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Category Archives: history
Faces Along the Bar
Faces along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870-1920© 1998 Madelon Powers331 pages Men’s thinking on this issue seems to have involved an interesting mixture of solicitude and defiance. On the one hand, decent women should be … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews, Society and Culture
Tagged 19th century, food and drink, labor, Of Boys and Men, place and community, social history
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America’s untouchables and baseball
Shortly after the financial implosion of the late 2000s and the beginning of the ‘great recession’, physicist & banker Chris Arnade began long walks around New York City to contemplate the ramifications of his and his ‘industry’s’ reckless speculation and … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews, Society and Culture
Tagged 1940s, 1950s, 2010s, baseball, crime, drugs-alcohol-pharmaceuticals, mental health-illness, poverty, sports and outdoors
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Log Cabin Pioneers
Log Cabin Pioneers: Stories, Songs, and Sayings© 2001 Wayne Erbson184 pages Few things are more evocative of the American frontier than a log cabin. This isn’t a new thing, either: log cabins entered American iconography as early as the 1840s, … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged American Frontier, American South, architecture, arts-entertainment, Colonial America, history, music
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Tales from the Deadball Era
Tales from the Deadball Era: Ty Cobb, Home Run Baker, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Wildest Times in Baseball History© 2014 Mark S. Halfon, narrated by Michael Butler Murray 240 pages | Audible 8 hrs 4 minutes George Carlin once … Continue reading
Breaking Bad & Bama Baseball
If you’re an obsessive fan of Breaking Bad — and is any fan of Breaking Bad not an obsessive one? — this little book is a quick treat, consisting of summaries with commentary of each respective season, along with character … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Alabama, arts-entertainment, baseball, sports and outdoors
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The War as the South Saw It
The Confederate Reader: The War as the South Saw It© 1999 Richard B. Harwell416 pages Mention ‘The War’ in the South without any context, and most anyone will understand which one you’re referring to – the only War that has … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged American Civil War, history, letters and diaries, naval, primary sources
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Our Man In Charleston
Our Man in Charleston© 2016 Christopher Dickey416 pages Our Man in Charleston is a fascinating history of British diplomacy in the South, 1850s-1865, about a British consul working to defend Her Majesty’s interests in the erstwhile colonies, focusing specifically on … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged American Civil War, American South, Britain, geopolitics, slavery and rebellion
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Of British invasions and medieval haunts
As a followup to Hitler’s Armada, I read Frank McLynn’s Invasion from the Armada to Hitler, a history of planned attempts to invade the British isles, and has an interesting mixture of deep background and absurd simplification. McLynn begins by … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged England, English Literature, France, history, horror, naval, Spain
3 Comments
Hitler’s Armada
Hitler’s Armada: The Royal Navy & the Defence of Great Britain© Geoff Hewitt246 pages Summer 1940. Britain stands alone, its ally France having lain down her sword and surrendered to the German blitzkrieg, which has already consumed Norway, the Low … Continue reading