The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread to discuss Pioneers in any discipline or topical area.

The Wright Brothers were pioneers in the field of aviation.

The Wright Brothers

by David McCullough

Synopsis:

Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.

On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot.

Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did?

David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly American story of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. The house they lived in had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but there were books aplenty, supplied mainly by their preacher father, and they never stopped reading.

When they worked together, no problem seemed to be insurmountable. Wilbur was unquestionably a genius. Orville had such mechanical ingenuity as few had ever seen. That they had no more than a public high school education, little money and no contacts in high places, never stopped them in their mission to take to the air. Nothing did, not even the self-evident reality that every time they took off in one of their contrivances, they risked being killed.

In this thrilling book, master historian David McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.

Awards:

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for History & Biography (2015), National Aviation Hall of Fame Combs Gates Award - (2016)

The Mountains of the Mind

by

Synopsis:

Robert Macfarlane's Mountains of the Mind is the most interesting of the crop of books published to mark the 50th anniversary of the first successful ascent of Everest.

Macfarlane is both a mountaineer and a scholar. Consequently we get more than just a chronicle of climbs. He interweaves accounts of his own adventurous ascents with those of pioneers such as George Mallory, and in with an erudite discussion of how mountains became such a preoccupation for the modern western imagination.

The book is organised around a series of features of mountaineering--glaciers, summits, unknown ranges--and each chapter explores the scientific, artistic and cultural discoveries and fashions that accompanied exploration.

The contributions of assorted geologists, romantic poets, landscape artists, entrepreneurs, gallant amateurs and military cartographers are described with perceptive clarity.

The book climaxes with an account of Mallory's fateful ascent on Everest in 1924, one of the most famous instances of an obsessive pursuit. Macfarlane is well-placed to describe it since it is one he shares.

MacFarlane's own stories of perilous treks and assaults in the Alps, the Cairngorms and the Tian Shan mountains between China and Kazakhstan are compelling.

Readers who enjoyed Francis Spufford's masterly I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination will enjoy Mountains of the Mind. This is a slighter volume than Spufford's and it loses in depth what it gains in range, but for an insight into the moody, male world of mountaineering past and present it is invaluable. --Miles Taylor

Awards:

Guardian First Book Award (2003), Somerset Maugham Award (2004), Boardman Tasker Prize Nominee for Mountain Literature (2003), Sunday Times/Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award (2004)

Review:

Robert MacFarlane being interviewed by FiveBooks:

The underlying narrative of much landscape writing is man’s relationship and interaction with the natural world.

There are many versions of that question or preoccupation. Some of the books I have chosen are about connection with nature, and some are about its terrifying disinterest. The wilderness can be a very welcoming and miraculous place, but it can also be fatal in its complete indifference to human presence. The wild – that extreme manifestation of nature – is both exhilarating and, sometimes, murderous.

Your most recent book The Old Ways touches on this question of the connection of between man and landscape, doesn’t it?

Yes it does. I have written three books which together form a loose trilogy about landscape and human thought. The first, Mountains of the Mind, was about why people might be willing to lose limbs or even life for their love of mountains – which are, after all, nothing but geological structures

More:
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/robe...

Source: FiveBooks

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

by David McCullough

It is interesting that David McCullough states that he essentially stumbled across the idea of this book about the pioneers who started the development of the Northwest Territories in Ohio (and eventually in the future states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin) when he was invited to Ohio University to give "the commencement address in tribute to the university's 200th anniversary" in 2004. When learning the oldest building on the campus was called Cutler Hall, he learned about Manasseh Cutler who was active in the creation of the Northwest Ordinance in permitting Revolutionary War veterans, in payment for their war service, the opportunity to settle in the "vast land, rich land where there was no end to the beauty and plenty." With McCullough's deeply researched story about the settlers - with whom even he had not been aware previously - the men and women who risked all to travel to the area are brought to light. Manasseh Cutler, General Rufus Cutler, Ephraim Cutler, Joseph Barker, Dr. Samuel Hildreth, and their families are the focus as the town of Marietta, Ohio becomes developed.

McCullough describes the beauty of the Ohio River and of the land that enticed the settlers with their threefold goals for the territory: freedom of religion, free universal education, and the prohibition of slavery. These determined, hard-working people faced all kinds of hardships including the difficult journey just to travel to the area from the East and once there faced the forested wilderness which had to be cleared; hostilities with Native Americans; floods; fire; wild animals such as bears and wolves; disease; and at least one earthquake. The reader learns the history and sees the eventual progress made in commerce along the Ohio River with the creation of the steamboat as well as the rise of other cities - Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Columbus and Cleveland.

One problem I found with the book is the sometimes rambling, nature of the narrative and the inclusion. especially in the early chapters, of so many names/people making it difficult and tedious to read in trying to follow the story and remember "who is who." The writing and story are better understood when McCullough centers on specific people and follows through with their accomplishments. Enamored with the beauty of the country around Marietta, the author includes so many of these beauteous descriptions by the first settlers and by the later immigrant settlers that come to the area! I think we get the picture, and those who travel to the Marietta area can certainly attest to its attraction.

Having lived in Cincinnati for many years, I found this a very interesting history and learned of the leading people instrumental in taming the "Wild West" of the Northwest Territory. When I asked my sons who attended high school in Cincinnati, they agreed that they had not been taught about the events or people of this era in their school studies. So, thank you, Mr. McCullough for writing this book.

Elizabeth A.G. thank you so much for the wonderful add. We appreciate your posts so much.

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette (Greenland is mentioned)

by Hampton Sides

Synopsis:

New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides returns with a white-knuckle tale of polar exploration and survival in the Gilded Age

In the late nineteenth century, people were obsessed by one of the last unmapped areas of the globe: the North Pole. No one knew what existed beyond the fortress of ice rimming the northern oceans, although theories abounded. The foremost cartographer in the world, a German named August Petermann, believed that warm currents sustained a verdant island at the top of the world. National glory would fall to whoever could plant his flag upon its shores.

James Gordon Bennett, the eccentric and stupendously wealthy owner of The New York Herald, had recently captured the world's attention by dispatching Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone. Now he was keen to re-create that sensation on an even more epic scale. So he funded an official U.S. naval expedition to reach the Pole, choosing as its captain a young officer named George Washington De Long, who had gained fame for a rescue operation off the coast of Greenland. De Long led a team of 32 men deep into uncharted Arctic waters, carrying the aspirations of a young country burning to become a world power. On July 8, 1879, the USS Jeannette set sail from San Francisco to cheering crowds in the grip of "Arctic Fever."

The ship sailed into uncharted seas, but soon was trapped in pack ice. Two years into the harrowing voyage, the hull was breached. Amid the rush of water and the shrieks of breaking wooden boards, the crew abandoned the ship. Less than an hour later, the Jeannette sank to the bottom,and the men found themselves marooned a thousand miles north of Siberia with only the barest supplies. Thus began their long march across the endless ice—a frozen hell in the most lonesome corner of the world. Facing everything from snow blindness and polar bears to ferocious storms and frosty labyrinths, the expedition battled madness and starvation as they desperately strove for survival.

With twists and turns worthy of a thriller, In The Kingdom of Ice is a spellbinding tale of heroism and determination in the most unforgiving territory on Earth.

LITERARY AWARDS:
Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Nonfiction (2015), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for History & Biography (2014)