Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
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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The Great Sea
As so often happens when I pick up a history book, I was recently whacked over the head by a factoid that was both obvious and illuminating: the name Mediterranean literally means “the sea between the lands”. It’s a good name, but it’s by no means the only name that sea has gone by. The…
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History on Display: Windows on the War
There are plenty of good reasons to visit the Art Institute of Chicago: the Impressionist collection, the Chagall window, the under-appreciated collection of South Asia art, the gift shop. But the Art Institute usually isn’t my first choice for a history lesson. In fact, it doesn’t generally take much to set me off on the…
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