Jumbo's Hide, Elvis's Ride, and the Tooth of Buddha: More Marvelous Tales of Historical Artifacts - Softcover

Rachlin, Harvey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805056831 ISBN 13: 9780805056839

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 2000

Synopsis

A companion to the History Channel's series History's Lost and Found presents a fascinating, frequently humorous look at forty historical artifacts that provide a key glimpse into the past, ranging from tracing the four extant copies of the Magna Carta >to the search fro Marilyn Monroe's white dress from The SevenYear Itch. 12,500 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Harvey Rachlin is the author of ten previous books, including Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein's Brain (Owl Books, 0-8050-3965-1). He is the primary consultant to the History Channel's weekly series, "History's Lost and Found."

Reviews

In an irresistible, edifying romp through the centuries, Rachlin uses artifacts as portals to the past as he skips from a venerated tooth preserved in a Sri Lankan temple, believed to have come from Buddha's mouth, to the metal folding table on which the Japanese signed WWII surrender documents in 1945 and the Apollo 13 command module that carried astronauts through a scorching reentry. There are several familiar objects--the Magna Carta; Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; the 1803 Louisiana Purchase treaty, which doubled our nation's size--as well as artifacts that deserve to be better known, like the funerary chest (discovered only in 1977) in which Alexander the Great buried his father, King Philip II of Macedonia, or the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written in 1776 by George Mason, to whom fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson owed a significant debt in drafting his far more familiar Declaration of Independence. The basis for a new History Channel prime-time series, History's Lost and Found, this sequel to Rachlin's Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein's Brain is a grab bag with something for every taste. The best sections are astute mini-essays that enlighten and entertain, whether Rachlin is discussing Freud's couch for his patients, George Washington's schoolboy copybooks, silver "peace pipes" bestowed on reluctant Native American tribes in 1814, Beethoven's ear trumpets or ENIAC, the wartime computer unveiled in 1946, which ushered in the information age. Rachlin's masterful grasp of the material, his employment of rich historical context and his storytelling flair make history come alive. Illus. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A bodacious artifactual romp through history. In this sequel to Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, and Einstein's Brain (1995), Rachlin examines similar legendary relics like Galileo's Middle Finger (an inscription reads: ``It pointed to new stars . . . and was able to reach what Titans could never attain''); The Tooth of Buddha (Siddhartha Gautamas miracle-making remnant from his cremation); and Freuds Couch (which, like the head shrink himself, narrowly escaped destruction by the Nazis). Whether they are as weighty as the Magna Carta or as weightless as an early draft of ``Take Me Out to the Ball Game,'' Rachlin provides a dating, description, and story of each artifact and its impact. The relics can be as ancient as the Stone of Scone (the biblical Jacob's ``pillow'' used in the coronation throne of British kings since the 1300s) or as recent as the Gun That Killed John Lennon. More than half the artifacts are American, involving figures from the first president (George Washington's Schoolboy Copybooks) to the King (Elvis Presley's Purple Cadillac). While most entries are properly reverential, some are revisionist. In a time when historic baseballs are auctioned for fortunes, Rachlin challenges Abner Doubleday's baseball in Cooperstown, the American pastime's Holy Grail. He reveals that ``all conjecture about the ball is just that.'' The balls dubious link to Doubleday depended on the testimony of a witness committed to an insane asylum. Tracing America's sport to the British game of rounders moves Rachlin to conclude that ``what [a relic] means to people may sometimes be more important than its authenticity.'' His miscellany is thus as much about the myths and memories we value as about the objects that enshrine them. Most of Rachlins 42 relics are fascinating enough to make his survey the literary equivalent of visits to a Ripley's exhibit and a wax museum. (73 b&w illustrations) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805056831
• ISBN 13: 9780805056839
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 372