Years ago, when I was first starting out as a WWII historian, I spent a day with a senior special forces officer who gave me a piece of advice I have never forgotten. Archives are great, he … Read the article
While Christmas has transformed itself over the centuries, from a time for the nobility to display their wealth to their dependents, to a time for adults to enjoy what little extra they could gather, to a festival … Read the article
In the midst of World War II, department stores across America were anticipating the biggest commercial Christmas rush in United States history. Fur coats, silk dinner pajamas, and ostrich capes became all the rage. But what … Read the article
One of my favorite stories from the long struggle for equality concerns the scientist Helen Hamilton Gardener. In 1889, she challenged the leading male exponent of female mental inferiority to examine a human brain and determine … Read the article
Author Michael Wood has traveled the length and breadth of China, the world’s oldest civilization and longest lasting state, to tell a thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity, and deep humanity that stretches back thousands of … Read the article
“I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
My novel Murder in Old Bombay is set in the late 1800s, a period of enormous technological advancement not unlike our own. In this time of contrasts, great progress and terrible recessions, great wealth and terrible poverty, … Read the article
‘So, you are writing another novel about Catherine the Great?’
Err – no!
Before there was Catherine II, or the Great, whose life and rule has inspired dozens of adaptations, there was Catherine I of Russia—the most … Read the article
In the Battle of Athens, Tennessee, returning veterans of WWII took up arms one last time against a corrupt political machine. To understand why they would risk their liberty and their lives—against a superior force with all … Read the article
When I began my account of these women’s lives, people would ask me what I was working on and after I’d explained the general idea behind Nazi Wives, about 90% of them said “oh, they’re like Lady … Read the article