Earth, wind and fire

摘要

Simon winchester is a literary impresario. Having written on the making of the Oxford English Dictionary and the 19th-century farmer's son who created the first real geological map, here is an author who wants to spin a yarn and to forge connections that have not been made before. Now, with "The Men Who United the States", Mr Winchester uses stories to paint an unusual and personal portrait of the creation of a nation. The organisation of the book is intriguing. Mr Winchester's wife is Japanese and he has spent a lot of time in Asia, where, as he says, "everything and everyone can be reduced to the barest essentials, the five so-called classical elements." The book is divided into five sections, each one dominated by wood, earth, water, fire and metal.