{"id":357368,"date":"2025-11-05T12:02:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T12:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/357368\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T12:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T12:02:16","slug":"at-l-a-public-library-literary-salon-rick-atkinson-offers-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/357368\/","title":{"rendered":"At L.A. Public Library literary salon, Rick Atkinson offers hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For a historian who writes about war, Rick Atkinson<\/a> is surprisingly optimistic. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former journalist \u2014 who recently released the second volume in a trilogy of books about the American Revolution \u2014 believes that the bedrock of American democracy is solid enough to withstand any assaults on its founding principles.<\/p>\n

As the guest of honor at a Sunday night dinner sponsored by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles<\/a> as part of its biennial Literary Feasts fundraiser, Atkinson was the most upbeat person at the event, which took place just before Election Day. Speaking to about 18 guests gathered around two circular tables carefully laid out on the back patio at the home of fellow writers and hosts Meenakshi and Liaquat Ahamed, Atkinson buoyed the flagging spirits of those certain that the country was currently dangling on the precipice of disaster at the hands of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\"Men <\/p>\n

Book lovers attend a Literary Feast dinner featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson at the home of writers Meenakshi and Liaquat Ahamed.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the beneficiaries of an enlightened political heritage handed down to us from that founding generation, and it includes strictures on how to divide power and keep it from concentrating in the hands of authoritarians who think primarily of themselves,\u201d Atkinson said with the cheery aplomb of a man who has spent the bulk of his time burrowing deep inside archives filled with harrowing stories of the darkest days the world has ever seen. \u201cWe can\u2019t let that slip away. We can\u2019t allow it to be taken away, and we can\u2019t allow ourselves to forget the hundreds of thousands who\u2019ve given their lives to affirm and sustain it over the past 250 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The questions and conversation that followed Atkinson\u2019s rousing speech about the history of the Revolution \u2014 including riveting details about key players like George Washington who Atkinson noted had \u201cremarkably dead eyes\u201d in order to not give away a scintilla of his inner life to curious onlookers \u2014 was what the evening\u2019s book-loving guests had come for.<\/p>\n

\"Rick <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the beneficiaries of an enlightened political heritage handed down to us from that founding generation,\u201d said Rick Atkinson.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

A total of 40 authors are hosted at salon-style events at 40 houses with more than 750 guests over the course of a single evening, raising more than $2 million for the Library Foundation, which is a separate entity from the public library. Founded in 1992 in the wake of the devastating 1986 fire at downtown\u2019s Central Library<\/a>, which destroyed more than 400,000 books, the foundation seeks to continue the community-driven mission of the library when funding runs short, including supporting adult education, early literacy programs for children, and services for immigrants and the unhoused. <\/p>\n

\u201cI often describe it as the dream-fueling work, the life-changing work,\u201d said Stacy Lieberman, the Library Foundation\u2019s president and chief executive. \u201cBecause it\u2019s a lot of the one-on-one support that people will get.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Foundation typically raises about $7 million to $8 million a year, with an operating budget of nearly $11 million, so money raised through the Literary Feasts is a significant slice of the funding pie. The feasts began in 1997 and have continued apace every other year since then, featuring a who\u2019s who of literary accomplishment across every genre. Writers past and present include Sue Grafton, Jane Fonda, Ann Patchett, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Abraham Verghese, Scott Turow and Michael Connelly.<\/p>\n

Dinner hosts fund the events themselves \u2014 no small outlay considering the lavish offerings. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Guests were served steak with roasted carrots, turnips and potatoes.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The Ahameds delighted guests with a tangy grapefruit and greens salad, followed by tender steak with roasted carrots, turnips and potatoes; a dessert of hot apple tart \u00e0 la mode drizzled with caramel sauce; and plenty of crisp red and white wine. Both hosts are literary luminaries in their own right: Liaquat, a former investment manager, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for history for his book \u201cLords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World\u201d and Meenakshi recently published \u201cIndian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple travels in bookish circles and enjoys hosting salons at their home, including one earlier this year in support of New Yorker political columnist Susan Glasser and her husband, New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker. As friends of Atkinson, the Ahameds did their part to introduce him, and later tried their best to entice him to stop taking questions and eat his dinner.<\/p>\n

The guest of honor could not be persuaded. There was too much to say. \u201cThe Fate of the Day,\u201d which explores the bloody middle years of the Revolution from 1777 to 1780, was released in April, and Atkinson has spent the past eight months touring and speaking on panels with documentarian Ken Burns to promote Burns\u2019 six-part documentary series \u201cThe American Revolution,\u201d which premieres Nov. 16 on PBS. <\/p>\n

Atkinson is a featured speaker in the series and has been involved with it for about four years.<\/p>\n

\"Men <\/p>\n

The dinner featuring Rick Atkinson was one of 40 taking place across town that evening. The events raised $2 million for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The week before the Literary Feast, Atkinson and Burns spoke to members of Congress in Washington, D.C., and also screened a 40-minute clip at Mount Vernon where Atkinson discussed Washington\u2019s unique talents as a general.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen the whole thing several times and it\u2019s fantastic,\u201d Atkinson said of the 12-hour film. \u201cIt\u2019s as you would expect: beautifully filmed, wonderfully told, great narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country is now more than four months into its semiquincentennial, which Atkinson joked \u201csounds like a medical procedure,\u201d but is actually the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. It\u2019s well known that Trump is planning a splashy party, with festivities and commemorations intensifying over the next eight months, culminating in a grand celebration in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

\"Rick <\/p>\n

Rick Atkinson\u2019s book \u201cThe Fate of the Day,\u201d which explores the bloody middle years of the Revolution from 1777 to 1780, was released in April. <\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is that as a country, we use the opportunity to reflect on those basic questions of who we are, where we came from, what our forebears believed and what they were willing to die for,\u201d said Atkinson. \u201cI\u2019m optimistic because I\u2019m a historian, because I know our history. No matter how grim things seem in 2025, we have faced grimmer times in the past, existential threats of the first order, starting with the Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The politically deflated might also consider World War II \u2014 the subject of Atkinson\u2019s Liberation Trilogy \u2014 the second volume of which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for history. The writer knows his stuff. Guests \u2014 and readers \u2014 take heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a historian who writes about war, Rick Atkinson is surprisingly optimistic. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":357369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[25449,13978,1582,276,2576,174105,59915,174106,10758,472,174107,2961,174104,224,5337,9105,150623,5210,174103,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-357368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-american-revolution","9":"tag-book","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-event","13":"tag-fellow-writer","14":"tag-george-washington","15":"tag-grim-time","16":"tag-guest","17":"tag-history","18":"tag-host-meenakshi","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-library-foundation","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-month","24":"tag-pulitzer","25":"tag-question","26":"tag-rick-atkinson","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115496992624013007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}