Let’s keep time! Watchmaker and author Rebecca Struthers joins the podcast to talk her book Hands of Time: A Watchmaker’s History. We also talk about watchmaking and jolly old England. Come listen!
If you need something done, find yourself a nurse.
The story of the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis killed Doc Holliday at age 36.
In the first half of the twentieth century, tuberculosis killed 5.6 million people in the U.S. alone.
Tuberculosis is one of those diseases that doesn’t scare us today but used to strike fear in humans for thousands of years. After all, it killed the Bronte sisters, Doc Holliday, and Andrew Jackson. That’s a very wide variety of personalities as examples. It stalked everyone and no one could tell when it would decide to start killing you.
Maria Smilios’ The Black Angels takes a look at the final days of the disease through the eyes of Black nurses in a tuberculosis hospital on Staten Island called Sea View in the early to mid-1900s. The reason why Black nurses stepped into this moment in history is mostly because White nurses wanted nothing to do with TB wards and had other options. Another major part of the narrative is the various doctors working to find a cure for TB.
The book is excellent from beginning to end. I should warn readers that there are a few times where the Black nurses disappear for a chapter or two while discussing the doctors’ journey to the TB cure. Smilios is a very good writer, and these sections are still enjoyable without feeling disjointed. That said, I wanted more time with the nurses.
The time we do get with the nurses is exceptional. I can’t articulate why, but Smilios had me invested from the very beginning in the lives of Edna and Americus specifically. These sisters and their sacrifices set a powerful reminder of what was at stake and how life during these days could change on a dime. I won’t spoil anything but be prepared to have some feelings.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Penguin Group Putnam.)
Absolutely fantastic. Read it! Buy it here!
Is there any place the mouse won’t set up shop?
The story of Walt Disney’s attempt to build a ski resort.
Bambi lost money at the box office.
Walt Disney was so strapped for cash in 1938 that he had to pay a $2,500 investment in four different payments.
If you thought Disney didn’t get stuck in political wrangling until the 2020s then do I have a story for you! Disneyland on the Mountain by Greg Glasgow and Kathryn Mayer tells the story of the Disney ski resort that you’ve never heard of because it never got made.
The story of why the resort died in the planning phase is not the thing of fairy tales. Literally the opposite as it was very much about court cases and grassroots activism. What makes the story so complex is there is no true villain here. Walt Disney was not trying to make some naked cash grab and destroy the natural environment. At the same time, you wouldn’t necessarily fault the activists who believed a ski resort would mar the mountain. Glasgow and Mayer tell a fair story here although I’d recommend this mostly for nerds of Disney and/or environmentalism.
(This book was provided as a courtesy copy from Rowman & Littlefield.)
A must read if you are a Disney nut or environmentalist. Buy it here!
Let’s ship out! Author Steven Ujifusa joins the podcast to talk his new book The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I.
99 problems but a ship ain’t one.
The story of the men instrumental in the Jewish exodus from Eastern Europe before World War I.
Thomas Ismay purchased the White Star Line in 1867 for only one thousand pounds. Yes, the Titanic White Star Line although it wasn’t made yet.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 people, and no one was ever sent to jail.
What do J.P. Morgan, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Henry Cabot Lodge have in common? You’re right: antisemitism! And as illustrated in Steven Ujifusa’s The Last Ships from Hamburg, they were not alone.
The book is pretty sprawling narrative covering the business of immigrant steamship transportation. The main characters are the aforementioned Morgan, and also Albert Ballin and Jacob Schiff. I knew nothing about Ballin and Schiff before this. Ujifusa makes them very interesting characters with specific drives and also obvious faults. There is no hero worship in this book even if there are heroic deeds throughout.
Ujifusa follows the explosion of Russian-Jewish flight from Russia right before World War I. The narrative of the business dealings was interesting, but the real highlight of the book for me was whenever Ujifusa tells smaller stories about specific immigrants and what they faced. A small chapter on what an immigrant mother and child experienced is one of the saddest things I have ever read. The business side of things is important to understanding the greater story, but these smaller instances are when I was completely hooked. Give it a read!
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Harper Books.)
An amazing story you’ve never heard before. Buy it here!
Just put the nostalgia directly in my veins!
Um, just look at the title.
Green Day’s Dookie sold 20 million copies.
Everyone in Metallica, including the drummer Lars Ulrich, concede that Lars is an overrated drummer.
Listen, big disclaimer up front. I was born in 1982, so my formative music years were the 1990s. Or, if you want to be mean, the late 1900s. Rob Harvilla’s 60 Songs That Explain the ’90s is the type of book in which I cannot be trusted to be impartial. I’d like to say I’m mature and professional enough to not get completely overwhelmed by reading about the Gin Blossoms or Metallica. I am not. I am okay with it. So, let’s do this review.
Harvilla is a liar. He admits this. He talks about way more than 60 songs and clearly, I was here for it. Harvilla writes very informally but I honestly believe it works for this book. He is, in essence, trying to teleport you back to your childhood bedroom with your best friend as you discuss just how deep Alice in Chains is and how no one else gets it. Harvilla has an extremely wide taste in music, so you also get write-ups on rap, country, and most genres under the sun. No, this is not a scholarly book. Yes, I loved it. If you were a 90s kid, I guarantee there is something here for you. He even covers ska!
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Twelve Books.)
You have to read it. Just do it. Trust me. Buy it here!
Let’s bring’em home! Authors Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Judy Silverstein Gray join the podcast to talk their book Unwavering: The Wives Who Fought to Ensure No Man is Left Behind. Come listen!
Buy Unwavering
Check out Taylor’s website
Check out the Unwavering site
Hell hath no fury like a military spouse.
The story of the POW/MIA movement during the Vietnam War.
There were 591 American servicemen repatriated in 1973 from Vietnam.
643,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam over the three-and-a-half-year campaign known as Operation Rolling Thunder.
Sometimes you need a book to highlight something so obvious that you previously missed. Nowadays, the POW/MIA flag is ubiquitous. Even as a former Army officer, I revered the flag and found it to be a comfort in rough times knowing the sentiment behind it. However, I never really knew the actual history behind the flag. As the son of a Vietnam vet, I am doubly at fault for this oversight. Luckily, Taylor Baldwin Kiland and Judy Silverstein Gray have written Unwavering to fix my ignorance.
Unwavering follows the beginning of the POW/MIA movement during the Vietnam war. The book covers an amazing amount of ground and follows dozens of people over decades. The authors write it almost like a novel and it makes the story much easier to follow without having to dive too deeply into every nook and cranny. There is a lot of information in here that you may not have known (just like I didn’t) and it’s written with clarity and care for the people covered within the pages. I highly recommend it.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by the publisher.)
A great book but also an important one. Buy it here!
Always Team Hamilton.
A look at just how much partisan politics affected the early U.S.
Hamilton crammed his legal studies into 6 months and then passed the NY bar.
In the first election without Washington, Adams beat Jefferson by only three votes, 71 to 68.
A particular pet peeve of my lately is when people say, “This country has never been more divided!” Do you have any idea how badly Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton hated each other? Hamilton ended up dead over politics! You still don’t believe the political divisions were bad in the U.S. before? Then let me point you at H.W. Brands’ Founding Partisans. Never has a title been so apt.
Let me just get to the point. This book is fantastic. H.W. Brands is the type of author who makes anything interesting. He is one of the few authors whose books are automatic buys for me regardless of the subject. This one, in particular, might be his best yet. Brands weaves in an extraordinary number of primary quotes. The book reads like a novel of the Founding Fathers being jerks to each other. It makes the narrative accessible to any reader who wants to know who hated who in the early U.S. It will never not be funny to me how badly John Adams hated Benjamin Franklin. How could someone hate Benny? Come read and find out.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Doubleday Books.)
A great read for anyone. Buy it here!
Let’s get dirty! Jessica Cale from the Dirty Sexy History podcast joins me to chat about her extensive history background, the amazing podcast name, and much more! Come listen!
