Category: History

June 10, 2024

Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March *** (of 4)

It is 1892. India is a British colony and Indians, at least upper class Indians, aspire to move up the British hierarchy. Two young women...

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May 18, 2024

The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto *** (of 4)

Shorto’s hypothesis is concise and convincing. His book is long and detailed. As the ages of Enlightenment and Exploration dawned on Europe, Holland was the...

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March 26, 2024

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell *** (of 4)

The story’s most famous character, William Shakespeare, is never mentioned by name. History tells us that Hamnet, the son of William and Agnes (Anne Hatheway)...

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March 25, 2024

Rough Crossings by Simon Schama *** (of 4)

How did we not know this? In the 1760s, a court case in England suggested that any person of African descent living in Great Britain...

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March 25, 2024

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley (*** of 4)

Kerry Howley digs deep into the lives of American whistleblowers: John Walker Lindh, Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner, and Edward Snowden. Each was charged with violating...

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February 8, 2024

Fatherland by Burkhard Bilger *** (of 4)

Burkhard Bilger is a German-American, accomplished author and writer for the New Yorker, and the right age to have a grandfather who was a Nazi....

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January 26, 2024

Fire Weather by John Vaillant **** (of 4)

Just as every year is now the hottest on record, so too the number and intensity of wildfires across the planet break annual records for...

America

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January 26, 2024

A Disappearance in Fiji *** (of 4)

Sargent Akal Singh has been banished to desk duty in Fiji. The year is 1915 and Britain rules its colonies with guile, brutality, and economic...

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January 11, 2024

Free by Lea Ypi *** (of 4)

Lea Ypi is now a distinguished professor of political theory at the London School of Economics. She wanted to describe for readers what life in...

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January 11, 2024

The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland *** (of 4)

Historically accurate, this is a fictional recounting of an 1811 fire in Richmond, Virginia that consumed a theater and scores of patrons inside. A young...

America

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