In Celebration of Nurses
Clara Barton with a class of nursing students
I've spent a lot of the last ten months thinking, reading, writing and talking about nurses.* In the months since Heroines of Mercy Street was published, I've spent a lot of time talking to nurses--and their friends, mothers, daughters, granddaughters and nieces. (I'm sure nurses also have fathers, sons, grandsons and nephews, but the men in their lives have not stepped up and identified themselves.) The experience has confirmed my long-held opinion that nurses rock.
Here in the United States, National Nurses' Week begins each year on May 6 and ends on May 12, Florence Nightingale's birthday.** Take the time to say thank you to the nurses in your life for a hard job well done.
*Like so many subjects, one thing leads to another. Civil War nurses led me inexorably to the formation of the first American nursing schools, nurses in the First World War, nurses in the Second World War, and, less obviously to an old favorite of mine, Mary Roberts Rinehart 's Miss Pinkerton novels. (I own a collection of several stories subtitled Adventures of a Nurse Detective.)Published prior to World War I, the stories give a vivid picture of what it was like to work as a nurse in the early years of the 20th century. To my surprise, it turns out that Rinehart graduated from nursing school in 1893, one of the first 500 trained nurses in the country. But I digress.
**One of history's true shin-kickers. Coming soon to a blog post near you.
Another Year, Another Book Giveaway!
Unlikely though it seems, this image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Gee, where did the last year go?*
It's hard to believe that we've been hanging out here at the Margins for five years. Some of you have been with me from the beginning. Some of you found the blog last week.(And glad we are to have you here.)
Five years ago I was so uncertain about the whole endeavor that my first blog post was an attempt to answer the question "Why Another History Blog?" I don't think my answer has changed much since then. I still have things I want to share with my fellow history nerds: a story that didn't quite fit in a larger piece, an odd connection that's tickled my brain, a book I'm excited about, a piece of news. I'm still delighted when you expand the conversation, whether by e-mail, comments on the blog itself, tweets, or Facebook posts. This year I'm particularly grateful for your support** as I've enjoyed the adventure surrounding my book. (There's one more piece of big news yet to come. Stay posted.)
It wouldn't be a birthday party without presents and I have a stack of books to give away. If you want to put your name in the medium-sized mixing bowl to win, leave a comment or send me an email before midnight Central Time on June 15. Tell me what historical period/event/figure you're reading about today, how you became a history buff, or which of these books catches your imagination:
Niccolò Capponi. The Day the Renaissance was Saved.
Robin Lane Fox. Augustine: Conversions to Confessions.
Keith Jeffrey. 1916: A Global History (THREE COPIES, not including the one I'm keeping!)
David Lough. No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money.
Geoffrey Wawro. A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire
Heroines of Mercy Street: Real Nurses of the Civil War. (I don't have to tell you who wrote that one, right?)
Here's to another year of history!
*Okay, we all know where the last year went. I wrote a book and then went down the promotion rat hole.
**And patience.
Spain in Our Hearts
In Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Adam Hochschild (To End All Wars) moves beyond the familiar image of the Spanish Civil War shaped by Ernest Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls* and Robert Capa's iconic photographs. He uses the experiences of less famous volunteers—a young economics professor and his wife, a college senior who was the first American to die in the battle for Madrid, a nineteen-year-old idealist who cut short her European honeymoon to join the Republican cause, a New York socialite turned war correspondent—to tell a story of the war that is both larger and more intimate.
Hochsfield brings each of his characters to vivid life, but does not reduce the war to a simple story of idealism and heroism. He contrasts the idealism of the international volunteers who flooded Spain in support of its democratic government with the brutal actions taken by partisans on both sides of the war. He details the political infighting between the Soviets, anti-Stalinist communists, and anarchist revolutionaries. And he demonstrates how fascist sympathizers in Britain, the United States, and France kept those countries from supporting the Spanish government. (One of the most interesting sections is the previously untold story of how a Texas oilman with Nazi sympathies illegally provided Franco with oil.) Most important, he highlights Germany's overt use of the war as a training field for a European war in the making.
Spain in Our Hearts is gripping, illuminating, and ultimately heartbreaking. I'd recommend it over Hemingway any day of the week.
*Not a big fan.
This review, minus my opinion of Hemingway, previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.