Harold Washington Library
400 S State St
312.747.4300
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Sarah Vowell
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Thursday Oct 23, 2008 (6pm)
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Zinger-slinging journalist, historian, author, and radio personality Sarah Vowell has spent the last several years working on The Wordy Shipmates, a book that examines the influence of John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay settlement. Winthrop was a Puritan, minister, politician, pragmatist, and pamphleteer perhaps best known for his oft-quoted sermon that riffs on the scriptural "city on a hill" theme (Reagan added the "shining" part centuries later). Vowell uses Winthrop's extraordinarily complete journals as the starting point for a rollicking deconstruction of the events surrounding the founding of the New World, and weaves a tale of good intentions, hypocrisies, courage, and unexpected consequences with her uniquely sweet ferocity.
