Today I will expand the scope of my museum reviews to include a National Historic Park. I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Richmond, Virginia area, which is nothing, if not historic! I had a very limited schedule, and was only able to fit one tourism item onto my itenerary. I chose the Pertersburg…
Learn history through board games: Part 2
In my last post I introduced the idea that we can learn through play, and that board games are a particularly good way to do this. As an historian, I am most interested in games that teach history. Naysayers might accuse me of looking for excuses to goof off. In addition to teaching, games can…
Learn history through board games: Part 1
I’m going to talk about how you can learn history through board games, but first I want to address the idea that you can learn anything at all by gaming. For many people, the term ‘gaming’ brings these perceptions to mind: 1) ‘Violent video games’ are a generally negative influence on society, 2) board games…
Dig some digital archaeology
The Andy Warhol Museum recently announced that it had recovered some digital files of Warhol’s art, originally created on an Amiga console in 1985. (Here’s the press release, and a blog post about the find.) Warhol Museum press release Washington Post blog about Warhol find While the Warhol archaeology was most likely conducted in an…
Museum: The National WWI Museum
Kansas City, Missouri is home to the National World War I Museum, and I visited while I was attending the annual conference of the Society for Military History. Let’s take a look at what makes this museum tick: Quality of research The availability of technical specs for the weaponry on display, and the broad strokes…
Book: Unfamiliar Fishes
ALWAYS look through the bargain books at Barnes & Noble! I was flipping through stacks of surplus Chicken Soup for the Construction Worker’s Soul, Thomas Paine reprints, and Atkins diet cookbooks when I found Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes. Bargain-priced at $4.99. Signed by the author. Seriously! Look: I first became familiar with Sarah Vowell through…
If the Spanish American War was a bar fight…
I came across a humorous take on World War I the other day. “If World War I Was a Bar Fight” was first published last year, and has some debatable facts and unfortunate omissions, but it is a lot of fun. (Find it here) So I naturally thought: “What other wars would work with this…
This Day in History: Vanguard 1
Are you worried about Russia? They may do something first, but we do it best. On March 17, 1958, the United States successfully put its second satellite into orbit: Vanguard 1. It is still there. Sputnik’s effect In 1955, the U.S. announced intentions to launch a satellite, but the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 in…
Book: The Monuments Men
How to thwart a pillager With his book, The Monuments Men, Robert Edsel has brought a little-known piece of the Allied effort in World War II to the front of our consciousness. The MFAA, or “Monuments Men” were a tiny group of American, British, and French soldiers who scoured Europe for the thousands of pieces…
Don’t forget China’s role in the Vietnam War
It was China’s neighborhood When Americans think about the Vietnam War, China is usually not the first topic that comes to mind. China had great interest in the war though, and exerted quite a bit of influence in the region. This is an important interaction to remember when you read about present-day Chinese actions in…