by envisionmg | Jan 26, 2018 | History, Non-fiction
In our Today In History Reading List feature, we take the events of a particular day in history and try to give you a work of fiction and a work of non-fiction relating to those events. 1788 Sydney Australia Established by Arthur Phillip The British First Fleet under...
by envisionmg | Jan 11, 2017 | History, Jim Reviews
I know what you are all thinking, “Why hasn’t anyone written a history of the Compromise of 1850?” Well, your heart’s desire has been granted. Fergus Bordewich’s America’s Great Debate is just such a book. For those of you who are...
by envisionmg | Dec 12, 2016 | Biography, History, Michelle Reviews
I know what you’re thinking, those of you with less than pleasant memories of Kafka (thanks to High School English class, right?), but here’s the thing: For all that this book is billed as a biography, Kafka is mostly just along for the ride. Which is to...
by envisionmg | Aug 15, 2016 | History, Jim Reviews
I grew up in the post-Vietnam War generation. I always had a feeling, as a child, that I wasn’t supposed to ask questions about the war. Prior to college my only knowledge of the war was a) we lost and b) it was bad. When I took classes on the war in college, I...
by envisionmg | Aug 9, 2016 | History, Jim Reviews
I picked up this book largely because it was, as the subtitle suggests, something I had never heard of before. Seligman’s Tong Wars is a story of Chinese American organized crime in New York City from its birth in the later half of the 19th century into the...
by envisionmg | Jul 22, 2016 | History, Jim Reviews
You know how one book leads to another? The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Greg Steinmetz is one of those. I was reading The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance and the name Jacob Fugger was mentioned. It was almost nothing; just a mention...
