Carol Berkin is the Presidential Professor of History Emerita at Baruch College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her many books include The Bill of Rights: The Fight to Secure America's Liberties, Wondrous Beauty: The Life and Adventures of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, and A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution.Berkin's new book is A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism.
Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
I am rereading, for the sheer joy of it, Rick Bragg’s Ava’s Man. This is the tale of his hardworking and hard drinking grandfather Charlie Bundrum and his northern Alabama family who survivedMy Book, The Movie: Wondrous Beauty.the grueling poverty that shaped this rural culture. In this book, as in the painfully beautiful All Over But the Shoutin’, Bragg reveals the deep affection for the world of Ava and Charlie that remained strong long after his remarkable talents carried Bragg far away. Although my upbringing—as a Jew in Mobile, Alabama—was far different from Bragg's, I knew men and women like those who people his books and I know his descriptions of these rural southerners ring true. I have stories to tell, too, if only I could write as well…
The Page 99 Test: The Bill of Rights.
The Page 99 Test: A Sovereign People.
--Marshal Zeringue
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