Excerpts from student journals and photographs mark a Hofstra University professor's account of his ""travelling classroom,"" in which seventeen students took a six-week bus tour across America, reading, meeting cultural heroes, and experiencing the country. 25,000 first printing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Chronicles six weeks on the road with an experimental college history class which crisscrossed the country on a sleeper bus.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"The ultimate road trip, a rollicking tour of American history seen through the eyes of a remarkable professor and his students."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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More About the Author
Dr. Douglas Brinkley is currently a Professor of History at Rice University and a Fellow at the James Baker III Institute of Public Policy. He completed his bachelor's degree at Ohio State University and received his doctorate in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University in 1989. He then spent a year at the U.S. Naval Academy and Princeton University teaching history. While a professor at Hofstra University, Dr. Brinkley spearheaded the American Odyssey course, in which he took students on numerous cross-country treks where they visited historic sites and met seminal figures in politics and literature. Dr. Brinkley's 1994 book, The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey chronicled his first experience teaching this innovative on-the-road class which became the progenitor to C-SPAN's Yellow School Bus.
Five of Dr. Brinkley's books have been selected as New York Times "Notable Books of the Year": Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years(1992), Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal, with Townsend Hoopes (1992), The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1998), Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company and a Century of Progress (2003), and The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006).
Five of his most recent publications have become New York Times best-sellers: The Reagan Diaries, (2007), The Great Deluge (2006), The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion (2005), Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (2004) and Voices of Valor: D-Day: June 6, 1944 with Ronald J. Drez (2004). The Great Deluge (2006), was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy prize and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book award.
Before coming to Rice, Dr. Brinkley served as Professor of History and Director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. From 1994 until 2005 he was Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. During his tenure there he wrote two books with the late Professor Ambrose: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997) and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002). On the literary front, Dr. Brinkley has edited Jack Kerouac's diaries, Hunter S. Thompson's letters and Theodore Dreiser's travelogue. His work on civil rights includes Rosa Parks (2000) and the forthcoming Portable Civil Rights Reader.
He won the Benjamin Franklin Award for The American Heritage History of the United States (1998) and the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Naval History Prize for Driven Patriot (1993). He was awarded the Business Week Book of the Year Award for Wheels for the World and was also named 2004 Humanist of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. He has received honorary doctorates from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Dr. Brinkley is contributing editor for Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly, he is also a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Club. In a recent profile, the Chicago Tribune deemed him "America's new past master."
Forthcoming publications include The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the crusade for America and a biography of Walter Cronkite.
He lives in Austin and Houston, Texas with his wife and three children.
Five of Dr. Brinkley's books have been selected as New York Times "Notable Books of the Year": Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years(1992), Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal, with Townsend Hoopes (1992), The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1998), Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company and a Century of Progress (2003), and The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006).
Five of his most recent publications have become New York Times best-sellers: The Reagan Diaries, (2007), The Great Deluge (2006), The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion (2005), Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War (2004) and Voices of Valor: D-Day: June 6, 1944 with Ronald J. Drez (2004). The Great Deluge (2006), was the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy prize and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book award.
Before coming to Rice, Dr. Brinkley served as Professor of History and Director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans. From 1994 until 2005 he was Stephen E. Ambrose Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. During his tenure there he wrote two books with the late Professor Ambrose: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1997) and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002). On the literary front, Dr. Brinkley has edited Jack Kerouac's diaries, Hunter S. Thompson's letters and Theodore Dreiser's travelogue. His work on civil rights includes Rosa Parks (2000) and the forthcoming Portable Civil Rights Reader.
He won the Benjamin Franklin Award for The American Heritage History of the United States (1998) and the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Naval History Prize for Driven Patriot (1993). He was awarded the Business Week Book of the Year Award for Wheels for the World and was also named 2004 Humanist of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. He has received honorary doctorates from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Dr. Brinkley is contributing editor for Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly, he is also a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Club. In a recent profile, the Chicago Tribune deemed him "America's new past master."
Forthcoming publications include The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the crusade for America and a biography of Walter Cronkite.
He lives in Austin and Houston, Texas with his wife and three children.
Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hop on the bus,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey (Paperback)
I picked up a copy last year and can honestly say it has changed the way I look at this country and our cultural heritage. It's honest, witty, quirky and impossible to put down.
4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Before You Vacation,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey (Hardcover)
I bought this book and decided to read it before I embarked on a vacation out west. I learned so much more by what I learned and it focused my attention to all the wonderful things I'd love to see and learn more about. A piece of America that is long forgotten to most, this book makes the open roads seem like home to everyone.
17 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Bumpy, Uneven Ride,
By
This review is from: The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey (Hardcover)
This could have been a wonderful book, in fact, parts of it are quite good. But overall, the book gets bogged down by the snotty, I'm-smarter-and-more-hip-than-you'll-ever-be tone of its author. Brinkley intersperses snippets of regional history with reminiscences about the adventures he and his students had while touring through those regions. I bought this book fully expecting to prefer the personal pieces to the history, but found the opposite to be true. Being a Canadian with little more than a very basic level of exposure to U.S. history, I can honestly say I learned a good deal from this book. But in between those chunks of history, one has to bear Brinkley's endless name dropping (he knows Ken Kesey and knew William S. Burroughs, to name but two) and his oh-so-appropriately chosen tapes to play while rolling through each stop on the tour. (Elvis in Memphis, LL Cool J in LA.) Brinkley should stick to writing pure history and leave the personal stuff out.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
THE NOTION OF TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY AND LITERature on the road has its roots in my childhood, in vivid memories of family vacations in which my mother, father, sister, and I crisscrossed our nation in search of our past, present, and future. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
bus floor, mother road Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Majic Bus, New York, American Odyssey, Saint Louis, San Francisco, United States, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Grand Canyon, New Mexico, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, Bob Dylan, Crazy Horse, Long Island, Elvis Presley, Santa Barbara, Civil War, Billy the Kid, Chuck Berry, Naked Lunch, Ken Kesey, Los Angeles, Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
THE NOTION OF TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY AND LITERature on the road has its roots in my childhood, in vivid memories of family vacations in which my mother, father, sister, and I crisscrossed our nation in search of our past, present, and future. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
bus floor, mother road Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Majic Bus, New York, American Odyssey, Saint Louis, San Francisco, United States, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Grand Canyon, New Mexico, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, Bob Dylan, Crazy Horse, Long Island, Elvis Presley, Santa Barbara, Civil War, Billy the Kid, Chuck Berry, Naked Lunch, Ken Kesey, Los Angeles, Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 157
books:
See all 157 books this book cites
16
books
cite this book:
See all 16 books citing this book
- On the Road (Modern Classics) by Jack Kerouac on 8 pages
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson on 6 pages
- Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail by Hunter S. Thompson on 6 pages
- Leaves of Grass: The "Death-Bed" Edition (Modern Library Classics) by Walt Whitman on 6 pages
- The Call of the Wild by Jack London on 5 pages
See all 157 books this book cites
- The Booklover's Guide to New Orleans by Susan Larson on page 33, and page 56
- Face To Face: The Changing State Of Racism Across America by James Waller on page 7, and Back Matter
- Prejudice Across America by James Waller on page 8, and Back Matter
- Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of the United States from the Revolution to Today by Douglas Brinkley in Front Matter, and page 574
- The Booklover's Guide to New Orleans by Susan Larson on page 33, and page 56
See all 16 books citing this book
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