Holiday Rerun: The Other First Thanksgiving

Unless you live in the American Southwest, the grade school version of American history* typically leaps from Columbus and 1492 straight to 1620, when the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. There is a vague awareness that the Spanish and the French were “out there” doing something, but the story focuses on the development of the thirteen…

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On War, Part 2

After last Friday’s post about the Pritzker Military Library’s symposium, On War, I got a challenging e-mail from a reader, asking me for the titles of definitive histories for World War I, World War II and Vietnam.* My first response was “danged if I know.” My second response was doubt that there is a definitive…

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On War: An Opinionated Report

Last week My Own True Love and I attended On War: Exploring 20th Century Conflict, a military history seminar at Chicago’s Pritzker Military Library. I promised to report back. The short version? Wow! Four wars, four sessions. (1) I came away with pages of notes and two major takeaways: • I know nothing about the…

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