On this episode of Resounds, Corby and Anna sit down with Billings authors Danell Jones and Tim Lehman to hear about their latest books.
An African in Imperial London: The Indomitable Life of A.B.C. Merriman-Labor
Danell Jones
In a world dominated by the British Empire, and at a time when many Europeans considered black people inferior, African writer A. B. C. Merriman-Labor claimed his right to describe the world as he found it. He looked at the greatest city in the greatest empire the world had ever known and laughed.
Danell Jones’s compelling new book creates a rich portrait of a man who moved to London in 1904 to pursue his dream of literary fame. This true story describes Merriman-Labor’s experiences as he made his way through Edwardian London, its streets bustling wealthy businessmen who had made millions in the South African gold mines, suffragettes demanding the vote, and destitute women selling matches to feed their starving children.
The first biography of Merriman-Labor, the book describes the tragic spiral that pulled this talented, courageous writer down the social ladder from barrister to munitions worker, from witty observer of the social order to patient in a state-run hospital for the poor.
Danell Jones a writer, scholar, and teacher. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and is the author of The Virginia Woolf Writers’ Workshop, and Desert Elegy.
Up the Trail: How Texas Cowboys Herded Longhorns and Became an American Icon
Tim Lehman
North American cattle drives following the Civil War were the largest, longest, and ultimately the last, of the great forced migrations of animals in human history. Spilling out of Texas, they spread longhorns, cowboys, and the culture that roped the two together through the American West.
The cattle drives of our imagination are filled with colorful cowboys prodding and coaxing a line of bellowing cattle along a dusty path through the wilderness. These sturdy cowhands always triumph over stampedes, swollen rivers, and bloodthirsty Indians to deliver their mighty-horned companions to market. The gritty reality was vastly different.
Before the cowboy could ride, markets had to be created, railroads built, financial systems adjusted, legal understandings developed, and political arrangements made. Nature also took a powerful role in shaping events as grass, cattle, horses, and a surprisingly powerful tick all played important parts. All of those cattle streaming out of Texas did not escape history; they were made by it.
Tim Lehman is Professor of History at Rocky Mountain College and author of Bloodshed at Little Bighorn: Sitting Bull, Custer, and the Destinies of Nations.
