D_Burt | March 24, 2010
Arguably, the greatest of all historical novels, Tolstoy’s War and Peace found its shape and eccentric structure - part historical chronicle, part family saga, and part philosophical disquisition on human existence, free will, and historical necessity - in Tolstoy’s assault on the historical practices of his day. In the process, Tolstoy pioneered the means and [...]
BNA_Daily | January 28, 2010
In addition to sparking the English Reformation, Henry VIII provided some of the 16th century’s hottest gossip, with Anne Boleyn at its center. Experts have long disagreed about the real reasons behind Anne Boleyn’s execution, and historian Alison Weir attempts to uncover the truth in her new book The Lady in the Tower: The Fall [...]
BNA_Daily | June 19, 2009
June 19th, or Juneteenth, celebrates the day that the country’s last slaves were freed. In this short video, NPR chronicles the final Civil War battle leading up to the final emancipation in Texas on June 19th, 1865 - two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation became official. In the years leading up to [...]
D_Burt | January 19, 2009
In a quote that can serve as the modus operandi of the historical novelist, Oscar Wilde observed, “The one duty we have to history is to rewrite it.” Who has not fantasized about a “do over” in one’s life? What might have been and the road not taken continually beckon, and if the temptation to [...]
