Winter 2016
Humanities
Winter 2016
Hop King
Ezra Meeker’s Boom Years
Dennis M. Larsen ’68
WSU Press: 2016
The demands of craft brewing in the last few years, along with declining European hops production, has driven the price of hops up as much as 50 percent, creating a windfall for growers in Washington. It’s not the first time in state history that hops brought a grower financial success.
Puyallup Valley pioneer Ezra Meeker first started planting hops as a cash … » More …
Fall 2016
Gallery: The Northwest in the National Park Service Centennial collection
A sampling of Northwest locations in the National Park Service Centennial Photo Gallery.
Explore additional NPS centennial photo gallery images across the United States.
Read about “Preserving the story of America.”
Fall 2016
From Dresden to Pullman, WSU’s Harvard glass flowers connection
It started with a sea voyage and a jellyfish.
Master glassblower Leopold Blaschka was already a successful maker of glass eyes when he fell ill in 1853. His doctor prescribed time at sea and Blaschka spent the journey from Bohemia to the U.S. and back drawing and studying sea creatures. Back home, Blaschka began making and selling cunningly accurate models of invertebrates, in part because he had already invented glass spinning, a technique that enabled him to create very detailed—and anatomically accurate—glass pieces.
Before the invention of photography, hand-drawn and blown glass models of organisms were highly sought after. Blaschka’s sea creatures were based not … » More …
Fall 2016
Preserving the story of America
Fort Hunt was built during the Spanish-American War on a portion of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate to help bolster the Potomac River’s coastal defenses.
It later served as a staging point for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, hosted an ROTC unit for African American soldiers during segregation, and now is managed by the National Park Service.
But until historians began digging, a clandestine piece of the 136-acre site’s military service was so tightly hidden away, it was at risk of being lost forever.
“This started coming together during a tour when someone raised their hand and mentioned their neighbor used … » More …
Fall 2016
Spirit of ’25
When the United States formally became a nation in 1787, everyone involved, from George Washington down, knew there was a piece missing. The nation might be bound together by a Constitution, but it actually remained a conglomeration of states, religions, ethnicities, regions and cultures. The lack of national unity was a serious threat, as the Civil War would demonstrate.
But how do you create national feeling? As twentieth-century philosopher Allen Bloom put it: “How do you get from individuals to a people, that is, from persons who care only for their particular good to a community of citizens who subordinate their good to the common … » More …
Fall 2016
We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War
Doug Bradley ’74 and Craig Werner
University of Massachusetts Press: 2015
Music is embodied, a word that means it grabs you by the guts until you do something: dance, weep, make love … something. Music is visceral in another way, too: We connect the dots of our personal histories based on the tunes we were listening to at the time.
For a veteran, that might be more than she … » More …
Fall 2016
Pardon My French: How a Grumpy American Fell in Love with France
Allen Johnson ’85 PhD
Yucca Publishing: 2015
Funny, sexy, smart. If I only had three words in which to tell you about the pleasures of Allen Johnson’s Pardon My French, those’d be the ones.
Johnson spent a year in France with his wife, Nita, and Pardon My French relates their adventures in short vignettes arranged thematically.
One of the themes is that the French are not like us: They have their own special … » More …
Fall 2016
Briefly noted
Conversations: Jury Selection
David L. Crump ’81
A glimpse into the minds of prospective jurors through 50 conversations, this book written for trial lawyers teaches about juror biases and prejudices, and how to connect with potential jurors. Crump is a 1981 political science graduate and successful Pacific Northwest trial lawyer.
The Labyrinth House
Mark Rollins ’94
Luthando Coeur: 2014
Rollins’s fantasy novel follows architect Bradley Jensen through a door in a tree and into a mysterious mansion, which he and the other denizens can’t leave.
Angel’s Bounty
Directed by Lee Fleming ’07
2015
A dark, gritty comedy shot on the Palouse and … » More …
Summer 2014
Gallery: Gustav Sohon and the Mullan Road
Gustav Sohon (1825–1903) was an artist, interpreter, and topographical assistant. Sohon executed some of the earliest landscape paintings of the Pacific Northwest. One of his first assignments was with Lieutenant John Mullan, who was surveying the country between the Rocky and Bitterroot Mountains for the Pacific Railroad Surveys led by Isaac Stevens.
Read about Mullan in our feature “Lost Highway.”