Odd Bits
Forgotten Women: A Reading List
Over the last month or two* I’ve been thinking about how women vanish from history. How their contributions are often erased. Rachel Swaby, whose book about women scientists is listed below, describes writing about their lives as “revealing a hidden history of the world.” Here are a few examples of books that bring otherwise forgotten…
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One Hundred Years and a Day
A hundred years ago yesterday, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that created the National Park Service.* I’ve spent many happy hours at facilities run by the NPS. I look forward to spending many more. So I’d feel bad about sending the agency the equivalent of a belated birthday card, if it weren’t for the…
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City of Sedition
I keep thinking I’ll take a break from the American Civil War, but it just keeps shoving itself in my face. And so I keep shoving it in yours. I recently finished an extraordinary book. It had me writing notes to myself in the margins: “check what [someone else] has to say, “compare to X”,…
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