Monthly Archives: March 2010

A Brief History of Ghostwriting

Posted on 29 March 2010 by

[The American Prospect] In the May issue of The American Prospect, I’ve got an essay on the long, distinguished history of political ghostwriting. A few recent books have touched on this subject, including Robert Schlesinger’s White House Ghosts and Ben … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Dissertation ephemera, Features, Politics | 2 Comments

Accountability in Publishing

Posted on 11 March 2010 by

[x-posted at The Rumpus] Anyone following the fall-out over Charles Pellegrino’s Last Train From Hiroshima—here’s the definitive New York Times story—would do well to read Philip Meyer’s “Accountability When Books Make News,” first published in 1997 in the Media Studies Journal. (You … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Dissertation ephemera | Leave a comment

One of History’s Finest Class Projects

Posted on 9 March 2010 by

[x-posted at The Millions] In the spring of 2006, John Unsworth taught a graduate seminar on “Twentieth-Century American Bestsellers.” It led to one of history’s finest class projects—a browsable database of bestsellers, 337 in all. As with any bestseller lists, … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Dissertation ephemera | Leave a comment

The Real (Literary) America

Posted on 4 March 2010 by

[The Millions] Over at The Millions, you’ll find my “dispatch from the Borders-land,” where, basically, I ask a bunch of shoppers about their relationship to books. Lit blogs tend to take an isolated view of the literary world, and I … Continue reading →

Posted in All History is Local History, Books, Features | Leave a comment

“Alas poore Ghost”

Posted on 4 March 2010 by

I’m finishing up an essay on political ghostwriting (loosely pegged to Roman Polanski’s new film), and I wanted to share this snippet from the Times: Perhaps the extreme of ghostliness in speechmaking occurred a few years ago in Congress. One … Continue reading →

Posted in Dissertation ephemera, Politics | Leave a comment