The Making of the First World War: A Pivotal History

  Despite its title, The Making of the First World War: A Pivotal History by historian Ian F. W. Beckett is not another account of the events leading up to World War One.  Instead Beckett is concerned with what he describes as “pivot points”: decisive moments that affected not only the course of the war…

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On The Map

Speaking of maps, as I believe we were, I recently spent several happy days with a book that straddles the intersection between cartography and history. Simon Garfield, author of the bestselling Just My Type, once again takes a subject that seems the province of a small group of enthusiasts and opens it for a larger…

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Home Front Girl

A couple of weekends ago–in between baking ham, slicing sweet potatoes, chopping cranberries and rolling out biscuit dough– I gave myself the treat of reading Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature and Growing Up in Wartime America. And a treat it was. Born in 1922, Joan Wehlen, later Joan Wehlen Morrison, grew up…

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