Tag Archives: Peter Stansky

NEW BOOK! Coming Home to India

Welcome to COMING HOME TO INDIA! It is the third book by Leslie Friedman, and the third book which was “launched” at Stanford’s Humanities Center program: A Company of Authors. We are very proud and pleased by the reaction to Dr. Friedman’s presentation. Members of the audience, which was absolutely full, asked about how and where to buy Coming Home to India. Professor Peter Stansky, the founder of A Company of Authors and director of it for 23 years, wrote to Leslie that her presentation and chairing the panel – The Wide World – “was terrific!”

The Fulbright Lectureship to India was awarded to her. It opened so many doors, “It changed my life,” says Leslie. After her time in India, the US State Dept. toured her in three countries.

Leslie writes, “I knew the title before I even started the book. There are moments when I feel the tears begin. I felt at home. So many places and persons welcomed me and were generous to me and my work. My travels in India started with a brief stay in New Delhi; then a week at Visva-Bharati a University founded by Tagore, the great poet; students seized a building for me to perform. I went back to New Delhi to cover a giant dance festival celebrating Uday Shankar, the famous dancer, for Ballet News. Next was Madras/Chennai where I was the first Western dancer to dance on the sacred stage of Madras’ Music Academy. Then, Bangalore, now Bengaluru, where I met Dr. Rangachar and Mrs. Vimala Rangachar. I will always love them as my family. Vimalaji told me over the phone from Bengaluru to Carmel Valley, CA, she did not know whether I was her sister, friend, or another daughter. Dancing in Bengaluru and staying with the Rangachars was a powerful, loving experience.”

Then, Leslie returned to New Delhi, received invitations from each place where she had already performed to perform in larger, more beautiful venues. This was wonderful. You must get this book to experience Leslie’s travel stories; they are funny, sometimes frustrating, and still funnier. Read about her success in her dancing and learning more of India’s history. On the way to India, Leslie performed at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and Tokyo, Japan. After her time in India, the US State Department and host countries sponsored her. These were Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Tunisia.

Read this book. It will bring you along with Leslie and the amazing places and lovely individuals she met.

TO BUY THE BOOK:  SEND A CHECK FOR $25 PLUS CA TAX OF $2.28. Please include $4.47 for postage. IF YOU ARE NOT IN CA, you do not pay that tax. You can pay by returning to the landing page of Lively’s blog, scroll down the page, see the DONATE sign, click on that, and follow PayPal’s directions to pay.

And, if you will be driving, hiking, or even swimming near Mountain View, CA, you can stop by The Lively Foundation, 550 Mountain View Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94041 and arrange to pick one up. email: livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net

DO IT NOW!

Peter D.L. Stansky: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Peter Stansky! Frances and Charles Field Professor Emeritus of modern British History, he joined the Stanford University History Department in1968. He served as Chair of the History Department for 7 years. He is the author of many, many books* and internationally honored as the shining light of his field, On Jan. 15, 2022, Stanford honored him with a Symposium on topics of his special interests: William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement in England; Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group; George Orwell. On Jan. 17 a gathering of students, many now distinguished professors and authors themselves, and friends from across the US and the world thanked him for his friendship, encouragement, enlightenment, and lively verve. Beginning today, Hedgehog Highlights on the livelyblog will feature reviews of his recent books. Thanks to The Institute for Historical Studies and its editor, Maria Sakovich, for permission to re-publish the reviews that appeared in TIHS publication which were written by Leslie Friedman, one of Professor Stansky’s Stanford Ph.D.s.

*Books by Peter Stansky include: Ambitions and Strategies, England since 1867, William Morris, Redesigning  the World, On or About December 1910, Another Book That Never Was, From William Morris to Sergeant Pepper, Sassoon, The First Day of the Blitz, Edward Upward, Twenty Years On. Books by Peter Stansky and William Abrahams: Journey to the Frontier, The Unknown Orwell, Orwell: The Transformation, London’s Burning. Book by Peter Stansky and Fred Leventhal: Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist.

The Dancer’s Garden: Great Review (first published review, too)

The Dancer’s Garden by Leslie Friedman (The Lively Foundation, 2019)

This is a wonderful, quirky, perky series of ruminations on gardens, flowers, plants, trees, cats, people, indeed life. It has magnificent photographs mostly taken by the author herself but also some by her husband, the distinguished photographer and printer, Jonathan Clark, the proprietor of that fine private press, appropriately named The Artichoke Press. Leslie herself, a member of the Institute, is well-known primarily as a dancer and choreographer but is also a fine historian. Some years ago, to an extent sidelined by hip problems, she decided to turn more attention to her garden in Mountain View. In this delightful book she tells us about the various growing things, mostly flowers, that she deals with, their characteristics, difficulties and rewards. She and Jonathan expand their horizons, coping with so many growing things, not only flowers but pine, apple, and orange trees. They rescue abandoned cacti from the neighborhood. The author has an amazingly direct way of dealing with what she is putting into the earth, the satisfactions and beauty (so wonderfully captured in the photographs) when they flourish; the sadness when they die. She makes being a gardener such an immediate, connected, and personal matter.

In the text, Leslie recounts her adventures with a wide range of growing things, most vividly oxalis, chrysanthemums, poppies, narcissus, camellias, primroses, magnolia, all beautifully illustrated. She is very insightful on how to deal with all these and other growing objects, and how they can be menaced by birds, notably crows, as well as by cats, humans, too much water and too little water. There is such a splendid sense of engagement with the ambitious enterprise of having a garden. As she writes towards the end of the text about fruit (but it may be about any of the myriad aspects of nature that she has nurtured): “When I had acquired my first new hip, my first foray into the garden was to see the apple blossoms. The apples would arrive later than the peaches. The oranges come when we run out of apples. We change partners, but it is the same dance.” Leslie Friedman has choreographed a garden and other growing things much as she has both performed and created dance. As she concludes her book: “It is a wonder.” It is an exhilarating read.   Peter Stansky, Frances & Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University. Professor Stansky is the author of many books, most recent is Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist ( Oxford University Press, 2019) with co-author, Fred Leventhal This review appeared in the journal of the Institute of Historical Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2, Fall, 2019

For information about purchasing the book, please contact The Lively Foundation, livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net