Humorous History
Dave Barry Slept Here by Dave Barry
On October 8, 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States.
On October 8, 1492, Columbus set sail for the New World.
On October 8, 1776, the Colonies celebrated the first Independence Day.
All important events happen on October 8 in Dave Barry Slept Here, a comic Cliff Notes to American history that takes a lot of liberties with our glorious past - and has a great time doing it. High schoolers, please do NOT read this book until your classes are over. Otherwise you'll go into helpless fits of giggling every time your teacher mentions the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony, and other (formerly) serious topics.
The Miami Herald columnist (whom I read religiously every week) has organized his book like a typical high school tome - in chronological order, proceeding from one era to another. England Starts Some Fun Colonies segues into The Colonies Develop a Life-style, followed two chapters later by Kicking Some British Butt. He has also attached hilariously irrelevant discussion questions to the end of each section, and has included equally useful footnotes and a very selective index. (Among the entries: "Celtics, Boston," "Louis the Somethingth," and "Vader, Darth.")
Barry, who's earned a Pulitzer for his humorous commentary, is in fine form here. No historical fact is safe from satire; in one section, he provides his own wacky version of the Bill of Rights:
"The Third Amendment states that you don't have to quarter troops inside your house. 'You troops are just going to have to sleep on the patio' is a perfectly constitutional thing for you to tell them."
"The Seventh Amendment states that if you are in the Express Lane, and you have more than one item of produce of the same biological type, such as two grapefruit, you have the right to count these as one item in order to keep yourself under the ten-item limit."
He also lampoons the names-dates-and-facts method (which he dubs the "Boring Method") of teaching history:
"The region was first explored by the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Rigeur (1534-1579), who in 1541 was commissioned by King Charles "Chuck" IV of England (1512-1583) under the terms of the Treaty of Weems (1544) as authorized by Pope Bilious XIV (1511-1598)..."
So proceeds the whole book - one zinger after another about past events and current trends, delivered with Barry's trademark zaniness. It's an indispensable (if unreliable) primer for history-lovers, Barry fans and everyone else. My one quibble: he needs to do a second edition, so he can update us on the follies of George H.W. Bush, Clinton, Y2K, and the rest of the past twelve years.
Also suggested: Barry sets his sights on computers and the Internet in Dave Barry in Cyberspace. Dave Barry is Not Making This Up and Dave Barry's Bad Habits are both collections of columns he wrote for the Herald.
