Tom Dresser, arguably the busiest author on the Island, will launch his latest book, Martha’s Vineyard: A History, on Thursday, May 7, at 6:30 pm at the Oak Bluffs library.
Mr. Dresser previewed the book this week at the Conversations community group at Howes House in West Tisbury on Tuesday morning, where the discussion centered on his previous work, Music on Martha’s Vineyard. Mr. Dresser is now on his eighth book in the series of Island histories he has penned, often with colleagues, since 2007.
Mr. Dresser noted on Tuesday that the Island has a bounty of written histories, citing the work done more than 100 years by historians and archivists such as Charles Banks, Henry Norton, and Arthur Railton.
Martha’s Vineyard: A History summarizes early Island history, but the focus of its 170 pages concerns 20th century Island life. The book covers epic moments in Island history, including hurricanes, the filming of Jaws, the death and potential rebirth of the heath hen, presidential travel (more than you thought), the withering of McDonald’s franchises on the Vineyard vine, and the flourishing of the Island Cup football rivalry between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
In his foreword to Martha’s Vineyard: A History, acclaimed historical novelist and Island resident John Hough Jr. writes that Mr. Dresser has become the the Island’s resident historian, with “an eye admirably suited to social history, which is what Tom’s fast-multiplying books really are.”