Bøger af Jack Mclaughlin

FROM THE AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE This is the story of an obsession, an obsession by two men that steam could propel a vessel upstream against a strong current. One is a historical figure, John Fitch. More than a decade before Robert Fulton, Fitch placed a steamboat in regular service on the Delaware River. The second, Timothy Chase, is a young man who fell unannounced into my imagination and took up permanent residence there. I soon learned that he had a passion for steam engines, a beguiling innocence, and a talent for getting into trouble. Once I had set the two figures in motion it seemed inevitable that they should be drawn to that steamboat Mecca, the Mississippi River, and to meet there the legendary boatman of heroic deeds and epic boasts, Mike Fink. This, then, is a wedding of American history and fiction, of fact and fable. I like to think it's a narrative that Mark Twain, our premier Mississippi River fabulist, would approve of, for it combines the fresh taste of huckleberries on the tongue with the sounds of slapping paddlewheels and the touch of young love.

A National Book Award nominee in 1988, Jack McLaughlin''s biography tells the life of Thomas Jefferson as seen through the prism of his love affair with Monticello.For over half a century, it was his consuming passion, his most serious amusement. With a sure command of sources and skilled intuitive understanding of Jefferson, McLaughlin crafts and uncommon portrait of builder and building alike. En route he tells us much about life in Virginia; about Monticello''s craftsmen and how they worked their materials; about slavery, class, and family; and, above all, about the multiplicity of domestic concerns that preoccupied this complex man. It is and engaging and incisive look at the eighteenth-century mind: systematic, rational, and curious, but also playful, comfort-loving, and amusing. Ultimately, it provides readers with great insight into daily life in Colonial and Federal America.