I find the best way to understand an author I admire is to read their short stories, generally their first ventures into literature when they are mastering their craft.  Certainly this is true of Tolstoy, in his novella ‘The Cossacks’ and his sketches of the Crimean War, which gave him, […]

Reading Herodotus is fun because he traveled all over the ancient world – Persia, Scythia, Egypt, Greece, and Italy. He famously wrote about the Persian Wars from accounts he heard from the men who fought in them and he is known as the father of history. But as he traveled, […]

So much of what we know of ancient Egypt we learn from tombs and inscriptions and grave goods, so we tend to think of them as fixated on the afterlife, but far from just slaving away on pyramids and giant statues to honor the dead, the ancient Egyptians knew how […]

For those who want to know what it was like to fight in the American Civil War, one of the best sources are the writings of Ambrose Bierce. Bierce saw action in major engagements including Shiloh and Chickamauga, and his position as a topographical engineer gave him an informed perspective […]

I’ve just been enraptured, yet again, on my  third reading of ‘The Ways of White Folks’ by Langston Hughes. I would like to see this book taught in every high school in America because it can truly advance our national conversation about race — and it was written in 1933! […]

Russell Banks’ novel Foregone is rocking the bestseller list, and I’m sure the literary world is waiting with bated breath to hear a review from his former son-n-law, blogger Stephen Hartshorne. I won’t keep you in suspense any longer; this is a great book, both for the “deep meaning” readers […]

Took a trip to School Street in Dedham, Mass., where I failed to grow up.  On the corner is the bicycle shop that everyone said was a bookie joint, though I don’t know of anyone who ever got a bet down.   I went over to Dave Dethlefs house to […]

If you’re looking for a powerful, entertaining novel to read on the beach, or anywhere else, I heartily recommend ‘The Last Days of Dogtown’ by Anita Diamant. This is a ripping good read about a now abandoned settlement on Cape Ann in Massachusetts, just north of Gloucester and just west […]

I’ve been laboring through a book called John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy by Samuel Flagg Bemis. I couldn’t possibly recommend it unless, like me, you wish to be well informed about the career of America’s most studious and most diligent president, who, after his presidency, […]

“I wrote this book in the thirties, against the background of depression at home and mounting tension abroad. The preoccupations of that unhappy time cast their shadows over its pages.” I first took up The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood ten years ago, and while I was caught up […]