Posts by Pamela
Illuminate: An Invitation
Last week several of my writing friends and I embarked on a small adventure:* a Facebook Group called Illuminate–Shining the Light on Fabulous Nonfiction. (That tagline may have changed by the time you get there. It’s a work in progress.) Our goal is to connect readers who love mainstream narrative nonfiction–history, biography, literary studies, cultural…
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How the Wickedest City in the American West Created Frontier Justice In Spite of Itself
Tom Clavin opens Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town in the American West with Masterston stepping off the train in Dodge City, expecting trouble. The scene is tense; Clavin deliberately evokes the images of lawlessness, and violence associated with the city’s name. (Not to mention similar images attached to Masterston himself.)…
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How the Trans-Saharan Trade Routes Work
In the eighth century CE, after camels were introduced into North Africa, Muslim merchants of North Africa began to organize regular camel caravans across the western Sahara. North African merchants carried luxury goods from across the Islamic world and salt purchased from the desert salt mines to the great trading cities of the Sudan: Timbuktu,…
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