Tag Archives: history

Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light

Posted on February 20, 2025 by smellincoffee

Lisbon is a history of how Portugal’s president-dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar carefully navigated between his own Scylla and Charybdis, attempting to keep Portugal out of the Second World War despite its longstanding alliance with England, and the fact that … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews, World Affairs | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Red Dead’s History

Posted on February 19, 2025 by smellincoffee

As a student of history who also plays a lot of video games which touch on history, I wonder sometimes what skewed version  of history unread players take from it.  Tore Olsson takes that same question and applies it to … Continue reading →

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Bloodlands

Posted on February 7, 2025 by smellincoffee

On a scale of 1 to 10, how demoralized, depressed, and soul-dead do you want to be? Ten? Well, have I got a book for you! Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin examines the grim fate of Eastern Europe from … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Goodbye, Darkness

Posted on January 24, 2025 by smellincoffee

Haunted by disturbing dreams that evoke the bloody days of his youth, William Manchester decided to confront his memories directly. Retracing his steps in the Pacific War, returning again to the jungle-covered rocks wherin he suffered, and where so many … Continue reading →

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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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The Year of Living Constitutionally

Posted on December 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

Although I am a fan of A.J. Jacobs’ ludicrous life experiments (trying to take seriously every bit of health advice he was given for a year, trying to literally follow every single rule in the Bible for a year, etc), … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

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 →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments