Cynthia Bass is
a novelist and columnist whose passion is history,
especially the profound ethical and philosophical questions
posed by the great events and personalities of the past. In
her novel Sherman’s
March (1994), she
explored the efficacy and morality of “total warfare” in
the context of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman’s
infamous “March to the Sea.” In her second novel,
Maiden
Voyage (1996), she
became the first writer to examine the feminist
implications of saving “women and children first” during
the sinking of the Titanic.
(And by the way, her novel came out before
the
movie!)
More recently, as a columnist for the San
Francisco Examiner and a frequent
contributor to the San
Francisco Chronicle, Cynthia has
continued to use history to analyze and understand the
major issues of our own time. Among the many contemporary
problems she has addressed are intelligent design, the use
of art in politics, immigration and the war in Iraq.