Mass culture, popular culture, and social life in the Middle East Book

I wrote a paper on Charles Sumner during college. (It probably wasn't a very good one.) That and my interest in the Civil War led me to this book. Sumner was an interesting fellow, but I'm not sure that I would have liked him personally. His friendships almost always ended up with Sumner taking offense and severing the friendship. John Adam's grandson was one of those erstwhile friends who found Sumner insufferable.

Sumner was an accidental Senator from Massachussetts who likely would have served only a single term were in not for the beating he received at the hands of Preston Brooks. The author suggests that in 1861, by the start of the Civil War, Sumner was one of the most powerful men in the United States. This book is Sumner's story up through the outbreak of the Civil War, and much of the book is Sumner's early life, education, work, and travel. Those parts of the book can be tedious. Though they demonstrate Sumner's amazing connections--especially to European figures--the second half of the book, covering Sumner's entry into politics, was much more interesting. In the end, Sumner was one of those people who swore he had no interest in receiving or retaining a political office, but his actions suggest otherwise.

If for no other reason, the book is worth reading just for some of the hilarious quotes Donald includes. For example, after the Know-Nothings took control of the Massachussetts legislature following the 1854 election, Rufus Choate said: "Any thing more low, obscene, feculent, the manifold heavings of history of history have not cast up. We shall come to the worship of onions, cats and things vermiculate." I had to look up "vermiculate," which means, among other things, "with a worm-eaten appearance." Priceless.