Book Assignment #2 – 2019
Please include the title of your book in your response.
a. Summarize your reading for that part; also, this might be the part to examine bias in the book w/ specific examples.
b. Connect a historical thinking skill to your book segment – contextualization, comparison, change and continuity over time, synthesis (comparing time periods), cause and effects, periodization (including turning points).
c. Pick a quote from your book, either this section or previous section – that you think captures the essence of your book. Explain why this quote is a good encapsulation of the book.
d. Look back at the questions that you had in your previous book post. Has the book answered them? What were the answers? If the book hasn’t answered your questions, which questions still remained unanswered? Have you revised or come up w/ new ones? What are they?
e. Looking back at your first book post, how has the author developed the main theme / thesis of your book? Did you correctly identify the theme / thesis now that you’re 2/3 done w/ the book? If not, what’s the new theme / thesis?
This part of the book went over the assassination of president James Garfield, and his assassin, Charles Guiteau. The section started off at the train station in DC where Garfiled was assassinated. She started talking about his term in the Senate and Congress, and then went on to talk about his service in the Union army. She also talked about his assassin Charles Guiteau, who actually had a pretty depressing story. She talked about how he was basically a big old failure. He had tried many different industries like law and theology and even living in the oneida community. After all that, he turned to politics, and followed Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign. However, when Garfield beat Grant for the presidential nomination, Guiteau became angry. However, he actually released a speech that made Grafield bbn look good, hoping to gain political power. However. his speeches were ineffective, and unpopular. He began loitering around the Republican headquarters and the White House. But was soon asked to stop. At this point his family had rejected him for being insane, and he was living in complete poverty. However, he blamed Garfield for his problems, and decided to assassinate the president.
This book really uses cause and effect and contextualization, as it describes both the president and assassins situations, and what led to the presidents ultimate demise. This is a good format, and it suits the book perfectly, and I cant imagine it done any other way.
A quote that I felt captured the essence of the book is this: “It must take an incredibly inflated ego to campaign for president, to think that you can fix the problems of an entire nation, and fix the debt. but the assassin must have an even bigger ego, to think that they so right, and the other is so wrong, that they must commit murder” (Vowell 43). This just shows the fascination the author has with these people, and why she would write an entire book devoted to them.
Pretty much all of my questions have been answered. I first asked if there would be and overarching plot, and the answer is: not really, it’s kind of more of the same. My second question was are there more characters introduced, and the answer is: yes, it introduces the author’s sister and nephew as supporting characters. My third and final question is why did the author choose to write about presidential assassinations, and I pretty much answered that in my third paragraph. As for any new questions, I wonder if all three assassination’s are in any way connected. Also, how the authors sister and nephew will affect the plot.
I would say that the main theme of the book is that no matter what you do, there will be some people who will despise you for it. It seems like this this book is just a very extreme version of that phrase.