One of the few authors I would make any effort to see will be at the Atlanta History Center on Thursday evening, May 22nd. My partner Denise and I saw the author twice at the Decatur Public Library when he was promoting the final two books of his Liberation Trilogy about America’s role in World War II. He was informative and gracious and signed a book for her father—-a World War II vet—with “Thank you for your service” which he cherished. (For details see this 2013 posting "Remembering Your Father with Rick Atkinson,"
We have already purchased our tickets in advance.
Atkinson is on the road promoting his Revolution Trilogy which began with the British Are Coming (2019) and now his latest book The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston 1777-1780, which includes the decisive victory at Saratoga in October 1777.
The photo of Saratoga is courtesy of Francis Walker one of the founding fathers of the Gravity’s Rainbow Support Group. This two-person reading club began in June of 2020 during the Pandemic to wrangle Thomas Pynchon’s signature novel (after all we had the time). We are currently reading The Fate of the Day and you can take a peek at our notes by scrolling here.
Our discussions have included how General George Washington did an about face on vaccinations. Originally, he was an anti-vaxxer but then realized that the benefits of vaccination far outweighed the negatives (just as they do today). The rate of how smallpox ravaged his troops compared to adverse reactions to inoculations, though primitive by today’s standards changed his mind:
Among the most consequential decisions Washington would ever make was to reverse his earlier resistance to inoculating soldiers against smallpox, a disease he acknowledged as “the greatest of all calamities.” Outbreaks had devastated the army, including regiments retreating from Canada…. Crude inoculation, which required smearing active viral pus in a small incision on the arm or thigh, typically resulted in a mortality rate of less than 2 percent, and often much lower, compared to 15 percent (probably closer to 30%), and often much higher, for those sickened naturally. Yet inoculation required two weeks of preparation with purgatives and a proper diet, and then a month of isolation while the patient recovered. Page 88
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