Category: History

August 5, 2013

The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert ** (of 4)

After attempting Simon Schama’s philosophical treatise on the French Revolution, I thought it best to turn to Christopher Hibbert to get the play-by-play. What a...

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July 23, 2013

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama *** (of 4)

OK, I didn’t finish the book. After more than 300 pages of fine print and exquisitely crafted sentences I perished of exhaustion before ever learning...

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June 21, 2013

Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart ** (of 4)

While investigating her genealogy, the author, Andrea Stuart, learns she is the descendent of both a slave owner and a slave. She gets all the...

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May 14, 2013

The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography ** (of 4)

In the 1940s a Bedouin searching caves above the western shore of the Dead Sea discovered urns with scrolls inside. He knew right away they...

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April 14, 2013

The President’s Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy *** (of 4)

An interesting perspective on U.S. history as seen through the relationships of all the Presidents since Truman to their predecessors. It is a forgiving and...

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March 17, 2013

HHhH by Laurent Binet **** (of 4)

Reinhard Heydrich, The Blonde Beast, ruled Czechoslovakia for the Nazis until he was assassinated in 1942. One of Hitler’s favorites — how is it I...

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February 3, 2013

Code Name Verity *** (of 4) by Elizabeth Wein

This is the tale of a irrepressible friendship between two women doing very unusual jobs. It is World War II and England is barely holding its own...

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December 18, 2012

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom ** (of 4)

In the 1530s, Thomas Cromwell, working for a surly King Henry, is in battle with the Roman Catholic church. The Pope’s monasteries have dominated rural life for...

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November 15, 2012

The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak *** (of 5)

Jozef Ondrej is taken by his father as an infant, after his mother dies, to the mountains of central Europe on the eve of the...

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October 28, 2012

Master of the Senate by Robert Caro **** (of 4)

Third in Caro’s serial biography of Lyndon Johnson, this massive volume covers Johnson’s decade in the Senate. For most of the 1950s LBJ ran the...

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