Good evening.

Welcome to another episode of Inside the Cover.

I am your host, Ted Ayres.

As always, we wish to thank you for watching and supporting PBS Kansas and for spending these next few minutes with our show.

It is difficult to summarize a great book in 5 minutes, but we do our very best to educate, inform and perhaps provide you with that next great read.

Tonight's book is Making History by Richard Cohen, subtitled The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past.

The book was copyrighted in 2022.

This was not a book or an autho of which I was previously aware, but a display at the library caught my eye and I am the better for it.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

As noted, I was not previously aware of Cohen or his work.

In addition to this book, Cohen is the author of three other books and he has edite books that have won the Pulitzer and Booker Prizes and 21 have been bestsellers.

He was also a five time UK national Saber Champion, and he was selected for the British Olympic fencing team in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984.

And he has been the world veteran saber champion four times.

At this stage of life, the only thing I know with any certainty is how much I don't know.

And reading Cohen's book certainly reinforced that reality.

I learned a great deal from reading this book.

I even learned that I share a personal characteristic with the historian Edward Gibbon.

And if I were not thinkin about the reality of dispersing my personal library, one of these days, this would be a boo I would enjoy having on my shelf as a reference tool and reading guide.

In this book, Cohen seek to address the numerous factors that addres how history comes to be written.

He takes into account, “the rivalries of scholars, the demands of patronage, the need to make a living.

Physical disabilities.

Changing fashions.

Cultural pressures.

Religious beliefs.

Patriotic sensibilities.

Love affairs.

The longing for fame.” Think about how each of these factors can and has influenced writers over the centuries and what and how they write about history.

At this point, I also want to share with you something I found to be extremely interesting and quite ironic.

In doing some background research on Cohen, I found a May 16, 2021 article from The Guardian, I quote: According to the article, Cohen was told by his publisher to produce new chapters and expand others after failing to sufficiently acknowledge the roles of black people and African-Americans, it appears that Cohen added about another 18,000 words expanding his chapter on the Civil War, including the story of Frederick Douglass.

And he added a completely new chapter largel about black people in the U.S. over the past two centuries, including Booker T Washington and W.E.B.

Du Bois.

From the more recent past Cohen writes about Toni Morrison and Henry Louis Gates.

Cohen's writing is exhaustively detailed and informational.

While I'm not certain he an I would agree on certain topics, I do give him credit as being experienced, well-informed, well-connected, well-educated, and I also believe well-intentioned.

Cohen brings life and relevance to the writings to name just a few, Thucydides and Tacitus to Voltaire and Gibbon from Ulysse S Grant and Frederick Douglass to Winston Churchill and Mary Beard, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

And on and on and on.

Tonight's book has bee making history by Richard Cohen.

This book stands mightily as a current contender for one of my best ten reads of 2024, and I am very happy to recommend it to you.

Goodnight and happy reading.