Lewis Lapham is retiring from Harper’s Magazine. Or rather he is becoming an editor emeritus. Which we think means working just hard enough to cover health insurance premiums. Or to justify keeping the corner office despite the fact that it only gets used once a month. Probably we should look this up in the dictionary.
All of this is tangental to our real issue. How is it possible that there is enough interest in the life and times of William Howard Taft that a publisher would already have the author (even an author of note) under contract? History was one of the subjects we chose to stay awake for, and we don’t recall more than a brief mention of Taft. Wasn’t he one of the presidents who caused just enough trouble to be remembered, but not enough trouble to be recalled with fondness or loathing?
We’re just saying. . .
3 responses so far ↓
Diana Peterfreund // Nov 17, 2005 at 9:20 am
Taft was also a justice of the supreme court. Unless this is a piece solely about his short and mostly uneventful presidency, there’s PLENTY to say about any chief justice, or Secretary of War, which he alao was. In fact Taft never wanted to be president at all, and always had his eye on the bench, and before he died he said of his Supreme Court seat that it was the highest achievement of his life, and that he doesn’t remember ever being President.
Of course, one of his most important decision was the one overturned in Brown Vs Board of Ed. Again though, it makes for interesting reading. I’m buying that sucker when it comes out.
David Thayer // Nov 17, 2005 at 10:23 am
Taft was a Yale man. Boola boola.
Booksquare // Nov 21, 2005 at 8:35 pm
I am only going to say this once: the two of you scare me.
But I’ve always been more of a Harrison sort of chick.