Buildings are history

Today in 1966, the National Historic Preservation Act became law, and it launched a massive effort to save historic buildings around the country that were in danger of encroaching urban sprawl and demolition. (You can read the act here. It is a well written defense of history.) In thinking about the effects of this momentous…

“Lessons Learned” Part 2

The current meltdown in Iraq has me revisiting the “Lessons Learned” topic I covered several months ago (see the post here). I’d like to address some of the readers’ comments from that post, and add some observations which have occurred to me since then. I will be discussing these thoughts in tandem with ideas from…

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…

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…