Posts by Pamela
What’s On Your To-Be-Read Pile?
Those of you who also subscribe to my newsletter* know that I include the cover of a book from my to-be-read shelves in each issue. A recent email from a new reader** got me thinking about the fact that most of you are not only history buffs, but serious book people who have to-be-read piles…
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Looking Stuff Up: The Ancient History Encyclopedia
Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time in the distant past, writing about women who fought against the Roman empire,against the Persian empire, as part of the Persian empire or here and there around the edges of the Mediterranean.* I’ve been fascinated with the ancient world since childhood, but it is definitely Not My…
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From the Archives: From Confucius to Air Traffic Control
In 130 BCE, the Chinese emperor Han Wudi came up with a new idea for how to choose government bureaucrats. He established a civil service of Confucian scholars, known in English as mandarins, who earned their positions by passing a standardized examination. The system still favored those from privileged families who could afford to give…
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