Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation

Over the course of United States history, four different presidents have been assassinated in office. None of these assassinations have occurred in the past fifty years, making these intricate plots for political murder seem so far away to many. In Sarah Vowell’s nonfiction book, Assassination Vacation, she takes the reader on a road trip—a pilgrimage, as she calls it—exploring the assassinations of U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley. In the preface to her book, Vowell explains that these presidents, victims to some of the nation's most notorious assassinations, “can seem so long gone, so dead,” making it difficult for one to envision them as actual human beings that were killed by another person (11). She hopes to change this lack of connection her audience feels towards the victims of political murder and the important individuals in United States history. In Assassination Vacation, Vowell’s purpose is to make past presidential assassinations that can often seem surreal …show more content…
However, the author often draws tangents to mostly unrelated topics, such as her interactions with her nephew Owen and her resent towards President George W. Bush. Although these anecdotes are part of her road trip, the mentioning of them frequently distracts from the book’s purpose, making it difficult for the reader to follow along. Nevertheless, the uniqueness of her teaching is quite effective as she changes the way one approaches history, making people think of historical individuals as human beings rather than objectifying them. Ultimately, even though Vowell’s distinct style in teaching history has flaws, it demonstrates that history should not be taught with textbooks; rather, history should be fun and give students the ability to connect with the past and utilize it to evaluate the