American History
Pianos for Victory
This story has been brought to my attention twice in the last 48 hours from two different sources.* Sometimes the universe says “You need to write a blog post about this!” in a very clear voice. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, raw materials of all sorts were diverted to the…
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Josephine Baker–a Graphic Biography
It took me several months to work my way through Catel Muller and José-Louis Bocquet’s graphic biography of Josephine Baker. Not because it wasn’t interesting or well done, but because it is the graphic equivalent of a Big Fat History Book, with 460 pages of densely packed graphic story and another 100 pages of supporting…
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Hitlerland
My first step when I begin a new book is what I think of as a self-directed masters’ program. Since I am inevitably writing about something outside my academic field, I read deep and wide.* It is a wonderful part of the process—one I share with you as I wrap my head around the big…
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