Letters of a Nation by Andrew Carroll

Letters of a Nation Reviews

• 
  David

  I skimmed through this book again earlier today, in an effort to figure out why Thomas Mallon's "Yours Ever" was such a damp squib (down to its nondescript title). Mallon would have done well to pay attention to the (relatively simple) elements that make this book so terrific:
  
  1. Andrew Carroll includes entire letters, not just snippets.
  2. The quality and variety of the letters included are phenomenal.
  3. Carroll keeps his own editorializing to a minimum. His 8-page introduction is eloquent and succinct, infinitely preferable to Thomas Mallon's repeated, rambling interruptions.
  
  Expanding a little on the second point - a major part of the book's charm stems from the inclusion of letters from people in all walks of life, famous and unknown, rich and poor. Carroll is an exemplary editor - almost every letter included in this book packs a punch. The usual suspects are here, certainly (Groucho, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Flannery O' Connor, "Yes, Virginia"). But how refreshing that the letter from John Cheever is a hilarious update to a friend whose pet the Cheevers were catsitting (it didn't go well), or to read F. Scott Fitzgerald's letter to his daughter Scottie.
  
  The collection is also a stark reminder of the general deterioration in writing standards across the generations. Sherman's explanation of his refusal to spare Atlanta to the city's residents is a masterpiece. But one can find the same eloquence in letters from soldiers in the ranks to their families.
  
  Letters in the book are grouped into the following categories:
  Letters of arrival, expansion, and exploration
  Letters of a new nation
  letters of slavery and the civil war
  Letters of war
  Letters of social concern, struggle, and contempt
  Letters of humor and personal contempt
  Letters of love and friendship
  Letters of family
  Letters of death and dying
  Letters of faith and hope
  
  A foreword by Marian Wright Edelman introduces this outstanding collection.
• 
  Sarah

  Such a lovely and inspiring collection of letters, and Carroll is so brilliant at prefacing them with very short, succinct introductions. I also really appreciate that Carroll included letters from ALL types of Americans - white, black, Latino, Asian, men, women, rich, poor, Northern, Southern, conservative, liberal, etc. I took off a star because he could have included a few more from women, but generally he was really excellent about including letters from diverse writers.
  
  It's a wonderful collection, and if you have any interest in American history or letters, I would strongly recommend this book. I took a chance and bought it (usually I rent books from the library), and I'm so glad I did. Next I'll be reading Carroll's other book, War Letters...I'm excited for it!
• 
  Luis

  Mr. Carroll has done a phenonmenal job collecting some of the most riveting and well-written letters in American history. From the famous to the obscure, "Letters of a Nation" takes you on a fascinating literary journey across our national landscape with themes like love and loss, war and peace, slavery and freedom, darkness and light...
  
  This anthology is one for your bookshelf and assuredly is one you'll refer to time and time again.
  
  
• 
  Kathy

  Quotable:
  
  Letters are sacred. From impassioned declarations of love to furious bursts of rage, they expose the most heartfelt emotions stirring within a person’s soul.
  
  To me, homesteading is the solution of all poverty’s problems, but I realize that temperament has much to do with success in any undertaking, and persons afraid of coyotes and work and loneliness had better let ranching alone. –Elinore Rupert Stewart
  
  Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clear streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. –Wallace Stegner
  
  I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be Eaquelly Stong in the Breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow Creatures of theirs. –Abigail Adams
  
  Peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government, or information to the people. This last is the most certain, and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them… If they approve the proposed constitution in all its pats, I shall concur in it cheerfully, in hopes they will amend it, whenever they shall find it works wrong. –Thomas Jefferson
  
  I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What you are, I am. You are a man, and so am I. God created both, and made us separate beings. I am not by nature bond to you, or you to me. Nature does not make your existence depend upon me, or mine depend upon yours. I cannot walk upon your legs, or you upon mine. I cannot breathe for you, or you for me; I must breathe for myself, and you for yourself. We are distinct persons, and are each equally provided with faculties necessary to our individual existence. In leaving you, I took nothing but what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for obtaining an honest living. –Frederick Douglass to his former master
  
  Ignorance is a cure for nothing. Get the very best training possible & the doors of opportunity will fly open before you as they are flying before thousands of your fellows. –W.E.B. Du Bois
  
  We, all of us, do quite a lot of ceremonial oath-taking on many important occasions of life as an act of faith, a public testimony of honorable intention, and it is the mere truth that an oath binds only those persons who meant to keep their promises anyway, with or without an oath. The others cannot be touched or controlled in any such way. –Katherine Anne Porter
  
  My many family branches helped to make this country. My feeling about my country and its history is as tender and intimate as about my own parents, and I really suffer to have them violated by the irresponsible acts of cheap politicians who prey on public fears in times of trouble and force their betters into undignified positions. –Katherine Anne Porter
  
• 
  Larraine

  It took me a while to finish this book. I started it at the end of January this year and just finished it today, the 29th of March. It's an interesting book. I have a list of my favorite letters. One of my favorites is that letter that was featured in the first episode of The Civil War series that was on PBS, the letter from Sullivan Ballou to his wife, Sarah. It never fails to move me. This line always brings me to tears: "But Oh, Sarah! if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you..." He must have been quite a wonderful man. It's probably one of the most beautiful letters I've ever read. Sarah was, in many respects, a very lucky woman, although I'm sure she would have rather had her husband returned to her. Tragically he died not long after he sent the letter. There are a number of interesting letters including a letter from a woman to her birth mother and more. There are funny letters including one from Groucho Marx writing to complain that the studio that filmed Casablanca is trying to stop him from doing a Marx brothers version called "A Night In Casablanca." He was really a very smart and witty man. Some might disagree, but the Marx Brothers movies are full of wit, not just slapstick. He was also the host of "You Bet Your Life" which, for some reason, I watched faithfully as a very little girl. Obviously I understood something about it. I just remember he was funny. A letter to Eddie who died in Vietnam was left at the wall. That brought me to tears. This is really an excellent book. It was worth taking the time to read at my leisure. I took a lot of notes as well. I'll go back to it one of these days...hopefully!
• 
  Ann Otto

  The subtitle is 'A Collection of Extraordinary American Letters', and it is. The book is arranged in themed sections instead of by date, and includes letters among famous individuals, and also common citizens, often writing to those individuals. Among the over 200 letters are Abraham Lincoln's humorous one to a friend about a lady he nearly married before Mary, and Martin Luther King's lengthy 1963 letter to Southern clergymen who were not supporting his approach to ending segregation. Any avid reader of history will learn much from these letters.
• 
  Elicia

  3.5 stars
  
  Suggested by my Dad. Seeing the conversations that haven’t changed over time in America alongside some that have was fairly disappointing. It was really interesting to read along side a novel where some of the story was told via letters (The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley) and finished my reading of it the same day I read Anne Helen Peterson’s article about Archiving Your Teen Self (
  https://annehelen.substack.com/p/arch...). It inspired me to be intentional about putting pen to paper for those I love more often.
• 
  Amy VanGundy

  A fascinating collection of American letters, written by people of all walks of life: presidents, social movement leaders, authors, journalists, soldiers, mothers, fathers, friends, etc. My final thought was how sad it is that we don’t write letters much anymore. What will future generations be reading of ours? Our emails and texts?
• 
  Jack

  A very quick read. (Even though it is a big fat hardcover brick.) Punchy short compositions by some of the most interesting people communicating about all issues that define the lives we lead. Give me more Ben Franklin, please. More Samuel Clements, also. A beautiful collection of some of the most amazing writers describing love, death, and other mysteries of the universe.
• 
  Jenny

  I didn't have time to read all the letters as it's a longer book than I realized when I got it from the library. The letters I did read were quite interesting and gave a different perspective reading about history from a letter vs a textbook.
• 
  David

  11/13/21 -- this could be my new favorite book, based solely on reading the table of contents, the foreword, and the introduction (a total of about xlviii pages). I will read slowly, bits at a time as I have occasion and time.
• 
  Julie

  A collection of letters written by Americans through history and for different reasons.
  
  Very interesting collection. If you like history, you will like it.
• 
  Lee Barry

  He should do diaries of a nation.
  
• 
  Kate

  This is a wonderful collection of letters that I received for my high school graduation. They include some very famous letters, including the complete text of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and General Sherman's letter to the people of Atlanta, to funny notes that but for a whim, might have been relegated to the dustbin of history, like Mark Twain's letter to the gas company complaining about their bad service, or a letter from Henry Truman to a local theater critic, condemning him for giving Truman's daughter's voice recital a bad review. Highly, highly recommended.
• 
  Doug

  Haven't finished it yet, but enjoying it very much. It's much like reading old newspapers and magazines......reading history as it happens, rather than from the point of view of knowing how everything turned out....they didn't know what would happen. It really puts events of today and how we look at them in perspective......finished. It is a wonderful book, interesting, funny, sad.....a good read.
• 
  Pete

  History at its finest. When you can visualise people and place them in the events of time, when you can glimpse what they were feeling in their hearts and minds, then you can glimpse history at its best. I still pick it up from time to time and read some of these stirring letters. My favourite is Nathaniel Hawthornes love letter to his wife, heart melting.
• 
  Becky

  The fact that it took me almost 4 weeks to finish is in no way an indication of this book's value. I learned more in these 400 pages than in any American History class. Ever. Real people, real words, real letters from the heart. Fascinating historical accounts and humorous, endearing love letters -- this book has them all.
• 
  Anne

  If you like American history then this book is for you. The book is divided into five sections: arrival, expansion, and exploration; a new nation; slavery and the civil war; war; and social concern, struggle and contempt. Carroll has done intensive research which is evident throughout the book. Each page made me wish I'd decided on history as a major. This book is good for fun or gift.
• 
  Graceann

  Andrew Carroll compiles some of the most moving letters ever written in this indispensable volume. I raced through it, not able to turn the pages quickly enough, then returned to my favorite letters in order to savor them. Highly recommended.
• 
  Jessica

  Just starting reading but it is an awesome anthology! I had heard a review of it on NPR years ago and had to have it in my own library! Excellent! One of those books you can pull off your shelf whenever you need an enjoyable, educational & often insightful read!