Staff Picks Category: History

Maphead : charting the wide, weird world of geography wonks by Ken Jennings [Book]

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I like maps, I like geography and I mostly liked this book. Ken Jennings’ book had many interesting stories to tell; my favorites being the sections on early cartography, the London Map Fair and the National Geographic Bee. He lost me however with the couple of chapters devoted to GPS (games and navigation) and geocaching. I was disappointed that I did not love this book in its entirety but would recommend it nevertheless because of the author’s informative and witty writing.

Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell [Audiobook]

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At Home by Bill Bryson [Book]

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At Home: A Short History of Private Life is not particularly short, and it is too rambling and unfocused to be a useful history, but it is full of surprising facts and entertaining anecdotes about our homes and how they got that way. We learn about architecture, gardening, furniture, food, sanitation and much else besides. Although we learn a little about life in ancient times, and a wee bit about homes in the Middle East and in North America, the bulk of the content focuses on British homes in the last few hundred years. Many sections of the book tell us little about the lives of all but the most wealthy, which is disappointing but also understandable, but Byrson makes up for this imbalance by keeping the text engaging, readable, and always interesting.

Across Asia on a bicycle by Thomas Gaskell Allen, Jr. and William Lewis Sachtleben. [Book]

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After graduating from George Washington University in 1890, Thomas Allen and William Sachtleben, two American students wishing to expand upon their education with practical experience, decided to travel around the world. Wishing to meet the people along their route, instead of being insulated from them as they would have been had they traveled by more customary means, the two young men chose the newly invented “saftey bicycle” as their primary method of transport. This book tells the story of the most exciting portion of their travels, their journey across Asia, taking the seldom used northern route from Turkey, through Persia (now Iran) and through western China. (The safer and more used path would have led them south through India.)

This book is fascinating as much for what it reveals about the attitudes of these two Americans as it is for what it reveals about the people they met upon there way. It provides an interesting glimpse at the attitudes and politics of the time, and, of course, it is also a great adventure story.

Calvin Coolidge At Home in Northampton by Susan Lewis Well [Book]

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Using original material from the collections of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Well presents the daily life and residences of Calvin Coolidge in Northampton, Massachusetts. She uses new sources to document the unique and interesting personal life stories of Coolidge’s landlords and neighbors.

Copies are also available to purchase in at the library or in our online store.

Cod: A Biography of the fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky [Book]

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This book will, of course, teach you a fair amount about codfish, but it will also teach you a great deal about history. As it turns out, the history of cod fisheries and the the trade in salted cod have had an enormous impact on world events, playing a crucial role in the slave trade, the exploration of the New World, and the American Revolutionary War. Mr. Kurlansky’s writing is engaging; he will make you excited about cod.

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick [Book]

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This is a very engaging and readable recounting of the Pilgrims’ trip to America and their early years in Plymouth. It gives a vivid account of what life was like and the issues they had to deal with.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson [Book]

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The author traces the Big Bang through the rise of civilization, documenting his work with a host of the world’s most advanced scientists and mathematicians to explain why things are the way they are. The author provides witty, interesting and, most importantly, understandable commentary on the many subjects the book addresses.