I wasn't planning on working this weekend. I've enjoyed my week off and planned to do so right up to Monday morning. But when I found myself in Wichita Saturday as the only newspaper journalist in attendance at the Kansas Book Festival, I figured, what the heck. (I can understand the Star not sending anyone to cover this ... but the Wichita Eagle? Strange.) I had a camera, because, as you know, I've been making videos, and since I am Engels to my wife's Marx, I wanted to make sure her receiving the Kansas Notable Book Award was recorded for posterity. I had time because, other than a panel I volunteered at the last minute to moderate, I was just there to bask in Ms. Eickhoff's glory.
And so that's how I came to record this very C-SPANnish interview with Michael Korda, the New York author of a new biography, "Ike: An American Hero." Two things worth passing along here that I couldn't get in under the five minute attention-span limit (5:29 actually). One, Korda did not actually travel to Kansas at any point in his three and a half years writing the book. He sent a researcher there. Two, Korda, a Brit who doesn't sound like one, rather likes American books about history because they lack the "romanticism" of European histories. This is only natural, Korda believes, coming from nations that can only look back in fond memory of the eras when they ruled the world -- and so, Korda also believes, Americans will someday look back even more wistfully at World War II than they do now. Think of that while watching Ken Burns on your DVR.
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