America250: Histories, Memoirs, and Travelogues - The Classics

     

    One of the most often cited defining traits of Americans is restlessness.  From nomadic Native Americans to the European colonizers and immigrants crossing oceans to start new lives to space exploration, Americans have seemed to share the desire to move, to explore, to test frontiers, and to push boundaries.  That trait has inspired many contributions to a huge literary nonfiction genre, travelogues.  It's one of my favorite genres, especially the travelogues that blend history, memoir, encounters and conversations with a wide range of Americans, and keen observations about American history, culture, and attitudes.  This is the first of a series of posts about some of the books that fit this genre.  In some, authors re-trace paths of historic explorers, while some authors set out with a particular theme or mission in mind.  Some  are histories of famous treks in American history and the explorers who did the trekking.  A few are journals and primary accounts written by the actual participants, and there are a few works of fiction as well.

    I'll start with some of the works and authors recognized as history travelogue classics.  It's nowhere close to an exhaustive list, just books that I've read and encountered.  

Travels With Charley In Search of America is probably the most often cited example of the genre, the work that set the standard and inspired the authors of many, if not most, of the works that have been published since.  In 1960, one of my favorite novelists, John Steinbeck, decided that he had lost touch with the "real America," and he outfitted a pickup truck named Rocinante and began a 20,000 mile journey on backroads across the country from the East Coast to the West, accompanied by his French poodle Charley.  The result became Steinbeck's last major published work in 1962, and it captures America at an extremely pivotal point of transition, as the seemingly bland and homogenous (at least on the surface) 1950s were giving way to conflict and turmoil in the 1960s with terrible acts of racist violence, the civil rights movement, assassinations, hippies and the counterculture, the sexual revolution, drugs, and the Vietnam War on the horizon.  The result is every bit as classic and essential as any of Steinbeck's novels.

Sarah Vowell is an author, journalist, and social commentator who is best known for her contributions to National Public Radio shows and essays written for various publications.  Or you might know her for a little voice work in animated movies, most notably as Violet in "The Incredibles."  I love her nonfiction historical books that blend meticulous research with personal anecdotes and her particular brand of pointed, perhaps acerbic, humor.   Lafayette is about the Marquis de Lafayette and his role in the American Revolution and his triumphant heroic tour of the US decades later.  Shipmates is about the Puritans who founded Massachusetts.  Assassination  is a look at the presidential assassinations in our history, Cannoli is a little broader in theme but largely deals with Indian removal and the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and Fishes is a history of Hawaii, from kingdom to statehood.  It's been far too long since Vowell's latest book was published, and it's high time for another one soon.  

Paul Theroux is an iconic travel writer and novelist with a huge body of work, and he's both the father and brother of several other acclaimed and well-known novelists and documentarians,  For fifty years, he wrote about travels in exotic locales around the world before turning his attention to writing about the Deep South in 2015.  It's a great exploration of the region's geography and people.

Bill Bryson is another iconic living travel writer, but he's also written very popular books on a variety of other topics.  Although born in the US, he holds dual American-British citizenship and has lived in the UK for much of his life.  While many of his books focus on the UK, two of his books are American travelogue classics.  For Lost Continent, he drove 14,000 miles through 38 states.  He did this in 1987 and 1988, in an effort to rediscover his home country and the "American Dream" after living abroad for a number of years.  Walk is all about the history and ecology of the Appalachian Trail.

Blue Highways: A Journey into America is a classic 1982 travelogue by William Least Heat-Moon, chronicling a 13,000-mile, three-month road trip across the U.S. on secondary "blue highways" (blue being the color used to denote them by Rand McNally) after a personal crisis. The book details his journey through small towns and backroads, exploring local American culture and the people he meets, avoiding interstates and cities. It's celebrated as a masterpiece of American travel writing, focusing on the overlooked corners of the country.  It's the first book of a travel trilogy.

One of my favorite authors of this genre is the late Tony Horwitz.  Voyage recounts his quest to separate fact from fiction about European "discovery" and exploration of America, specifically concentrating on the period between the Vikings and the founding of Jamestown.  Spying is about Frederick Law Olmstead, America's most famous landscape architect, but it's focused on Olmstead's 1850s trips across the American South which he wrote about extensively, offering a unique perspective during the tumultuous decade leading up to the Civil War.  Speaking of the Civil War, Confederates is all about the legacy of the Civil War and how Americans deal with that legacy today.  Midnight is the story of abolitionist John Brown and the Harpers Ferry raid.  

May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Month

 

May is Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month in the U.S., celebrating the achievements, culture, and history of AANHPI communities. It honors the first Japanese immigration (May 7, 1843) and the transcontinental railroad completion (May 10, 1869). Celebrations include community festivals, educational events, and supporting AAPI businesses. 

Key Details about AAPI Heritage Month:

• Purpose: The month recognizes the profound impact and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American history, society, and culture.
• Scope: The designation encompasses individuals with origins from across the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
• Official Recognition: What began as a week-long celebration in 1979 was expanded to a full month in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush.
• 2026 Theme: According to the Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC), the 2026 theme is "Power in Unity: Strengthening Communities Together".
• Activities: Celebrations often feature cultural performances, food festivals, workshops, and educational programs held by museums, libraries, and community organizations. 

For more information, visit official sites like  AsianPacificHeritage.gov, which is presented by the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and other national institutions.

Here are the Asian-themed books that I've read since last May.

The Last Island:  Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth.  Adam Goodheart.  David R. Godine, Publisher, 2023.  272 pages.

In November 2018, most of the world heard about North Sentinel Island, one of the Andaman Islands off the coast of India,  for the first time when a young American missionary broke Indian law by landing on the island, intending to share his Christianity with the Sentinelese tribe that lived there and had violently repelled almost all previous attempts to contact them.  His death was the result, and it became a big international story for a minute as people debated his mission:  arrogant, racist, colonialist, superiority complex or misguided, brash young man attempting to do God's work?  Eventually, the world moved on, but the story continued to resonate with Adam Goodheart, a journalist and historian who had visited the Andaman islands in the late 1990s and even briefly (and illegally) visited the coast of North Sentinel Island. Twenty years later, he answered the urge to return and to learn more.  He recounts his research and his journeys in this book, along with the history of the Andaman tribes and their interactions with explorers, travelers, and the British, then Indian governments.  During these interactions, the Andamanese natives were abused, killed, enslaved, and infected with devastating diseases.  However, the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island had successfully, and forcefully, resisted all contact with the outside world, and they continue to do so today, living much as they have for tens of thousands of years, but modernity's threat is intense.  Like Goodheart, I have always been fascinated by stories of first contact between cultures, and this was a great read.

1000 Years of Joy and Sorrow: A Memoir.  Ai Weiwei.  Crown, 2021.  400 pages.

Before our recent trip to Seattle, I was vaguely aware of the Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei.  As it happens, the Seattle Art Museum is hosting the largest Ai Weiwei exhibition ever staged in the US, over 100 pieces on view through September 7, 2025.  I must admit the very first pieces in the exhibit did not impress me.  "Great," I thought to myself, "he thinks flipping the bird is art."  There are a lot of birds flipped.  As I got deeper into the exhibit, however, I was duly impressed and saw more, a much more varied and interesting body of work.  Ai is very prolific, and his work challenges the viewer and makes him/her think.  Isn't that what art is supposed to do?

His memoir explores his philosophy of art and particularly his unshakable belief that artists must also be activists.  It's also a history of communist China.  Ai's father, Ai Qing, was once an associate of Mao Zedong and the other leaders of the Communist Revolution.  He was hailed as the poet of the Revolution, widely known and appreciated throughout China and in international literary circles.  Then, he fell from grace during the Cultural Revolution, arbitrarily labeled a "Rightist" and an "Enemy of the Revolution."  As a result, he and his family were banished to the hinterlands for much of Weiwei's childhood, and Qing was subjected to public shaming and sentenced to hard labor, including cleaning public toilets.  Ai Weiwei recounts his family's struggles and the oppression that the Communist Party has constantly subjected the people to, most of which westerners are unaware.  The stories make it easier to believe the rumored genocides being conducted currently against ethnic Tibetans and Uyghars, among others, Westerners are also largely unaware of the long history of dissidence that has occurred in China.  Ai Weiwei was hugely influenced by his personal and family experiences and the acts of dissidence that he witnessed.  His art caused him to be persecuted and imprisoned as a dissident himself until he was allowed to leave the country.  Today, Ai Weiwei is more or less a citizen of the world, and one of the leading proponents of freedom of expression.

While I must admit that I slogged through this book, even skimming a few sections, it is not a bad book.  In fact, it's pretty good, and it's an informative, thought-provoking, and important book.  I can't explain why it took me so long to read.

Zodiac.  Ai Weiwei, Elettra Stamboulis, and Gianluca Costantini.  Ten Speed Graphic, 2024.  176 pages.

Ai Weiwei is one of the world's best known living artists.  His father, Ai Qing, was a well known poet and devoted Communist Party member in his native China who was denounced during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were forced to spend 18 years in labor camps and in exile.  Young Weiwei emerged from that experience as an artist and a political and social activist.  In his mind, the two, artist and activist,  can not be separated; an artist must be an activist.  His pro-democracy activism in China led to his work being censored, his workshops being destroyed, and himself being imprisoned without trial or even charges.  Finally allowed to leave China in 2015, he has become a citizen of the world and continued his artistic work in multiple media and his activism.

Here, Weiwei takes the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac and interweaves their ancient Chinese folklore and the ascribed human characteristics with stories from his life.  It's more than his life story, however.  It's also an insight into his philosophy  on the meaning and importance of art and freedom of expression.

Stranger in the Shogun's City.  Amy Stanley.  Scribner, 2020.  352 pages.

When asked why they don't appreciate history, many people might say that history is just the stories of kings and queens and the upper class, and, honestly, a lot of history is exactly that.  The lives of kings and queens are the most likely to be documented and written about, creating lots of material for historians to comb through.  "Regular" people don't often leave paper trails.  That's what makes a book like Stranger in the Shogun's City really stand out.  Stranger is the story of Japan just before the 1853 arrival of the American fleet which resulted in Japan's emergence onto the world stage, told through the life of Tsuneno, the daughter of a Buddhist priest.  Tsuneno grew up in a small village, and her parents ran the local temple.  The family enjoyed a relatively comfortable lifestyle, and the children were all educated.  Tsuneno's eldest brother was set to inherit his father's position, and Tsuneno and her sisters were expected to follow the normal path for priest's daughters, probably an arranged marriage with a priest in another village and a life managing the day-to-day operations of the local temple.  However, that life didn't appeal to Tsuneno; she had dreams of life in the big city, Edo (now Tokyo), the seat of power of the Shogun, the de facto ruler of Japan.  She finally makes it to Edo in her mid thirties, having been divorced three times.  Alone and penniless, owning little beyond the clothes on her back, she has to make her own way, and it's a struggle.  Her struggles are documented in numerous letters between her and her family, and they also present a detailed look at life in Edo.   The book is a great window into the culture of 19th century Japan, and specifically into the life of a Japanese woman at the time. 

Anna May Wong:  From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend.  Graham Russell Gao Hodges.  Chicago Review Press, 2023.  304 pages.  Updated 2nd edition, first published in 2004.

Between 1919 and 1960, Anna May Wong appeared in over 50 movies, and she was one of the biggest celebrities in the world.  American, European, and Asian movie magazines constantly published photos of her, stories about her, and stories written by her.   She socialized with other A-list celebrities and with European royalty.  She was recognized as an excellent actress, but she was also a stage and nightclub star, as an actress, singer, and monologist, often performing in multiple languages.  She was incredibly talented at presenting herself, thoughtfully using her own hairstyles and wardrobe to develop fuller characters and to advance the film plots.  During the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, she contributed most of her income and much of her time to raising funds for aid to Chinese civilians and refugees.  She invested wisely and made a comfortable living, enough for herself and to educate her siblings.  She was one of Hollywood's brightest stars --- quite an accomplishment for the daughter of a laundryman born in Los Angeles in 1905 who made her on-screen debut at 14.

Yet, few people know her name today, and far fewer have ever seen one of her films.  Her career and legacy were handicapped from the beginning by outside forces over which she had no control.  Strict movie codes of the day forbade any hint of romance between characters or actors of different races, so she was not considered for leading roles.  Her roles were often stereotypical, reflecting American racism. She played the devious Chinese female, almost always a villain or a servant, and almost always forced to kill herself in the end. Hollywood refused to hire Asian actors, casting white actors in "yellow-face," instead.  While she had many adoring fans in China, the Nationalist government condemned her because she embraced being a flapper, bared her legs and arms in films and photos, and she often played prostitutes or slave girls.  She was accused of shaming the Chinese people and their culture.  Wong was a very complicated and interesting character, and there has been a bit of resurgence in curiosity about her in recent years, with new biographies, documentaries, and even a Wong Barbie and U.S. quarters.  This bio was ahead of the curve, however, and this new, updated edition is a thorough look at her life and career, although it's a bit dry.

The Kite Runner.  Khaled Hosseini.  Riverhead Books, 2003.  371 pages.

Another classic down.  Few books appear on as many contemporary "Best Books" as this one does.  On one level, it's the story of two Afghan boys, Amir and Hassan.  Amir is the son of a wealthy and powerful local merchant, a highly respected pillar of the community, and Hassan is the son of the family's faithful servant and a member of a persecuted minority in Afghanistan.  A horrible crime committed against Hassan drives the two boys apart, and the families separate.  It's also a story about fathers and sons.  Finally, it's the story of Afghanistan.  Over the next decades, the upheaval of the Soviet invasion and occupation, civil war, and Taliban theocracy further disrupts their lives and destroys the country.  Amir and his father migrate to the US where they struggle to survive, and Amir struggles with guilt over the end of his relationship with Hassan.  Years later, he's drawn to return to Pakistan and Afghanistan by a dying family friend who reveals family secrets that push Amir to risk his life to find Hassan's son and to bring him back to the US.  It's an extremely moving and heart-rending novel, well worth a  read, even though elements of the plot are pretty  predictable.