social issues like drug abuse, and police misbehavior. Then I was elected State Attorney general, taking on many issues like protecting Lake Champlain by suing New York state in the U.S. Supreme court, women’s rights, and public access to governmental documents. I failed to be reelected Attorney General in part because I was lied to by state police who agreed to trap a rogue cop but then didn’t do so. In private law practice I was also head of the State Labor Board and later became incensed by the loose judicial thinking that governed child custody decisions in divorce and so worked to pass a new law with more precise criteria than the Judge’s own upbringing. I also undertook a complete revision to laws governing adoption so that birth parents and adoptees could find each other. This memoir is an account of the benefits to me and the public of a Yale education.

Frederick Grimke, The Rights of Women in a Democratic Republic, A Modern Edition, Introduced with Commentary by Donald F. (Frank) Melhorn, Jr. (Archway Publishing, 2016) (posted Sept. 9, 2020)

A South Carolina native and member of the Yale class of 1810, Frederick Grimke emigrated to Ohio where he eventually cut short a judicial career to spent the rest of his life pursuing intellectual interests in political theory. In 1856, eight years after a convention at Seneca Falls, New York energized the American feminist movement, he wrote an essay, The Rights of Women in a Democratic Republic, inspired by the public careers of two of his sisters, Sarah and Angelina, who were pioneers of that movement. Troubling second thoughts about its remarkably farseeing prediction left the essay unpublished during his lifetime, and it was almost omitted from a collection of his works obscurely published by his executor after his death in 1863. In 2016 I published the essay freestanding, with commentary, in a modern edition.

Grimke was a Yale student in an era defined by the college presidencies of Ezra Stiles and Timothy Dwight, who successively led Yale's transformation from a "collegiate school" for training Connecticut clergymen and schoolmasters, to an institution of higher learning with a nationwide constituency and a mission to prepare its sons for leadership in a new nation. Both Stiles and Dwight conducted debating exercises over issues of political and social significance-"disputations"-which made up about a third of the curricular content of the Yale learning experience. The amplification of that content in debates enthusiastically conducted by the students themselves, in organizations to at least one of which each student belonged, made the activity (in the words of one Yale historian) "among the most potent factors of [Yale's] influence in the first half of the nineteenth century." That influence was long-lasting where debate topics touched on issues not yet prominent in public discourse, which students would come in mature life to confront as full-blown controversies.

Slavery and women's rights were perennial such issues. "Whether Females ought to be admitted to public civil government" was debated in "disputations" president Stiles conducted in 1782, early in his presidency. "Are the abilities of the sexes equal?" was argued in 1810, Grimke's graduation year, by members of the Linonia Society to which he belonged. And he participated in their argument later that summer, over "Ought the slaves in the United States [to] be immediately emancipated?"

The Linonians' secretary made a special point of recording in the minutes the circumstances in which this emancipation argument was held. "The dispute was ably and warmly conducted by both sides," he reported, "and all engagements were punctually fulfilled; the meeting was, for that time of year, uncommonly full, decorum and strict attention [were] observed."

It is sad and alarming that no such description would characterize the manner in which contentious issues are presently deliberated on the Yale campus. But members of our Class of 1957 can be proud that that one of us, as an enlightened former member of the university's administration, has resisted the destruction of Yale's heritage of intelligent discourse "ably and warmly" conducted, with "decorum and strict attention." It is especially gratifying to have Sam Chauncey's generous cover endorsement for the Grimke work.

Donald F. (Frank) Melhorn, Jr., 'Lest We Be Marshall'd': Judicial Powers and Politics in Ohio, 1806-1812 (Akron Univ. Press, 2003) (posted Sept. 9, 2020)

In 1809, six years after Chief Justice John Marshall's famous decision in Marbury v. Madison established that federal courts were empowered to judge the constitutionality of acts of Congress, two Ohio judges were tried by impeachment for decisions claiming that power for the state's courts in respect to acts of the Ohio legislature. One of those judges, George Tod, is a central character in Lest We Be Marshall'd: Judicial Powers and Politics in Ohio.

Tod was a member of the Yale class of 1795, who went on to attend law school in Litchfield, Connecticut. In 1799, in that school's student-run moot court, he was one of the advocates who argued the same issue as to which his controversial decision as an Ohio judge was met by his impeachment prosecution, a test case for whether the state's courts were empowered to judge the constitutionality of legislative acts. Tod might well have owed his narrow escape from conviction (the state senate's "guilty" vote was one short of the required two-thirds) to the Ohio legislators never having learned of the moot court argument, in which he had taken the side directly contrary to the ruling he made as an Ohio judge.

I was as surprised as they would have been, when I first learned of the Litchfield case long after embarking on what I had anticipated would be a simple undertaking to publish a brief account of Tod's impeachment trial. This book and another about Frederick Grimke, Yale class of 1810, are among that initiative's eventual and quite unexpected results.

Arthur Wertheim, The Silent Movies of W.C. Fields: How They Created the Basis for His Fame in Sound Films (posted August 7, 2020)

Known for his sound films, most people have no idea that W. C. Fields also made silent movies early in his career. During writing a 3-volume biography on Fields, my publisher insisted I cut enough material to meet their word count. Consequently, I removed all the writing on his silent films for a fourth book. It was an unexpected challenge. I discovered that six of the twelve movies he did were lost. As a result I had to use reviews and other secondary sources to understand the context of his lost films. Unimpressed by the two shorts he did in 1915, Fields decided to remain with the Ziegfeld Follies and he did not do another film until 1925. The decision prevented him from ever joining the pantheon of great silent film stars such as Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, etc. But the silent films he did until 1928 were nonetheless highly significant because he developed the two screen personas that later gained him fame in the Talkies: the henpecked husband and the benevolent rogue. I unexpectedly found that when he first went to Hollywood during 1926-28 (the dawn of the Talkies) not one producer noticed that Fields's unique voice was perfect for sound films. While there he encountered all the perils of the movie business, including demoted to making three B-class movies lost to posterity. So he went back to Broadway until 1931, when he returned to Hollywood and finally gained his fame in sound films.

James M. Banner, Jr., New Book on Presidential Misconduct (posted July 29, 2020)

An expanded version of a 1974 historians' report, edited by Yale historian C. Vann Woodward, to the Impeachment Inquiry of the House Committee on the Judiciary at the invitation of its general counsel, John Doar, this 2019 book, Presidential Misconduct: From George Washington to Today, adds chapters to the earlier report (to which this book's editor was a contributor), which ended with Lyndon Johnson's presidency. The additions offer new materials on administrations from those of Richard Nixon through Barack Obama. The book, whose subject is contained in its title, pulls out from the nation's past only a single thread of presidential history. Created originally in response to Nixon's corrupt and miscreant behavior and up-dated because of Donald Trump's similar, though greater, malfeasance, the book makes no claim that presidential administrations should be measured solely on the behavior of their senior officials' conduct. It does however provide a record of White House misbehavior starting as early as George Washington's first term, when a treasury official walked off with a large sum of Treasury funds. While the book steers clear of any over-arching themes or arguments, it's clear that greed and a fear of exposure (manifested in cover-ups) have been a principle actuator of corruption, followed closely by political and personal favor-granting and kickbacks. Each White House occupant's ability, inclination, success, and failure in establishing and applying firm rules of conduct have also played a major part in this history. Furthermore, as the nature of the nation's government has changed and grown and its relations with the world expanded, even in the face of effective federal laws (like those governing the civil service and the Hatch Act), some innovations in corrupt and illegal behavior have appeared starting in the 1970s. The first was Nixon's orchestration of corruption and illegal activity from the Oval Office. something never attempted before. Subsequent departures have included the creation of the cabal-like projects known as the Iran-Contra Affair during the administration of Ronald Reagan and, during the Trump presidency, the recruitment of private citizens to carry out foreign policy out of sight of Congress and authorized institutions of government.

Arthur Wertheim, New Book on W.C. Fields's Stage Career (posted July 15, 2015)

From the press release: W. C. Fields from Burlesque and Vaudeville to Broadway: Becoming a Comedian (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) . To be followed by Volume 2 in 2016, W. C. Fields from the Ziegfeld Follies and Broadway Stage to the Screen: Becoming a Comic Icon and Cultural Iconoclast.

A virtuoso comedian, W. C. Fields is often called a comic genius and legendary iconoclast who gave the gift of laughter to multitudes during his epoch and left a legacy of humor for future generations. As the first book to use the newly opened W. C. Fields Papers, this groundbreaking volume explores how he became a comedian during his less-known stage career from 1898 to 1915. As a tramp juggler in burlesque in 1899, Fields hit a roadblock. Either continue the same act, a guaranteed treadmill to oblivion, or choose another path. Fields makes a monumental decision---he will use juggling as a means to generate laughter. At this dramatic turning point he embarks on his long hazardous roller coaster ascent to the pantheon of great American comedians. The book reveals how his comedy initially emerged on the burlesque and vaudeville stage through the art of pantomime, a skill he transferred to the screen. Containing a gold mine of new information, the volume untangles a web of mysteries about Fields' turbulent private life and performance career, hitherto camouflaged under a smoke screen of hyperbolic stories written by publicists and Fields. Using correspondence found in the Papers, heartrending stories are told about his despair as a penniless and jobless trouper; his tragic relationships with his calculating wife, estranged son, despotic father; and a ten-year affair with the woman who broke up his marriage. Here is the saga of a complex dual personality, whirling from tenderness to brusqueness, who brought so much joy to millions while enduring so much anguish---a comedian who found refuge in his poignant comedy about life's frustrations and the human condition.

Larry Kramer, New Historical Novel (posted May 20, 2015)

From the book jacket: "Forty years in the making, The American People, Vol. I: Search for My Heart, embodies Larry Kramer's vision of his beloved and accursed homeland. As the founder of ACT UP and the author of Faggots and The Normal Heart, Kramer has decisively affected American lives and letters. Here, as only he can, he tells the heartbreaking and heroic story of one nation under a plague, contaminated by greed, hate, and disease yet host to transcendent acts of courage and kindness."

Henry (Sam) Chauncey, Jr., New Book on 1970 May Day at Yale (posted April 5, 2015)

in 2013, I had lunch with two friends in New Haven and mentioned that “Once again I have to give a talk about May Day at Yale in 1970 and have no decent pictures to show.” Those friends--John Hill, Emeritus Professor of Photography at the Yale Art School, and Thomas Strong, graphic designer and also a Yale Art graduate--indicated that they had a trove of pictures of the May Day weekend. From that luncheon three of us have put together this book. Its story is simple: In the early spring of 1970, a prosecutor in New Haven decided to put a number of leaders of the Black Panthers on trail for allegedly ordering the murder of a New Haven Panther. The reaction of the national, radical community was swift and violent. A rally was planned for May Day with the stated intention of freeing Bobby Seale and burning Yale and New Haven to the ground. This book,with the text by me and photographs by Hill and Strong, tries to present the tale of what it was like when more than 20,000 radicals invaded the city for a three-day weekend.

Peter M. Wolf: Memoir (posted March 10, 2013)

In portions of this new memoir I recreate the sights, sounds, tastes and an insider's look at life in New Haven during the 1950s. Throughout I've included passages and musings that reflect the yearnings and anxieties of our generation. My story, like many in the class, is an account of a restless guy who leaves the hometown he loves (New Orleans) to discover the world and, in so doing, to find himself.

Yale of our day and many of its particular rituals are included: the freshman campus, freshman counselors, meals in Commons, Yale Station, the colleges, the Yale Daily News, the Elizabethan Club, secret societies, Tap Day, Rocky Flint, Vince Scully, the Spot, the United Greek Diner, and lots more.

During undergraduate years, among my closest friends were Bud Trillin (who has written the Foreword), Henry Geldzahler, and Gerald Jonas. Their stories at Yale and later are woven into the narrative. Each from a more traditional Jewish family, through them I became aware of my own family's curious form of assimilated southern Judaism and the rigid social and racial stratification in New Orleans.

After a year of medical school at Columbia, I return to New Orleans to work in my father's cotton brokerage, where I learn about the cotton and international business. In spite of a spicy love affair, an exciting residency in the French Quarter, and growing prominence in town, the memoir follows me back east to earn a doctorate and become an architectural historian and land investment manager en route to my current life.

My New Orleans, as it accumulates through the story, offers one member of our generation's insight into a lost period of America's evolution, turbulence and possibilities, as unique and to-be-longed-for as the city of my memory.

John Leinenweber: New book on St. Augustine's Homilies (posted November 18, 2012)

In the Beginning Was the Word is a collection of Saint Augustine's homilies reflecting on the depths and intricacies of the Gospel according to John. His 124 homilies (tractatus in Latin) have been abridged and reorganized into 57 chapters for modern readers in conversational modern English. As Augustine spoke day after day in his cathedral church in Hippo (modern Annaba in Algeria), he employed his rhetorical gifts and prodigious memory "to each, to delight, and to move" his people to share his love for the Word become flesh, and to yearn with him for the peace that is God's gift to those who seek him. As he wrote in Confessions, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

David A. Johnson: Two books on regional planning (posted September 4, 2012)

Planning the Great Metropolis: The 1929 Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs (Routledge, 1995)

One of my earliest jobs after graduating from Yale in 1963 with a Masters degree in City Planning was with the Regional Plan Association (RPA) in Manhattan. RPA was and is one of the most prestigious private planning organizations in the country. My assignment was to identify and propose plans for metropolitan subcenters as part of a "Second Regional Plan" for the 30-County NY-NJ-CT metro area. We enjoyed some successes in such places as Stamford, New Brunswick, White Plains, Newark and downtown Brooklyn.

Having worked on the Second Regional Plan I got curious about the First Regional Plan which was undertaken in the 1920's by the same group of businessmen who had sponsored the great 1909 Chicago Plan of Daniel Burnham, which had much to do with the shaping of modern Chicago following the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893. These businessmen, moving to New York from Chicago, brought their ideas for a rational city planning process to Manhattan and the New York Region. With a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation they put together the most comprehensive (and costly) regional plan ever.

The book explores several questions: did the plan have an impact on the subsequent development of the region? And did the plan influence the public works of Robert Moses? He told me it did not. My analysis makes the case that much of the plan was carried out, and indeed laid the groundwork for the bridges and highways that Moses completed.

The tragedy today is that we don't any more have visionaries like those early civic progressives. Sadly, we can't even maintain the infrastructure we have.

The TVA Regional Planning and Development Program: The Transformation of an Institution and Its Mission (Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2005)

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was one of the New Deal's central initiatives. It was intended to be far more than the electric power utility which is its main function today. Rather it was to be an agency for integrated regional planning and development. And it was to be a model for river basins in other parts of the country. I co-authored this book with the Chief Planner of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Aelred J. Gray, to get the planning history of TVA down on paper, before it became lost in the mists of time. Our purpose was to answer several key questions: how effective was TVA as a regional planning agency? What successes did it achieve and where did it fail, and why. I won't try to spin out the answers here. The story is too complex and entwined with national and global politics. But suffice it to say, TVA did have an impact on the South and the nation. Its power generation was critical in producing the energy that smelted aluminum for World War II airplanes and for the refinement of uranium for the Manhattan Project. And it made a large part of the South habitable in the summer thanks to air conditioning, changing the economic landscape of the country.

James M. Banner, Jr.: New book on the discipline of history (posted June 20, 2012)

Based on my more than 50 years of experience as a professional historian in academic and other capacities, I've written Being a Historian (Cambridge University Press, 2012) with an eye to both aspiring and mature historians. The book, designed principally for professional historians (and those of all sorts in all sorts of occupations) offers an overview of the state of the discipline of history today and the problems that confront it and its practitioners in many professions. I argue that historians remain inadequately prepared for their rapidly changing professional world and that the discipline as a whole, while greatly improved since the days I entered it, has yet to confront many of its deficiencies. I also argue that, no longer needing to conform automatically to the academic ideal, historians can now more safely and productively than ever before adapt to their own visions, temperaments, and goals as they take up their responsibilities as scholars, teachers, and public practitioners. Critical while also optimistic, the book suggests many topics for further scholarly and professional exploration, research, and debate.

Gerald Jonas: Collection of poems, monograph on stuttering (posted June 20, 2012)

This elegantly printed and bound volume offers a sequence of my poems "epitaphs," inspired by some of the great poets in the English language -- Shakespeare , Donne, Pope, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Williams, Eliot, Ginsberg and Plath, plus a few surprises. The poems are paired with haunting watercolors by my cousin, Sanford Wurmfeld, longtime chair of the Art Department at Hunter College. The poems and paintings were created independently, but we found, to our cousinly delight, that they spoke to each other on the page in unexpected and provocative ways. This is the opposite of an e-book, something to hold in your hands and enjoy over time. For more information, go to www.geraldjonas.com.

Stuttering has been called a social disease in the truest sense--it shuts offf communication. I stuttered as a boy, suffering greatly until the affliction faded away in my teen years, as it sometimes does, for reasons unknown to medical science. That last phrase, alas, applies to almost all aspects of this condition. In 1976, while a staff writer at The New Yorker, I wrote a Reporter At Large piece entitled "Stuttering: The Disorder of Many Theories," which was published the following year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It dealt with the rudimentary scientific understanding of stuttering at the time, but it was mostly an account of what it felt like to be a stutterer, of the agony of being unable to speak a simple sentence and having to devise drastic re-wordings on the fly, in order to say something approximating the original intent. (It's possible that this enforced education in word-choice influenced my decision to become a writer.) Unfortunately, science still knows very little about the origins of stuttering, and a cure remains tantalizingly out of reach. So the book retains a certain currency. In April 2012, Francine du Plessix Gray, herself a stutterer, writing in the New York Review of Books, called Stuttering: The Disorder of Many Theories a "splendid memoir."

C. Brian Kelly: New editions of books on the Civil War and WWII (posted December 21, 2010)

Just out---as of November 1, 2010, and once again, that is---Best Little Stories from World War II by C. Brian Kelly and, this time, his wife, Ingrid Smyer-Kelly. How does all that figure? Simple enough. Then consisting of just 101 stories, Best Little WWII first saw the light of day in 1989 as a slim, self-published volume by Kelly, then the first editor of Military History and World War II magazines.

Since it sold well, Kelly and his then-future wife Ingrid Smyer self-published two more Best Little Stories books, on the history of the White House and on the American Civil War...and they sold! By now, the mid-to-late 1990s, Ingrid was writing about the women in the historical period covered, and the two were married.

Well, as one thing led to another, Cumberland House Publishing of Nashville, Tenn., took over as publisher of the series, which next moved on to include the American Revolution, two more Civil War books, a greatly expanded World War II book, the Wild West, the history of Virginia and, in late 2008, an anecdotal (that is, still in the Best Little Stories format) biography of Winston Churchill, for a grand total of nine books in all. In late 2008 also, Cumberland House, along with the Kelly couple's line of historical books, were acquired by Sourcebooks Inc. of Naperville, Ill. Next, in 2010, Sourcebooks re-issued both the original Civil War book (with new covers and some new material) and the World War II book (also new cover, new material)--on March 1 and Nov. 1, 2010, respectively. This time, the World War II book, not so incidentally, included a biographical sketch of Eleanor Roosevelt, Woman for the Ages, by Ingrid.

Former newspaper reporter Kelly, who teaches journalism at the University of Virginia, now is working up some fresh material for a re-issue of the couple's Best Little Stories from the American Revolution (again to include Select Founding Mothers by Ingrid), planned for publication in the fall of 2011.

Peter M. Wolf: New Book on Land Use (posted September 29, 2010)

The excerpts that follow from a new book I've written, Land Use and Abuse in America: A Call to Action, will give you some of the flavor of the land use and community evolution problems I see facing America. The book itself is a personal account of lessons learned and thoughts accumulated over many years of thinking about, writing about and practicing. Throughout I suggest a better approach to the use and the conservation of our land, our precious water resources, and our communities.

"As America shows distinct signs of relinquishing its world hegemony in military power, diplomatic influence, and economic solidity, domestic matters gain new attention. There is, at long last, emerging broad-based concern about America‚s degrading physical environment and simultaneous looming shortage of capital, credit, and natural resources. As these matters roil financial markets, stir scientific inquiry, and engender political debate, they underscore the imperative for wiser use and diminished abuse of the land.

"People engaged in the domain of land use transformation are at the center of an epic. Everything that happens in the physical world affects land use, and land use affects everything that happens in the natural world, often for a very long time. Cities, towns, suburbs, and exurban development currently consume only 7 percent of the U.S. land area. As the population expands and economies evolve, much more terrain will be transformed, and built-up areas will be reconfigured. In the past, all across America, at every level of geography and at every scale of community, the natural land has been treated harshly and unwisely with adverse consequences.

"In this first decade of the twenty-first century, a half century after the environmental consciousness-raising years of the 1960s, a more aware generation is ascending to community, corporate, professional planning, and government leadership. It is becoming clear that the old systems of land use and abuse cannot and will not provide a sustainably desirable future. Long-held assumptions are being abandoned that resources will never give out, that there will always be another unspoiled place to settle, and that everything will last forever.

"Facing the inevitability of change and growth and being aware of past mishaps, urgent need exists for more insightful planning. There is a vast opportunity going forward to do it well."

Andreas Braddan (pseud.) [Hint: BSME '57, lived in Branford]: New Nautical Adventure Tale (posted April 29, 2009)

Sea Interludes: Rogue Adventure on a Tramp Steamer Cruise is a picaresque nautical adventure story, taking place in the late 1950s. It is chocked full of actual historical events and cultural idiosyncrasies of that period interwoven (with a bit of hyperbole) with my personal experiences in the Navy and then as a steward to 12 "first class" passengers on a Norwegian Freighter going around the world. The book is available for purchase on www.amazon.com and from its publisher at www.iuniverse.com.

Donald D. Hester: New Book on 60 Years of American Monetary Policy and Banking (posted April 29, 2009)

Springer Verlag published my most recent book, The Evolution of Monetary Policy and Banking in the US, in April 2008. It is a concise analysis of the evolution of monetary policy and banking institutions over the past sixty years that stresses the dynamic interactions between the Federal Reserve and banking institutions that resulted from financial market innovations. Institutions were influenced by increasing competition in markets and monetary policies. The book consists of two parts, which are organized chronologically. The first has chapters that correspond with terms of chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board. It critically analyzes decisions taken by the Federal Open Market Committee in each period and argues that innovations forced changes in the design and conduct of monetary policy. The second part analyzes how banking institutions evolved from a very conservative and regulated system in 1945 to highly inventive financial firms and how this evolution has affected the distribution of credit, wealth, and income in the US.

James M. Banner, Jr.: New Book on the Historical Profession (posted April 4, 2009)

A fellow historian, John Gillis, and I have commissioned and gathered a collection of eleven essay-length memoirs from as many historians from the path-breaking generation of historians born a few years either side of 1940 (including myself) about how and why we became the historians we became. It is, I believe, a unique collection of such essays written by women as well as men, and it includes memoirs by public as well as academic historians, a non-American, an Afro-Caribbean, and a gay historian all from a variety of origins and institutions. The introduction to the collection draws some general conclusions from the essays about the experiences of our generation of historians and what our work has meant for the discipline of history and for historical knowledge. The book, published by the University of Chicago Press, can be ordered through the Press’s website and through such general services as amazon.com.

C. Brian Kelly: New Book on Winston Churchill (posted September 18, 2008)

Having taken, and loved, Daily Themes at Bulldog U, I've been writing daily themes almost daily ever since---first in 20 years of newspaper work (most of them at the late and lamented Washington Star), then in 11 years as a historical magazines editor and in another 11 as magazine columnist (Military History magazine in both cases), and nowadays as a historical books writer...but always indulging in the short take, as once upon a distant time was the case in Daily Themes.

Anyway, my wife Ingrid and I have now produced the ninth book in our historical series called Best Little Stories. This time it's Best little Stories from the Life and Times of Winston Churchill, by yours truly, including His American Mother by my wife, Ingrid Smyer.

Running to 420 pages and published by Cumberland House Publishing of Nashville, TN, it's an anecdotal biography of the great and inspiring World War II leader. So far as I can tell, it may be the first biography of Churchill by an American since William Manchester began his three-volume biography but then died before he could finish it. Our book had its start, really, with an invitation to appear as lecturers at a week-long seminar held at Oxford University in the summer of 2007 under the auspices of the adult education programs at Oxford and the University of Virginia, where I have been teaching journalism since 1980. We did the lecturing and now, a year or so later, here's the book!

The other books in our historical series, started in 1989 as a self-publishing venture, range in subject from three on the American Civil War to one each on the American Revolution, World War II, the Wild West, the White House and Virginia. Hope you'll try one of them---or our latest! Available at any bookstore, amazon.com...the usual places. Just look for or special order Best Little Stories on Churchill, etc., by C. Brian Kelly and Ingrid Smyer.

Brian R. Walsh: Book on How Boys Learn (posted June 13, 2008)

After forty-two years in independent schools, thirty of them as a headmaster, I retired from The Buckley School in New York City in 2001. Since then I have been providing consulting services for parents and students who are contemplating independent education, and co-directing a program for training first-year teachers in independent schools.

While happily I have had more time to devote to grandchildren, I have also been able to reflect on the changes that have occurred in independent education, and the ways children learn. One of the direct results of my reflections is a new book just published by TMCBooks, LLC of Conway, New Hampshire: Boys Should Be Boys, A Headmaster’s Reflections. This is a memoir style book about how boys learn differently than girls, make friends differently, have entirely different issues of self-esteem and motivation, react to their parents and teachers differently, and, in fact, process just about everything differently. These observations are presented through anecdotes of actual school situations and, more significantly, through the voices and actions of the boys themselves.

This book is available at barnesandnoble.com, and amazon.com, and can be ordered through the publisher.

Harold S. (Hal) Russell: Biography of Horace Capron (posted April 23, 2007)

Prior to my retirement at the turn of the millennium, I resolved to write a biography of a little known 19th century American, General Horace Capron, my great great grandfather. Controversial then and even today, Capron has been described as the Edwards Deming of his day who disappeared into semi-obscurity after spending four years in Japan, just after the Meiji restoration, advising the government on how to develop the large northern island of Hokkaido. With Jim Banner's help, The University Press of America has published the book and has it for sale on their web site for $24.65. Amazon, and bookstores sell it for $29.

As a total doofus who can't type even today and who had not written a long and serious non-legal paper since senior year at Yale, this presented a series of challenges, most of which I failed more than once, but it forced me to educate myself on a series of topics such as: the Civil War (among other things I read Shelby Foote's 14 volumes), the American Revolution, the Wars of 1812 and with Mexico, the life and times of Zachary Taylor, John Hunt Morgan and W.T. Sherman and much more. I visited Utica, New York for several days, Peoria, Illinois, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, Laurel, Maryland, the battlefields of the south and Andersonville, and of course Japan, including a week in Sapporo. All these played a role in his extraordinary life. It was an exhilarating experience and I'd love to do another biography before senility overtakes me. All ideas are most welcome.

Walter Benenson: Handbook of Physics (posted April 20, 2007)

"Nucleus Factory" is a science TV program that was aired around the country on PBS stations about two years ago. It is mainly about nuclear astrophysics, in particular how the elements were created. I especially like the animations that I did with several undergraduate computer science majors. The narration by Linda Hunt is very well done. The music is also good, an original score created by a professor of jazz here at Michigan State and performed by local musicians. There is also a web site about it http://wkar.org/nucleusfactory/ If you want a copy of the DVD, I can send you one gratis. Email me at benenson@msu.edu.

You should order this book from Amazon. "Handbook of Physics" by Walter Benenson, John W. Harris, Horst Stocker, and Holger Lutz, American Institute of Physics; 1 edition (2006) 1249 pages. You can raise its ranking considerably with just one order as you can see on Amazon. "Amazon.com Sales Rank: #475,145 in Books." It does have a five star rating, however.

A book like this takes an incredible amount of work because it must be error-free, and there are thousands and thousands of equations and figures. It is selling quite well actually, mainly to libraries.

Johannes Somary: New Music (posted March 17, 2007)

A new disc entitled "Music of Johannes Somary," distributed by Albany Records, is now available by ordering it directly from Albany Music, 915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207.

Other examples of my music on Vanguard is available through Arkivmusic.com, Amazon.com, the Musical Heritage Society, or in good record stores that are still in existence. Musical Heritage did recently have a special on my recording of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos. It's hard to know who has what anymore these days.

My recording of my song cycle entitled "Many-Colored Brooms" with words by Emily Dickinson is available on Leonarda Records, and they have a web page from which one can order their discs.

Who's performing? Well most of my Vanguard discs were recorded in London with the excellent English Chamber Orchestra. The choral works have such distinguished soloists as Elly Ameling, Heather Harper, Maureen Forrester, Ernst Haeffliger, and Robert Tear. The Albany disc includes my AmorArtis Chamber Chorus as well as members of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

John Fistere: MultiGraph (posted February 8, 2007)

Sample graph. Click to see a larger version.

Plot Your Medical History with the free MultiGraph Service!

If you have ever watched your doctor flip through a two-inch thick chart trying to get a feel for your medical case, and wondered how he makes sense of it all, you will appreciate the MultiGraph service.

Prostate cancer patients write a chronological history containing their relevant medical data, or fill in an online form with the data. I receive the data via email and usually with just a few mouse clicks, the MultiGraph program reads their data and creates and sends them back an email with one or more graphs of their history. They and their doctors can then graphically review the time relationships of treatments, procedures, and medical results.

The MultiGraph program is a software application I've developed over the years as a "recreational programmer". A few years ago we made it a free service of the Prostate Cancer Research and Education Foundation. Dr. Israel Barken, Chairman and Medical Director, and many survivors have made suggestions for the program, most of which I've implemented. We've done thousands of MultiGraphs for over 800 patients, and continue to do, at a rate of two or three a week, many of them updates for patients with new information.

The program is not restricted to prostate cancer uses, or even medical uses.

You can find out about the Foundation and the MultiGraph (not Medigraph) service at http://www.pcref.org, or you can go straight to the instructions at http://www.pcref.org/instruction.php or to the online form athttp://jfistere.the-dreaming.net/ MultiGraphDataEntry.htm. Examples of simple and complex MultiGraphs are at http://members.cox.net/jfistere/FistereGraph. htm and http://www.762betula.net/pcdigest/. You are invited to give it a try.

Courtney H. (Court) Haight: Steel Drum Music (posted December 7, 2006)

I retired to Blue Hill, Maine in 1990, after a career in international banking to begin a new career in hydroponic farming. Luckily for us, Blue Hill is culturally a vibrant place. Early in our stay, in 1991, an announcement appeared in the local newspaper: an adult education class would be held, the title of which was "Learn how to play in a Steel Band." My wife, Woody, suggested that I sign up for the class, to take a break from our farming activities. Happily for me, these early classes proved that playing the steel drums is "user friendly" for those of us who consider themselves musically "challenged" with no training in any musical instrument. I became an enthusiastic student.

There had been steel bands playing in the area for some years, and one of those was a community steel band called Flash in the Pans, which played street dance concerts on Monday nights all summer long. Woody and I were in attendance for those concerts from our early days in Blue Hill. After a few years of playing in the "beginner" and "intermediate" classes, I formally joined Flash in the Pans in 1994, when for my 60th birthday, the family contributed to the purchase of my own set of pans, which allowed me to practice at home; and practice was and still is necessary!

Flash in the Pans is a group of 35 - 40 volunteer adults, from all walks of life, from high-schoolers to old folks like me (I am not the only 70+ year-old member) who gather to play year around, street dances in the summer and learning new music in the winter. We sponsor a town wide New Years Eve celebration, which is our big community service effort of the year, although most of our summer street dances are benefit performances for various non-profits such as local libraries, museums, alcohol and drug abuse groups, etc. What funds are generated from the sale of our CD's go to support scholarships for youngsters so that they may take steel band classes where local schools do not have music as a part of the curriculum. Thus we try to ensure that steel band is available to students from age 6 through high school. These youngsters are the "farm team" for Flash in the Pan. Indeed, some former students have started up steel band programs in other schools in other parts of the country.

This group has become a second "family" for me, particularly after the death of my dear Woody in early 2005. The proof of what we do for fun can be heard on our CD. I will have copies of the CD with me at our 50th Reunion of the Class of 1957 in May 2007. Our schedule of performances, CD ordering instructions, and historical information about the steel pan is on our web site www.peninsulapan.org

Jonathan P. Swinchatt: Book about Napa Wines (posted October 28, 2006)

In 2004, the University of California Press published The Winemaker's Dance: Exploring Terroir in the Napa Valley," a book I wrote with my friend David Howell about wine and place. Along the way, we delve into a variety of other influences on wine character, from viticulture to wine criticism, using the Napa Valley as the backdrop. Jim Banner gave the book a nice review in the class column but ended with the commercial kiss of death, calling it a "serious" book. Other critics generally found it quite accessible, as you can judge for yourself from reviews at this site. The Winemaker's Dance was a finalist for book of the year in the wine, beer, or spirits category of the International Association of Cooking Professionals in 2005. Over the past few months I have been working on a series of articles for The World of Fine Wine—a relatively new and beautifully produced wine magazine published in London—that explore the interaction of wine, place, people, and culture. Three have appeared so far, on Napa, the Walla Walla Valley in Washington, and the Willamette Valley, with one on Santa Barbara County due out in December. I have the Walla Walla article in pdf format, and can send it to any of you who are interested if you provide an email address. Just mail me at: swin36@cox.net. If you are interested in how a geologist got involved in the world of wine, go to http://www.earthvisioninc.com for that story and a description of my approach to understanding vineyards from a different perspective.

James F. (Jim) Ziegler: New Book on Soft Errors in Electronics (posted October 9, 2006)

"Soft Errors in Electronics – History, Status and Trends. A Guide for Designing with Memory Integrated Circuits"

About 25 years ago, I got interested in terrestrial cosmic rays. These are particles that originate outside our galaxy, and wander for millions of years and finally might hit Earth. They are not rare – the cascades from these particles send about two million particles a day through your body. These particles are the source for almost all methods of dating of ancient things. When you consider the interaction of this flux of energetic particles with ultra-sensitive integrated circuits, there is the probability that there will be random micro-bangs. I published the first paper about this possible effect in 1979. By 1985, about $300M a year was being spent on this effect, which got the nickname of soft-fails. This is because the cosmic ray interaction would change the content of a stored number, but have no effect on the hardware. By 2005, there are six major conferences each year about this effect, and how to attempt to mitigate its problems. As an example, last year on Christmas eve, the United Airlines network got hit with a soft fail, and 68,000 passengers were stranded because the airplanes and crews couldn't be assigned and there was no record of any passengers. Last year, Cypress Semiconductor Co. asked me to write a review of the history of soft fails, and predict trends. Of special note to classmates are the lock-up effects on implantable devices such as pacemakers and implanted insulin pumps. The book is available from the Cypress website in four languages for $25, www.cypress.com. Or write to me, and I'll send you a copy in exchange for the postage. It does have a lot of equations.

Arthur F. Wertheim: New Book on Vaudeville Wars (posted August 12, 2006)

I have recently published Vaudeville Wars (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), a book that illuminates the exciting story about how the tycoons of the two most powerful circuits, Keith-Albee in the East and the Orpheum in the West, conspired to control the the big time and its performers.  These circuits revolutionized popular stage entertainment by breaking with the bawdy concert-saloon tradition  by offering  wholesome amusement that appealed broadly to families and many sectors of society. In the early 1900s, the circuits created an oligopoly called the Combine, a territorial alliance that gave Keith-Albee and the Orpheum control of the "big time" from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coasts.  I show how the Combine used cutthroat tactics to suppress rival owners and to squash performers' rights (and their White Rats' union) through strikebreaking and blacklisting.  My book describes how Joseph P. Kennedy masterminded a takeover of Keith-Albee/Orpheum through clever stock manipulations and then linked the company to RCA to form Radio Keith Orpheum. When the "big-time" venues, including the famous Palace, became RKO sound movie theaters, the curtain descended on the vaudeville wars.

Since graduation, I have also written other books on 20th Century American culture, including The New York Little Renaissance (NYU Press, 1976) and Radio Comedy (Oxford, 1979)  as well as edited three volumes of The Papers of Will Rogers (Univiversity of Oklahoma Press, (1992, 1996, 2000), Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies (University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), and American Popular Culture(ABC-Clio, 1984).

These works might never have been written if it was not for two inspirational professsors in American Studies at Yale:  Norman Holmes Pearson and Robert Bone.

For more information see www.vaudevillewars.com and amazon.com.

Otis L. Graham, Jr.: Book on Immigration Crisis (posted August 7, 2006)

In 2004 I published (well, Rowman and Littlefield did, officially) Unguarded Gates: A History of America's Immigration Crisis, my 17th book, written or edited—and the most important. (Did I hear Banner say, easily the most, as none of the rest have been?). It is what the title promises and should clear up any questions you have about how this nation got itself into the current (and for three decades) out-of-control immigration fiasco. All in 204 pages of prose, most of them dealing with the recent past and the present. And available through all conventional booksellers.

Robert D. (Bob) Bentley: My Paintings (posted August 2, 2006)

I can't do anything but draw and paint. I figured it out in '75 when I lined up categories on unlined white paper, after two real jobs (advertising and brokerage) that I hated and at which I was not very apt. "Artist" was the only mark I could honestly check.

I paint people, lots of them: Prominent people (George W. and Laura in the White House), private people (Lester Crown, Vern Louks), caricatures (shades of the Yale Record), and landscapes/waterscapes. I have developed a process which works. I visit the portrait client, draw many, many sketches, give them my recommendations as to likeness and pose for their aggrement and I come home to my studio in WI, and stretch the canvas and paint.

Two months later I send them a digital image or a hard copy of the painting in progress and ask for their thoughts. I present the portrait shortly thereafter. I charge $10-20,000 per figure with 30-50% more for additional detail (multiples get a discount), and I ask one-third in advance with the balance due on successful completion. In 30 years I have had two failures, and I don't want to talk about them.

I figure that if you can draw something, you can color it. Oils are the most flexible medium; a good oil painter can make his work look like a watercolor, a pastel (Casatte), like a photograph (Ingres), or like a juicy, painterly garden (Monet). The above are my own theories.

Now, if you want more, I have classes in January here in Ellison Bay, WI. And my website is www.rdbentley.com.

Norton W. (Nort) Wright: "Jazzworks" Paintings (posted July 29, 2006)

Inspired by my "JazzWorks" series of abstract paintings, here's a fresh verbal salute to the music of Jerome Kern:
You say Purina
And I say piranha
You say Carmina
And I say Burana
Purina, piranha
Carmina, Burana
Let's call the whole thing Orff

My colorful abstract expressionist paintings visualize the sound of the giants of jazz.  See what the music of Miles Davis, Theolonius Monk, Pat Metheny, Marian McPartland, and  other jazz greats LOOKS LIKE!  Samples of the paintings can be viewed and purchased through the Schomburg Gallery in Los Angeles. Its website for viewing the paintings is www.schomburggallery.com.

Robert W. (Bob) Ganger: New Book on the Vanderbilt Family (posted July 29, 2006)

I authored my first book a mere 48 years after graduation. It was recently awarded Best Non-Fiction-2005 in regional judging by Independent Publisher, an association representing several thousand independent, university, and small press publishers in North America.

Entitled "Lila Vanderbilt Webb's Miradero:  Window on an Era," the book recounts the life and times of a relatively unknown member of the otherwise celebrated family of William Henry Vanderbilt, heir to the Commodore Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune.  "Miradero" is the name Mrs. Webb gave to a winter home that she designed and built near Palm Beach, FL, in the early 1930s.  My family acquired a derelict Miradero in 1969, saving it from certain demolition. We knew nothing of its provenance at the time. When I semi-retired in the early 1990's, my wife, Anneli, and I commenced a lengthy project to restore our relic home to its former elegance.  Research on the original owner led to unexpected discovery.

Lila's story is a once a tale of romance and despair, of the blessing and curse of inherited wealth, and above all, of a remarkable Victorian lady who drew strength from adversity.  Her lifelong journey from Vanderbilt Row in Manhattan, to Shelburne Farms in Vermont, and ultimately to the Palm Beaches, reflects a lifestyle that few of us can imagine today.

Miradero was published by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.  Bookstore distribution is largely local but it is available online through conventional booksellers.

Jerome H. (Jerry) Farnum: New Book on Roman Legions (posted July 22, 2006)

I have had another book, The Positioning of the Roman Imperial Legions, published this year by Archaeopress in England.  It is available in the U.S. through The David Brown Book Company in Oakville, CT.  The book traces the locations of the legions through the provinces from AD30-AD300 with maps showing a coherent strategy on stationing the Roman army around the Empire.  This work follows earlier publications: 17 Ausfluege zu den alten Roemern in der Schweiz [17 Tours to the Ancient Romans in Switzerland] (Hallwag 1973); Guide romain de la Suisse [Roman Guide to Switzerland] (Payot 1975); and 20 Ausfluege zu romantischen Burgruinen in der Schweiz [20 Tours to Romantic Castle Ruins in Switzerland] (Hallwag 1976). I was also a co-translator for a 10 volume English version of Swiss legislation published 1982- 2006 by the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, Zurich.

Robert D. Bentley

See Robert D. Bentley's artwork at http://www.rdbentley.com/

Kenneth J. Gergen

Kenneth J. Gergen's site, showcasing his research and books, can be found here: http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/kgergen1/web/page.phtml?st=home&id=home.

Walter J. Loesche

VIsit Walter J. Loesche's laboratory, based at the University of Michigan, at this address: http://www.dent.umich.edu/research/loeschelabs/

J. Edward Meyer III

J. Edward Meyer III is a state senator in Connecticut, and his site can be found at http://www.senatedems.ct.gov/Meyer.html.

Malcolm Mitchell

Malcolm Mitchell is editor of Investment Policy Magazine, located at https://www.macthesocialist.com/.

Vic Norton

See Vic Norton's personal website at http://vic.norton.name.

Zachary H. Sacks

See the site for Zachary H. Sacks's law firm at http://www.srzcomplaw.com.

J. Morgan Thomas

J. Morgan Thomas's photos can be viewed at http://tsingle.info/. His Global Crisis Solution Center is available at http://globalcrisis.info.

Robert Weinmann

Robert Weinmann is president of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD)'s Independent Physicians Association. Visit their site here: http://www.uapd.com/

Pat Wilde

This site is the research depository for the Marine Science Group, hosted by Pat Wilde. See it at http://www.marscigrp.org.

Robert M. Young

Robert M. Young's site, archiving his work related to Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, is found here: http://www.psychoanalysis-and-therapy.com/rmyoung/index.html.

John C. Fistere, Jr.

John C. Fistere, Jr.'s blog "Ramblings - Life, Politics, the Very Large and the Very Small," is located at http://jfistere.wordpress.com.

Bart Gage

Bart Gage's sermons, observations, and commentaries on scripture are located at http://www.fathergage.com.

J. Morgan Thomas

J. Morgan Thomas's blog, "Impatient Cooking: Eating Alone In Half The Time" is located at http://tsingle.info/blog.

Brian R. Walsh

Read Brian R. Walsh's blog, "A Headmaster’s Reflections" at http://brianwalshweblog.wordpress.com/.

Eli's Chosen Six, June 2012

Eli's Chosen Six, Dick Voigt at the piano, 55th reunion

Hawaii "reunion", November 2011

Psi Simons and John Westcott, Honolulu, 2011

Washington, DC classmates, September 2010

A selection of Washington DC classmates on the occasion of a luncheon gathering, September 2010. Left-to-right: Steve Hopkins, Art Gibb, Jim Banner, Steve Weitz, Andy Glass, Bob Armstrong, and Phil Pillsbury. Front and center: Don Backe.

Chris Sonne and Roly Machold

Chris Sonne and Roly Machold among Adirondack Peaks, Summer 2010.

Psi Simons: With His Sons

Psi Simons with his sons Peter ('82) and Kiff ('88) on Hokkaido, summer 2009.

Bob Bentley: His Undergraduate Roomates in 2007

Bob and Barbara Bentley, Jack and Anne Curlett, and John and Ann Shaw.