The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

Category: 50 Books

4. The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

Ah, the first nonfiction of the year.

I have a feeling that this will influence the rest of the nonfiction I read this year… or at least the next 6 months. Ms. Vowell is a fan of American history. I’ve never really been a big fan and in fact, in college I took the least amount of American History allowed and then proceeded to take class after class of British history to the point of the professor asking me if I was a history major. Of course I wasn’t. I was just a nerd in history nerd heaven.

I think the reason I’m not fond of my own country’s history is that I feel the need to apologize to the world for our history. I feel guilty about it. But I shouldn’t. My family wasn’t a wealthy land-owning family with slaves. I come from poor people, like, Pennsylvania Dutch and all that. What shame should I have? I dunno, still American history always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But after reading this book I feel like I should get reacquainted with my country’s history. And actually I started doing that earlier in the month when I was going through the old local newspaper clippings, and reading up on the women’s suffrage movement. And when I think of Women’s Rights I never think about it being American history, but I guess really, it totally is.

Anyway, this is a neat book, and it’s short and sweet.

 

 

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