Tag: #History

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The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris.

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters.

The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters – ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being.

Drawing on a vast range of original evidence – chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts – renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.

Continue reading “The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 “ →
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The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and Identity

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

This is in honor of my husband, Craig, who passed away in May of this year. He was a grandson of the Cherokee Chief in Arkansas.

The Cherokee are one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with more than three hundred thousand people across the country claiming tribal membership and nearly one million people internationally professing to have at least one Cherokee Indian ancestor. In this revealing history of Cherokee migration and resettlement, Gregory Smithers uncovers the origins of the Cherokee diaspora and explores how communities and individuals have negotiated their Cherokee identities, even when geographically removed from the Cherokee Nation headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Beginning in the eighteenth century, the author transports the reader back in time to tell the poignant story of the Cherokee people migrating throughout North America, including their forced exile along the infamous Trail of Tears (1838–39). Smithers tells a remarkable story of courage, cultural innovation, and resilience, exploring the importance of migration and removal, land and tradition, culture and language in defining what it has meant to be Cherokee for a widely scattered people.

Continue reading “The Cherokee Diaspora: An Indigenous History of Migration, Resettlement, and Identity” →
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The American Revolution on Long Island (Military)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

A history of the Revolutionary War and British occupation in this part of New York, from the Culper spy ring to the prison ships where thousands died.

 The American Revolution sharply divided families and towns on New York’s Long Island. Washington’s defeat at the Battle of Long Island in August 1776 started seven years of British occupation—and Patriot sympathizers were subject to loyalty oaths, theft of property, and the quartering of soldiers in their homes. 

 Those who crossed the British were jailed on prison ships in Wallabout Bay in Brooklyn, where an estimated eleven thousand people died of disease and starvation. Some fought back with acts of sabotage and espionage—and Washington’s famed Culper spy ring in Oyster Bay, Setauket, and other areas successfully tracked British movements. In this book, historian Joanne S. Grasso explores the story of an island at war.

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The Blue & Gray Almanac: The Civil War in Facts & Figures, Recipes & Slang

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree
  • “Help[s] readers to examine this period in history with a more cultural perspective than other books have . . . clear, concise, and crisp . . . fascinating” (San Francisco Book Review).
  • • During the final days of the war, some Richmond citizens would throw “Starvation Parties,” soirees at which elegantly attired guests gathered amid the finest silver and crystal tableware, though there were usually no refreshments except water.
  • • Union Rear-Admiral Goldsborough was nicknamed “Old Guts,” not so much for his combativeness as for his heft—weighing about three hundred pounds, he was described as “a huge mass of inert matter.”
  • • 30.6 percent of the 425 Confederate generals, but only 21.6 percent of the 583 Union generals, had been lawyers before the war.
  • • In 1861, J.P. Morgan made a huge profit by buying five thousand condemned US Army carbines and selling them back to another arsenal—taking the army to court when they tried to refuse to pay for the faulty weapons.
  • • Major General Loring was reputed to have so rich a vocabulary that one of the men remarked he could “curse a cannon up hill without horses.”
  • • Many militia units had a favorite drink—the Charleston Light Dragoons’ punch took around a week to make, while the Chatham Artillery required a pound of green tea leaves be steeped overnight.
  • • There were five living former presidents when the Civil War began, and seven veterans of the war, plus one draft dodger, went on to serve as president.
  • These stories and many more can be found in this treasury of anecdotes, essays, trivia, and much more—including numerous illustrations—that bring this historical period to vivid life.