Word: woode
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HANDLIN FOLLOWS a time-honored Harvard path--illuminate the broadest themes of American history by covering everything. At its best, this tradition has produced Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic. Those books covered an immense era with breathtaking skill. Few books on American history offer such a bravado assault on the origins of American society and do so with such consummate insight and originality...
...PITFALLS OF heroic history writing are amply revealed in the Handlins' book. Wood and Bailyn were guided by a brilliant refinement and reinterpretation of American history. But where such an epic approach is not guided by inspiration, the result is often technically satisfying but not terribly original work. The Handlins' book at times simply reads like a well-researched, in-depth look at the same issues that your American history high school textbook covered...
...Fixing this bridge won't be easy," Milton Graton says, shaking his head as he surveys the long wood-covered passageway across the Connecticut River. "It's a complicated job. If it's done right, the bridge will be around a long time. But if it isn't, it could just fall in the river...
...across it every day -- but there are strong differences of opinion over the extent to which authenticity should be preserved and whether the work should be done by Graton or the New Hampshire ! Department of Transportation. Things heated up in 1984, when a rehabilitation plan devised by Graton, using wood almost exclusively for the necessary repairs, was distributed. Public hearings on the Vermont and New Hampshire sides of the river brought out crowds of concerned citizens, many of whom favored Graton's plan...
...looked closely at the joints where the thick timbers of the truss supporting the bridge meet. He brought up a handful of powdery dirt and let it fall from his palm, slowly. "The neglect of this bridge is shameful," he said. "Dirt holds moisture, and moisture is what rots wood. That's the whole reason these bridges are covered -- to keep the wood dry. With the right care, covered bridges can last hundreds of years, longer than steel and concrete...