A History of Britain in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps

I love Big Fat History Books, full of footnotes (no endnotes, please) and academic caution.  But I also love small, idiosyncratic books about history: books that look at the past through one person’s obsessions and interest. Chris West combined an uncle’s Edwardian stamp collection with his own interest in history to create a quirky and…

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Road Trip Through History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum

My Own True Love and I recently spent a week in Austin, Texas. The reason for the visit was a family wedding. It was everything a wedding should be, full of love, creativity, and open-hearted hospitality. (Not to mention great food and dancing.) We ate, danced, mingled,* toasted the newlyweds, and danced some more .…

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Shin-Kickers From History: Gandhi’s March to the Sea

The American Revolution had the Boston Tea Party; the Indian independence movement had Gandhi’s salt march. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British government in India had a heavily taxed monopoly on the production and sale of salt. It was illegal for anyone to make or sell salt. If a peasant who lived…

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