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BOOKSHELF
Andrew Carroll '93 is a man with a mission. In Letters of a Nation (1998), he captured 350 years of American history through letters that ranged from Massachusetts Puritan John Winthorp to Groucho Marx. His next book, In Our Own Words (1999), was co-edited with Senator Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) and brought together extraordinary 20th-century American speeches, including a eulogy for Knute Rockne, Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech, and two versions of President Bill Clinton's public confession about Monica Lewinsky. In his latest endeavor, War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars (Scribner, $28), Carroll has gathered more than 200 previously unpublished letters from America's wartime history. Carroll calls letters "this nation's great undiscovered literature," and this compendium ranges from an abolitionist's missive written before the gallows at Harper's Ferry to a 1998 letter home from an American officer on peacekeeping duty in Bosnia. Among the World War I entries is a letter from an American aviator, Lt. David Ker '17, who left the College to join the army and was killed when American Expeditionary Forces overran the German stronghold of Saint-Mihiel in September 1918.
War Letters cracked The New York Times's best-seller list over the summer and shows every sign of having legs. On November 11, Veterans Day, the PBS documentary series The American Experience will air an episode, also entitled War Letters, based on Carroll's book. The documentary will feature war photographs and footage, with Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Edward Norton, Oscar nominee Joan Allen and Emmy winner David Hyde Pierce among those reading American war letters. The book and documentary are the latest fruits of the Washington, D.C.-based Legacy Project, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 that works to honor and remember those who have served this nation in wartime by seeking out and preserving their families' correspondence. Carroll (who was profiled in CCT in November 1999) is its executive director. The Legacy Project remains a labor of love for Carroll, who is described by his publisher as "an impassioned, slightly eccentric 31-year-old." Carroll promised those who contributed letters that he would not profit from their submissions, and all proceeds from the book are being donated to veterans' groups, war memorials, museums and other not-for-profit organizations. The Legacy Project has launched a Web site, www.warletters.com, to complement the book, advise families on preserving letters and offer information on how to submit letters to The Legacy Project. For his next book, Carroll is looking for a family that "has sent five generations off to war" and says he wants to "tell their story through their letters."
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