Category Archives: history

Hitler’s Heralds: The Freikorps

Posted on December 7, 2024 by smellincoffee

I’ve had this review written since September, but had intended to feature it as part of a series on inter-war Germany. That’s not going to happen this year, as I’m certainly not spending Advent reading about Weimar and Nazis! After … Continue reading →

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Oceans and fishes and magic needles

Posted on December 6, 2024 by smellincoffee

Within the last few weeks I’ve read a couple of science titles, one of which was a big ol’ book that deserves a proper review, but given that my mental energies are entirely focused on my last project for this … Continue reading →

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Hello, Everybody!

Posted on November 13, 2024 by smellincoffee

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a host of technologies released that utterly transformed society, and few as dramatic as radio. Hello, Everybody! is an engaging history of the early decades of radio, filled with some dramatic, unbelievable … Continue reading →

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Over my Dead Body: American Cemeteries

Posted on October 12, 2024 by smellincoffee

“There is glory in graves; there is grandeur in gloom”. So begins a poem inscribed on an elaborate tombstone in my favorite cemetery, Selma’s own Old Live Oak. Perhaps it was growing up in a city with such a picturesque … Continue reading →

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Disaster!

Posted on September 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

I stumbled upon this title nearly twenty years ago while touring my community college’s library and checking out what it had to offer. I found a couple of titles (Disaster! and Good Life in Hard Times: San Francisco’s Twenties and … Continue reading →

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Sunlight at Midnight: St Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia

Posted on August 22, 2024 by smellincoffee

I must confess to not knowing much at all about Russian cities: say Moscow, and I think of the Kremlin and the subway art; say St. Petersburg, and I have some hazy idea that it was built in the model … Continue reading →

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Historic Pensacola

Posted on August 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

I don’t know that I’d ever given much thought to Pensacola before immersing myself in Florida’s colonial history prepping for my St. Augustine weekend a few years back, but reading those made me aware of how chaotic and interesting Florida’s … Continue reading →

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Brutal Reckoning

Posted on July 30, 2024 by smellincoffee

I live in a place named for people no longer present: the Alibamu[*], part of the Creek confederacy which was driven from the southeast after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. I loved history even as a child, and it was … Continue reading →

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Lawless Republic

Posted on July 11, 2024 by smellincoffee

Oh, the times! Oh, the morals! Marcus Tullius Cicero began his legal practice and subsequent political career in tempestuous times: the Roman Republic was actively failing, critically hit during the civil wars between Marius and Sulla, attempting to salvage itself … Continue reading →

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American Phoenix: John Quincy Adams

Posted on July 10, 2024 by smellincoffee

John Quincy Adams was the eldest son of John Adams, who followed the elder’s irascible devotion to principle and found himself an exile for it — after his support for a general embargo against European powers for continuing to harass … Continue reading →

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