History – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Making Medical Doctors: Science & Medicine at Vanderbilt since Flexner

By Scott J. Pearson | March 25, 2025March 25, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

This book is nearly forty years old, and like any forty-year-old history, it deserves an update. But like any good forty-year-old history, the stories that are told still transmit knowledge and wisdom. As a Vanderbilt Medical Center employee, I found the history of the medical center’s refounding in 1925 enlightening as it set a direction that continues to this day. Before the era of government-funded biomedical research, most research was funded by private endowments from…

Healthcare History Research-Education

Meharry Medical College

By Scott J. Pearson | January 1, 2025January 1, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Soon after Emancipation, large efforts were required to meet the needs of formerly enslaved people. A medical college was founded in Nashville as a department of Central Tennessee College to train black doctors to address the needs of the underserved blacks across the country. Now called Meharry Medical College almost 150 years later, the school continues to educate healthcare professionals and advance “the worship of God through service to man.” This book chronicles its history…

History

Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman’s March & the Story of America’s Largest Emancipation

By Scott J. Pearson | December 18, 2024December 18, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

In the American Civil War, General Tecumseh Sherman’s march through the South is nothing short of legendary. Growing up in South Carolina, I heard about and witnessed the effects of how he set the secessionist state ablaze in retribution. The fall of Atlanta also carries a special place in history: It was a major victory on Lincoln’s resume before the midterm elections, and Gone with the Wind forever dramatized (albeit in a biased manner) how…

Biography-Memoir History

The Last Founding Father: James Monroe & a Nation’s Call to Greatness

By Scott J. Pearson | December 10, 2024December 10, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Virginians seem to dominate the early pantheon of American presidents. Four of the first five presidents were Virginians by birth. The last of these four – and the last president from the generation of founding fathers – is James Monroe. Most American high school students learn to associate his name with the “Monroe Doctrine” – the contention that Europe should not further colonize the Americas. While this position is perhaps his most lasting legacy, this…

History Society

Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families

By Scott J. Pearson | November 15, 2024November 15, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Family is a bedrock of human civilization. After all, it’s where we first learn to care for ourselves, work for others, and socialize among each other. However, life is not always easy on families, and many eventually separate as time proceeds. Separation often takes a heavy toll. For those who suffered under slavery, dehumanizing conditions continually forced separations among spouses, parents, and children. On top of that, the Civil War caused a social upheaval that’s…

Biography-Memoir History

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

By Scott J. Pearson | October 24, 2024October 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The 1960s shaped the unfolding of American history. A new generation born after American triumph in World War II seized the national narrative with the election of John F. Kennedy (JFK). Even after his assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) implemented many of those ideals through Civil Rights Acts and the Great Society. But the Vietnam War, internal fighting, more assassinations, and the troubled Democratic convention of 1968 halted a progressive course and haunted liberals for…

Fiction-Stories History

James by Percival Everett

By Scott J. Pearson | October 12, 2024October 12, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a timeless classic for many reasons. Twain’s wit and humor surpass almost every other American author. His moral clarity about America’s enduring troubles about race still instruct today. For these reasons, it continues to be taught in American high school classrooms. However, the story is told from the perspective of Huck, a white person, someone with inborn privilege. What would the story look like when told from…

Biography-Memoir History Leadership

William McKinley

By Scott J. Pearson | August 23, 2024September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

William McKinley is generally known to history as the US president before Teddy Roosevelt (TR). He was assassinated early in his second term, and as his vice president, TR assumed office. Most historians view TR as proper founder marking the beginning of the American century. In this book, Kevin Phillips says, not so fast. He contends that much of TR’s administrative foundation was laid by his predecessor and that had he lived, McKinley, not TR,…

Fiction-Stories History

Daughter of Fire: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | July 10, 2024July 10, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Catalina is born into privilege as a daughter of the president of Guatemala about thirty years after the Spanish invasion. However, she does not fully embrace that identity since her late mother has native blood. Catalina’s promise to her dying mother was to preserve the Popol Vuh, a collection of native Mayan writings describing their spiritual conception of the world. Her father has ruled as a moderate who seeks peace between the native tribes and…

History Religion-Philosophy Society

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

By Scott J. Pearson | April 6, 2024April 6, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

Banal means lacking in originality or boring. It is a fitting description of the Nazis’ imaginations behind the Holocaust. This crime against humanity was so hideous that international laws were created to try those culpable. Adolf Eichmann was among the planners of the “Final Solution” and fled to Argentina. The new state of Israel had to kidnap him in order to bring him to justice in Israeli courts. He never denied the charges against him…