World War I
The Beauty and the Sorrow
. Over the course of the year, I read a lot of history. Some books I mine for facts. Some grab me with the story. And now and then a work of history simply blows me away. The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Swedish historian and war…
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Who made the map of the modern Middle East?
The simple answer is: Great Britain. You want the long version? In The Makers of the Modern Middle East historians T.G. Fraser, Andrew Mango, and Robert McNamara tell the story of how today’s Middle East was created from the remains of the Ottoman Empire during the peace negotiations at the end of the First World…
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Road Trip Through History: Driving the Ypres Salient
Normally I’d hesitate to describe something as a road trip that begins with a transatlantic flight. The driving tour of the Ypres Salient* is an exception. The Belgian town of Ieper (Ypres in French, “Wipers” in British Tommy) was the center of a series of bloody battles in World War I. The kind of battles…
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