Located outside Dr. Susan Mobley’s office (LU 205B) is the History Department bulletin board. To date, I have created 4 areas of interest: Best Books, Best of the Web, Teaching History & Best History Video. I have endeavored to post appropriate, relevant & scintillating items for perusal. Please feel free to pass this information along to students and other interested parties. I shall make changes every 4-6 weeks. All suggestions welcomed; contact Dr. Horgan via e-mail jhorgan@cuw.edu.
May/June 2008
Best Books in History
Queen Elizabeth I: A Vision Transcending Time, Jaye Fairchild
Throughout history, Eve’s daughters have endured and protested the harsh conditions of gender-prescribed roles in society. Despite a society sated with superstitions, despite an aristocratic marriage market, despite the victimizing social norms, and despite a denigrating male mindset toward its women, Elizabeth would grow to become the most educated woman in Tudor time. Elizabeth would grow to transcend her gender—to be heard, to be acknowledged, and to be obeyed. Stubbornly and defiantly, she refused to live life as a victim of a patriarchal society. For after all, she was Eve’s daughter. This book examines the gender issues surrounding Elizabeth as a baby, as a young maiden, and as a 25-year-old queen. A fascinating historical glimpse into Renaissance life and the restrictions the patriarchy imposed on its women, in particular on Queen Elizabeth I. [Note: The author is CUW’s own Dr. Donna Reimer-Becker, Associate Professor of English]
Welcome to the British Museum's web site on Mesopotamia covering Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria. The site is divided into ten ‘chapters' which address themes or topics relevant to the civilisations of Mesopotamia: Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian. The ten ‘chapters' are presented on a menu page where the user can choose a chapter by clicking on the word or icon relating to that chapter.
For each chapter there is a ‘Doormat' page, which is an atmospheric introductory page to the chapter. The Doormat page will automatically switch to the ‘Home Page' after a few seconds. However, clicking on the picture will switch it immediately. The ‘Home Page' is an introductory page for the chapter.
Within each ‘chapter' there are three sections: ‘Story', ‘Explore' and ‘Challenge':
The 'Story' is a presentation of information in a narrative form. Since the visual material surviving from Mesopotamia is limited, several of the stories use specially-commissioned imaginative illustrations.
The 'Explore' is a non-linear presentation of information. The pupil controls the order in which they access the information. It is then the responsibility of the pupil (and/or the teacher) to make larger connections among ideas and information and place the information in a context or framework.
The 'Challenge' is an activity that allows pupils to practise certain skills (historical, analytical, mathematical, observational) within the context of a theme or topic relevant to Mesopotamia.
The Liberty! Teacher’s Guide is designed to fully engage students in the drama and rich educational information presented in the six-part PBS series Liberty! The American Revolution. The plans are flexible and can be easily adapted. PreK-12 teachers may videotape the series and use it in the classroom for one year.
Lesson 1: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARIES Examine why colonists, many of whom felt strong loyalties to the British Empire, decided to abandon their mother country and join the Revolution.
Lesson 2: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: AN ANALYTICAL VIEW Consider the importance of the Declaration of Independence - what it meant during the time of the Revolution, what its impact is today and how it influenced political thinking over the last few centuries.
Lesson 3: THE CONTINENTAL ARMY & WASHINGTON Gain a first-hand understanding of the conditions faced by Washington's Continental Army, and explore how Washington was able to hold his troops together.
Lesson 4: FACTORS THAT HANDICAPPED THE BRITISH Discover how the strongest military force in the world was defeated by the comparatively weak, non-professional American soldiers, and compare this surprising defeat to other military conflicts in history.
Lesson 5: REVOLUTIONARY WAR MUSIC Investigate some of the more familiar and famous songs of the Revolutionary War period and how music was used to convey messages of patriotism and highlight popular sentiments.
Lesson 6: CREATING A NEW NATION Examine the post-war tensions between Federalists and Anti-Federalists and how the evolution of their debate shaped the Constitution and government of the United States of America.
Best History Video
Engineering an Empire circles the globe to re-examine history s most magnificent civilizations by surveying the architectural and engineering triumphs they left behind. Beginning more than five-thousand years ago with the mind-boggling construction feats of the ancient Egyptians, the 14 documentaries--including two feature-length specials--in this collection revive the spectacular glory of the past, from the great temples of Greece to the majestic and mysterious Tenochtitlan. Cutting-edge CGI graphics and stunning location footage reanimate the ancient streets of such cities as Carthage and Rome, while expert interview trace the rise of each empire and the technological achievements that paved the way for their gravity-defying masterpieces.
March/April 2008
Best Books in History
The Slave Ship: A Human History,Marcus Rediker
For three centuries slave ships carted millions of people from the coasts of Africa across the Atlantic to the Americas. Much is known of the slave trade and the American plantation system, but little of the ships that made it all possible. In The Slave Ship, award-winning historian Marcus Rediker draws on thirty years of research in maritime archives to create an unprecedented history of these vessels and the human drama acted out on their rolling decks. He reconstructs in chilling detail the lives, deaths, and terrors of captains, sailors, and the enslaved aboard a "floating dungeon" trailed by sharks. From the young African kidnapped from his village and sold into slavery by a neighboring tribe to the would-be priest who takes a job as a sailor on a slave ship only to be horrified at the evil he sees to the captain who relishes having "a hell of my own," Rediker illuminates the lives of people who were thought to have left no trace. This is a tale of tragedy and terror, but also an epic of resilience, survival, and the creation of something entirely new. Marcus Rediker restores the slave ship to its rightful place alongside the plantation as a formative institution of slavery, a place where a profound and still haunting history of race, class, and modern economy was made.
American popular music from the 1930's reflects the cultural and social conditions that shaped the American identity during the period. For the purposes of this academic endeavor, the term "popular music" applies to any music in any genre from a select time frame that aspired to and achieved popularity with a particular audience. The popular music of the thirties can be used as a lens to better understand the collective memory of the American people during a decade marked by the Depression, emerging technologies and the growing population of cities as many Americans relocated from rural areas. The music in these pages is in many ways reflective of how Americans imagined themselves during this period. It is important to note that all of the songs posted here were originally released as phonograph records, and as such were the products of an industrial process that shaped this imagination of national identity.
Bridging World History is a set of multimedia materials designed to help learners discover world history and:
·Develop a dynamic conceptual framework for the study of world history, its theoretical constructs, and its historiographical practices.
·Establish a spatial and temporal grasp of the peoples and cultures that comprise world history, spanning thousands of years and the entire globe.
·Discover insights into thematic relationships that shape our understanding of world history.
·Span the gaps between what learners comfortably know and what they need to comprehend in order to explore a truly global and relevant past.
Bridging World History is inquiry-based, integrated, and recursive, and uses video, Web, and text materials to provide a comprehensive and interactive learning experience. The video and Web materials may be used non-sequentially and on their own as supplements to the study of world history; however, in their entirety, the materials provide a complete world history course. Each unit consists of a 30-minute video and an online text chapter. These chapters include journal articles and other readings, an overview of the unit content (see Assumption of User Knowledge), as well as a course guide chapter that provides a structure for course sessions, learning activities, and homework assignments. You can access all of the materials (including broadband, on-demand streaming of the video programs) through the Web site.
Best History Video
1421: The Year China Discovered America [PBS Home Video]
You've heard what the history books have to say about the discovery of America, but now prepare to have your entire perception of history forever altered with this remarkable release from PBS. Could it be that a fearless Chinese admiral actually discovered America nearly a century before Columbus made his historical landing in the West Indies? Travel back to the year 1421 and follow the legendary Admiral Zheng as he and his formidable Ming fleet travel far and wide to explore little-visited outposts at the behest of Chinese emperor Zhu Di. Based on theories put forward by noted historian and best-seller Gavin Menzies, this thought-provoking take on conventional history proposes that it was Admiral Zheng who led European explorers to the West a whole 71 years after first setting foot on American soil.
January/February 2008
New Books
This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust
During the Civil War, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today’s population would be six million. This Republic of Suffering explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. The eminent historian Drew Gilpin Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and its understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. She describes how survivors mourned and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the slaughter with its belief in a benevolent God, pondered who should die and under what circumstances, and reconceived its understanding of life after death. Faust details the logistical challenges involved when thousands were left dead, many with their identities unknown, on the fields of places like Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg. She chronicles the efforts to identify, reclaim, preserve, and bury battlefield dead, the resulting rise of undertaking as a profession, the first widespread use of embalming, the gradual emergence of military graves registration procedures, the development of a federal system of national cemeteries for Union dead, and the creation of private cemeteries in the South that contributed to the cult of the Lost Cause. She shows, too, how the war victimized civilians through violence that extended beyond battlefields—from disease, displacement, hardships, shortages, emotional wounds, and conflicts connected to the disintegration of slavery.
Best Videos
In the Shadow of the Moon Filmmaker David Sington merges the magnificence of science with the compelling drama of the human quest for advancement with this compelling and visually stunning meditation on the historic Apollo space program. In the four remarkable years between 1968 and 1972, American history took a defining turn as nine NASA spacecraft made the trip to the moon, and twelve bold explorers became the first men ever to set foot on ground beyond planet Earth. In this documentary, space enthusiast Sington allows the surviving crew members from each Apollo mission the unique opportunity to recount their memories of those missions in their own words as vintage, original NASA film footage offers a tantalizing glimpse of this extraordinary era in American history. Candid interviews with the astronauts reveal the sensitive and fun-loving souls whose fearlessness would lead a nation into a new era of progress, and audio recordings from Mission Control lend a newfound sense of poignancy to a variety of oft-recounted historical milestones.
Best of the Web
Secrets of Lost Empires [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/] Welcome to the companion Web site to "Secrets of Lost Empires," a special five-part NOVA series originally aired in February of 2000. In the series, NOVA crews attempt to ferret out long-forgotten secrets of early architects and engineers. How did they design and erect the medieval war machines known as trebuchets? Egyptian obelisks? The Easter Island stone monoliths called moais? Roman baths? The rainbow bridges of ancient China? Here's what you'll find online:
Medieval Siege In the Middle Ages, those who attacked castles used trebuchets, military engines capable of firing missiles with frightening force. In this section, view an actual trebuchet NOVA built, and construct and fire one of your own online. Also, find out what other weapons were used and what daily life was like in a medieval castle.
Pharaoh's Obelisk The soaring stone monuments known as obelisks were the Egyptian pharaohs' way of capturing a ray of revered sunlight in stone. In this section, follow NOVA's ultimately successful attempts to raise an obelisk of its own. Also, learn where ancient Egypt's obelisks have ended up today, explore other Egyptian monuments using QuickTime VR, and more.
Easter Island This remote Pacific island's so-called moai statues are among the world's most enigmatic sculptures. In this section, explore an interactive map of Easter Island to find out where ancient residents quarried and moved the famous monoliths. Also, follow recent attempts by NOVA and others to transport moai overland.
Roman Bath The plumbing that brought hot water to the communal baths the Romans enjoyed was highly sophisticated. In this section, watch as NOVA builds its own Roman bath, then try your hand at constructing a working aqueduct online. Also, learn about the Romans' water system from a noted scholar, and get a taste of Roman-era recipes such as scaloppine pine nut sauce.
China Bridge The ancient Chinese relied on bamboo, one of nature's most versatile building materials, to lash together their famous rainbow bridges. In this section, learn more about this amazing plant and about China's most noteworthy inventions, including paper money, gunpowder, and the compass. Also, play an interactive game that challenges you to use the right bridge type to span a span.
The modules cover more than twenty topics that correspond to the major periods in American history and take into consideration the history standards, both required and advanced, to which high school students are held. Each module includes:
* a succinct historical overview * learning tools including lesson plans, quizzes, and activities * recommended documents, films, and historic images
Jan Zabinski, the innovative director of the Warsaw Zoo, and Antonina, his empathic wife, lived joyfully on the zoo grounds during the 1930s with their young son, Ryszard (Polish for lynx), and a menagerie of animals needing special attention. The zoo was badly damaged by the Nazi blitzkrieg, and their bit of paradise would have been utterly destroyed but for the director of the Berlin Zoo, Lutz Heck, who wanted Jan's help in resurrecting extinct "pure-blooded species" in pursuit of Aryan perfection in the animal kingdom. Resourceful and courageous, the Zabinskis turned the decimated zoo into a refuge and saved the lives of several hundred imperiled Jews.
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present, Michael B. Oren
From the first cannonballs fired by American warships at North African pirates to the conquest of Falluja by the Marines—from the early American explorers who probed the sources of the Nile to the diplomats who strove for Arab-Israeli peace—the United States has been dramatically involved in the Middle East. For well over two centuries, American statesmen, merchants, and missionaries, both men and women, have had a profound impact on the shaping of this crucial region. Drawing on thousands of government documents and personal letters, featuring original maps and over sixty photographs, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring yet often hostile land stretching from Morocco to Iran, from the Persian Gulf to the Bosporus.
Best of the Web
Digital History Reader [http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/] The Digital History Reader (DHR) is comprised of two main content areas, each broken out into modules. The United States History section provides materials covering important themes and issues from the colonial era to the present. The European History section, entitled "Modern Europe in a Global Context," explores links between European and world history in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The modules presented on this website are designed for introductory-level survey courses at colleges and universities and for advanced history courses at the secondary level. All of the modules organize and present data in a similar fashion. Each module includes an introduction outlining the module objectives and relevant historical questions students might consider while reading; background historical information, or the context of the period; an "archive" of documents, along with questions to guide students' use of the evidence; an assessment section to evaluate what students have learned and to allow for feedback; a conclusion; and a list of related resources.
Teaching History
The West[http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/lesson_plans/] The classroom resources gathered here are designed to help you use this Web site, other material on the Internet, and The West videos for a study of the United States' westward expansion in the Nineteenth Century. This multidisciplinary unit of lessons addresses a variety of subject areas, including history, language arts, fine arts, and science. These materials are designed for middle and high school students (grades 6-12), although extension suggestions may help you modify them for younger students. Each lesson plan provides objectives, standards correlations, background information, Web links, procedures, extension suggestions, and assessment recommendations. Each incorporates relevant video segments from The West, though the lessons also function as stand-alone activities.
September/October 2007
New Books
Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, Eric Jay Dolin
This is the epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales. Eric Jay Dolin chronicles the rise of the burgeoning whaling industry to its decline as the twentieth century dawned. Containing a wealth of naturalistic detail on whales, Leviathan is the most original and stirring history of American whaling in many decades.
The History of Castles, Christopher Gravett
The History of Castles is the ultimate illustrated guide to the world’s most fascinating castles and strongholds. Dating back to ancient times, when Greeks, Romans, and Celts built fortifications to defend territories, castles have stood as symbols of both military might and cultural achievement. Christopher Gravett takes us on a tour of the most magnificent castles throughout the world, with chapters ranging from the British Isles, France, Germany, the Low Countries, Austria, Switzerland, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Scandinavia, to Eastern Europe and Russia, as well as fortifications in the Muslim World, the Far East, and the United States. The author, former curator at the infamous Tower of London, explores the important roles that these castles played in warfare and in social history. He also provides a thorough look at the architectural history and function of these proud strongholds. Featuring nearly 200 beautiful full-color photographs, 30 reconstructions, and 70 detailed maps—plus more than 70 new illustrations unique to this paperback edition—The History of Castles is the ideal book for history enthusiasts, vacation planners, and anyone enamored by these breathtaking buildings.
Global Connections: The Middle East The Global Connections Web site integrates and contextualizes the rich body of public broadcasting resources to provide a global and historical perspective that will help teachers, students, and the general public explore and understand seminal events of national and international significance. For this initial phase, Global Connections focuses on the Middle East. Visitors to the site can explore the past 100 years of history here as well as the relationship between the region and the West. In the future, the site will grow to incorporate other geographic regions around the world. The area commonly referred to as the Middle East is multiethnic and multicultural. The resources gathered here, and the topics explored, reflect this diversity. As the largest group in the region, Muslims figure prominently there, as well as on this site.
July/August 2007
New Books
Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, Jack Beatty
Age of Betrayal is a brilliant reconsideration of the Gilded Age in America, when an oligarchy of wealth triumphed over democracy, when dreams of freedom and equality died of their impossibility. Jay Gould, the "Mephisto of Wall Street," never runs for office, but he rules. This was his time (and John D. Rockefeller's and Andrew Carnegie's), and this was his country. At the end of the Civil War, with the rebellion put down and slavery ended, America belonged to Lincoln's "plain people." But "government of the people" and economic democracy were betrayed by political parties that fanned memories of the war to distract Americans from government of the corporation. Synthesizing the research of a new generation of scholars, Jack Beatty gives us a fresh look at the "revolution from above" of industrialization that forged modern America. In Age of Betrayal, Supreme Court justices turn the Fourteenth Amendment's promise of "equal protection of the laws" to the freed slave into the shield of the corporate "person." The presidents of the Pennsylvania and Southern Pacific railroads engage in a bidding war for congressmen. A depression brought on by railroad speculation throws millions out of work, the hungry riot for bread in Buffalo, the homeless sleep on Chicago's streets, "tramps" are arrested, strikers are shot, and the nation's presidents avert their eyes. In the 1890s the Populist revolt from below challenges the revolution from above. Entrepreneurial capitalism ends in the early 1900s, as 1,800 giant firms are compacted into 157 behemoths. God instructs President McKinley to invade Cuba and seize the Philippines from Spain; turning from liberators to occupiers, U.S. troops slaughter and starve the (Roman Catholic) Filipinos in the name of "Christianizing" them. In perpetrating this "infamy," William James cries out, "We have puked up our traditions"-revealing how these sordid decades had remade us.
Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, Gordon Wood
Even when the greatness of the founding fathers isn't being debunked, it is a quality that feels very far away from us indeed: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Co. seem as distant as marble faces carved high into a mountainside. We may marvel at the fact that fate placed such a talented cohort of political leaders in that one place, the east coast of North America, in colonies between Virginia and Massachusetts, and during that one fateful period, but that doesn't really help us explain it or teach us the proper lessons to draw from it. What did make the founders different? Now, the incomparable Gordon Wood has written a book that shows us, among many other things, just how much character did matter. Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different offers a series of brilliantly illuminating studies of the men who came to be known as the founding fathers. Each life is considered in the round, but the thread that binds the work together and gives it the cumulative power of a revelation is this idea of character as a lived reality for these men. For these were men, Gordon Wood shows, who took the matter of character very, very seriously. They were the first generation in history that was self-consciously self-made, men who understood the arc of lives, as of nations, as being one of moral progress. They saw themselves as comprising the world's first true meritocracy, a natural aristocracy as opposed to the decadent Old World aristocracy of inherited wealth and station. Gordon Wood's wondrous accomplishment here is to bring these men and their times down to earth and within our reach, revealing to us just who they were and what drove them. In so doing, he shows us that although a lot has changed in two hundred years, to an amazing degree the virtues these founders defined for themselves are the virtues we aspire to still.
Best of the Web
From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians Part of PBS's Frontline series, this companion site explores archeological clues to Jesus' life, paints a portrait of his world, examines the gospels and the first Christians, and discusses why Christianity succeeded. From Jesus to Christ features the testimony of New Testament theologians, archaeologists, and historians who address issues relating to Jesus' life and the evolution of Christianity. The site also offers interactive maps, a timeline, an anthology of primary sources, a discussion forum, and a biblical quiz. A new addition is the edited transcript of a two-day symposium at Harvard University which served as a follow-up to the FRONTLINE broadcast and featured scholars' presentations, workshops and audience discussion.
Teaching History
The Library of Congress' Learning Page provides a “teacher’s eye view” of over 7 million historical documents, photographs, maps, films, and audio recordings. Lesson plans can be searched by theme, topic, discipline, or era. You’ll find activities, tools, ideas, and features useful in teaching of American History.http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/
May/June 2007
New Books
Stealing Lincoln's Body, Thomas Craughwell
Thomas Craughwell provides an intriguing glimpse at a macabre but interesting footnote to the story of Abraham Lincoln: the tale of how, on election night of 1876, several Chicago counterfeiters attempted to abduct and hold for ransom the 16th president's corpse. As Craughwell demonstrates, authorities received advance warning, and Lincoln's bones never, in the end, left his Springfield, Ill., tomb-even though the would-be abductors did succeed in wresting the casket from its sarcophagus. In telling this story, Craughwell also provides something of a biography of Lincoln's cadaver, chronicling its long voyage to final rest. After the 1876 attempt, the "sacred remains" spent 11 years half-buried in a subbasement of the tomb, covered with boards, as a security measure, while thousands of pious citizens paid their respects to the empty sarcophagus above. Then, from 1887 through 1889, the dead president's body lingered in a specially constructed catacomb immediately beneath the sarcophagus room (again, secretly). Not until 1901-after several prominent Springfieldians opened the casket and verified the identity of its occupant-was Lincoln's corpse permanently installed within his monument beneath several feet of poured cement, never again to be disturbed. Craughwell offers an entertaining account of one of the stranger incidents in American history.
Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign, Stephan Talty
Stephan Talty's Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign entertainingly chronicles the life of legendary privateer Capt. Henry Morgan and his crucial role in challenging Spain's hegemony in the New World in this informative popular history. Seeking his fortune, Welshman Morgan arrived in the Caribbean just as British King Charles II decided to challenge Spain by using pirates "as a stick with which to beat [them]." Morgan accepted a privateer's commission from the British—in effect, a license to steal—and set out in 1661 to make his fortune. Smart and charismatic, Morgan quickly rose to the rank of captain and became "fabulously rich." His attack on the Spanish stronghold at Portobelo "showed the world that the empire was vulnerable," and his raid on the city of Panama—the "greatest raid in the history of buccaneering"—forced "the Spanish to renounce their exclusive rights to the New World." Charles II knighted Morgan and appointed him deputy governor of Jamaica, a position that tasked him—"the greatest of the buccaneers"—with exterminating piracy. Morgan died of the effects of alcohol abuse in 1688 at 53. Talty strips away the legend to recreate a pivotal era in this accessible portrait of the pirates of the Caribbean.
AskAsia.org [features scholarly content about Asia and US-Asia relations; expert K-12 teaching and learning strategies; and useful classroom resources, such as maps, photographs, art images, timelines and more.]
March/April 2007
New Books
Clay: The History and Evolution of Humankind's Relationship, Suzanne Staubach
In the tradition of the bestselling books Salt and Cod: get the dirt on the humble substance that helped create the modern world. Clay has played a crucial role in the development of the culinary arts, international trade, the invention of writing, and the construction of towns and cities. After 30,000 years, clay continues to play a vital role in our everyday lives and the advancement of civilization. Its history is the history of the human race. What started as a tool for cooking and a vessel for storage is now essential to the space program, bio-technology, publishing, agriculture, plumbing, sanitation, and more. Much of the Great Wall of China was made of fired clay bricks-a material that can stand for centuries. Now, Suzanne Staubach presents a look at a civilization built on the mud beneath our feet-from the first spark plugs to modern semi-conductors, satellite communications to surgical equipment-in a colorful look at how, from primordial ooze to modern miracles, clay continues to shape our world in ways limited only by the human imagination.
Wood: Craft, Culture, History, Harvey Green
We build our houses with it, burn it for warmth, carve it for beauty, sail in it, sit on it, play with it, and fight with it—yet how much do we really understand about the history and culture of wood? In this rich and fascinating book, Harvey Green examines how wood in all its variety of form and function has contributed to an extraordinary range of human endeavors. Wood reveals the history and culture of a substance that has been a central part of human life throughout the world for thousands of years. From the prized whorls of bird’s-eye maple to the oak and pine that made navies and empires, from the breathtaking stave churches of Norway to the enduring popularity of the Windsor chair, from the magic of turning to the grace of a Chinese chair, and from the botany of the baseball bat to the stunning carving of Native Americans of the northwest coast, Wood decodes how a seemingly common material has come to signal class, status, and authenticity. Using the historian’s craft and the woodworker’s hand, Green has fashioned an authoritative book sure to interest all who love this amazing material, appreciate its history, and care about its future.
Best of the Web
Chocolate [an exhibition from the Field Museum in Chicago]
Teaching History
Age of Exploration [from the mariners’ Museum in Virginia] Encourage our future teachers to click on the link Activities for Teachers and Students.
January/February 2007
New Books
God's War: A New History of the Crusades, Christopher Tyerman
This is likely to replace Steven Runciman's 50-year-old History of the Crusades as the standard work. Tyerman (England and the Crusades), lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, demolishes our simplistic misconceptions about that series of ferocious campaigns in the Middle East, Muslim Spain and the pagan Baltic between 1096 and 1500. Abjuring sentimentality and avoiding clichés about a rapacious West and an innocent East, Tyerman focuses on the crusades' very human paradoxes: "the inspirational idealism; utopianism armed with myopia; the elaborate, sincere intolerance; the diversity and complexity of motive and performance." The reader marvels at the crusaders' inextinguishable devotion to Christ even while shuddering at their delight in massacring those who did not share that devotion. In the end, Tyerman says, what killed crusading was neither a lack of soldierly enthusiasm nor its failure to retain control of Jerusalem, but the loss of Church control over civil societies at home and secular authorities who felt that religion was not sufficient cause for war and that diplomacy was a more rational method of deciding international relations. God's War is that very rare thing: a readable and vivid history written with the support of a formidable scholarly background, and it deserves to reach a wide audience.
The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
On August 28, 1854, working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis tossed a bucket of soiled water into the cesspool of her squalid apartment building and triggered the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the city's history. In this tightly written page-turner, Johnson (Everything Bad Is Good for You) uses his considerable skill to craft a story of suffering, perseverance and redemption that echoes to the present day. Describing a city and culture experiencing explosive growth, with its attendant promise and difficulty, Johnson builds the story around physician John Snow. In the face of a horrifying epidemic, Snow (pioneering developer of surgical anesthesia) posited the then radical theory that cholera was spread through contaminated water rather than through miasma, or smells in the air. Against considerable resistance from the medical and bureaucratic establishment, Snow persisted and, with hard work and groundbreaking research, helped to bring about a fundamental change in our understanding of disease and its spread. Johnson weaves in overlapping ideas about the growth of civilization, the organization of cities, and evolution to thrilling effect. From Snow's discovery of patient zero to Johnson's compelling argument for and celebration of cities, this makes for an illuminating and satisfying read.
American Journeys [contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later]
