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“The Origins of the Anglo Saxons” by Jean Manco [Book Review]

“The Origins of the Anglo-Saxons” by Jean Manco is how every book should be written: with preeminent scholarship and exquisite maps and supporting images. This masterpiece was compiled vis-à-vis Mary Hollingworth’s “The Medici Family” or Christopher De Hamel’s “Remarkable Manuscripts” and is a trend in publishing I hope to see continue. Another trend in publishing […]

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An Ode To Saint Patrick’s Day (Saint Paddy’s Day)

Saint Patrick’s Day, or Saint Paddy’s Day, is an Irish holiday intended to honor the greatest of Ireland’s saints, Saint Patrick, who was neither a saint nor Irish. Putting aside the historical and cultural irony for now, the importance of St. Patrick has morphed from a 1500 year old symbol of medieval pride in the

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WordPress Plugins – Your Blogger Spring Cleaning Guide

How many WordPress plugins are your best plugins? Are they working together efficiently or just sitting there staring at each other incommunicado? Of your plugin arsenal which ones are the ones you absolutely need, and are there WordPress plugins out there that you don’t have and are missing out on? The aim of this article

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“Alabama: The History of a Deep South State” [Book Review]

“Alabama: The History of a Deep South State” is a carefully constructed montage of the history of the state of Alabama from its earliest native inhabitants up until the modern period. Of course, the actual state itself did not carry the moniker of Alabama as we know it until 1819, the history of this proud

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“God’s War” by Christopher Tyerman [Book Review]

“God’s War” by Christopher Tyerman knocks all other Crusade books off of the shelf! It’s 922 pages of amazing page-turns; I mean when’s the last time you read a 900 page book without some sort of latent fear of actually trying to finish it? Tyerman’s “God’s War” is both macroscopic as well as microscopic in

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My 2018 Reading List

My 2018 Reading List has been very much historical. I’ve focused on the histories of Colonial America and Medieval Europe for the most part as well as a melange of other interesting tidbits. A lot of what I read came from my travels to Canada, California, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama this year. One of the

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“The Debatable Land” by Graham Robb [Book Review]

“The Debatable Land” by Graham Robb brings the historical drama! The author, almost by chance, uncovered one of Britain’s most enduring, and ironically, forgotten mysteries. The question is: should he have left it alone? I can’t say enough about this book in terms of its contribution to understanding the British Isles as a whole as

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5 Reasons To Give Books For Christmas

Not sure what to get this holiday season? Give books for Christmas! Here are 5 reasons why a book is better than some random trinket or desultory addition to someone else’s clutter pile. As corny as it sounds: give the gift of reading this Christmas, for Christmas’ sake. 1. Promote Critical Thinking ‘Critical reading’ promotes

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“Christopher Columbus: The Four Voyages” by Laurence Bergreen [Book Review]

I learned a lot about what I thought I had known about Christopher Columbus; my assumptions challenged, my misconceptions revealed. Laurence Bergreen’s “Christopher Columbus: The Four Voyages” is a literary unmasking of one of history’s most renown subjects, and ironically, one of its least understood. Much enmity and praise has been laid at the doorstep

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“Hey, Let’s Go To North Carolina!”

The best moments in travel just happen to be the most random ones. Stuff done on the fly, off of a dare, in the moment, often with family. This is one of my favorite memories, not because of the complexity of it, or how much it cost, or even the bragging rights of anything, it’s

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5 Books To Read By Author James Horn

My fascination with author James Horn began with a book called “Adapting to a New World” in which he cast the early Virginia colonists not as ‘instant Americans’ (just add Chesapeake water!) but of Englishmen and women who had transplanted their cultural mores from the old country to their new home. This single premise has

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