Abby Epplett, Historian

Today I am reviewing The Guinness Book of Records 1492: The World Five Hundred Years Ago , a book I purchased at the Book Barn in Niantic, CT back in 2024. Almost exactly a year ago, I reviewed A Pictorial History of Costume by Wolfgang Bruhn and Max Tilke , which I purchased on the trip. The two books are similar in that they provide fun facts about world history broken into easily readable sections with plenty of pictures. Much like the modern Guinness Book of Records , Guinness Publishing produced the book back in 1992 for the anniversary of Christopher Columbus and his crew arriving in the Caribbean. Unlike the modern record book, where records do not rely on the judgement of trained GRW employees but on primary resources from the time period with varying levels of accuracy. Deborah Manley , a co-founder of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) and a prolific author, was editor of the book, while Dr. Geoffrey Scammell, a history profess...

I recently read the book How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman published in 2014 by Liveright Publishing Corporation . I had previously watched several informational videos hosted by Goodman through the YouTube channel for HistoryExtra , the history magazine of the BBC , and wanted to know if her writing style was similar to her presentation style. I found the book fun, factual, and easy to read, a great way for people first learning about the Victorian era to establish a solid base, and for those knowledgeable about the period to fill in gaps about the lives of everyday people.

On Sunday, November 16 through Friday, November 21, I watched the new six-part, twelve-hour documentary The American Revolution , which played on PBS and can be streamed on its website . The in-depth miniseries was co-produced by Ken Burns , Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt. The documentary tells a delicately balanced story of the war that led to the establishment of the United States and includes perspectives from famous Founding Fathers, everyday soldiers, and voices that had previously been hidden. While occasionally feeling too long, I believe this is the most comprehensive overview of the war found in an easily accessible video format.

I recently listened to the audiobook The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell and his production team. The audiobook was published in 2021. I was inspired to listen after finishing his MasterClass, Malcolm Gladwell Teaches Writing , having read most of his other books, and listening to podcasts in his network, Pushkin Industries . (The podcast Cautionary Tales , which I reviewed in 2023 , is part of the network.) I was intrigued by the concept of a book created audio-first, rather than text-first, as it expanded upon material first presented on his podcast, Revisionist History . Listening time was 5 hours and 14 minutes, and I listened to the book for free through the Libby app , available with a public library card. The book also appears in physical and digital text forms at 256 pages in length. Additionally, during the audiobook, Gladwell mentions a 28-page listener’s guide with original photographs of people...

I recently inherited a signed copy of the book Honor the Past Celebrate the Future: A Historical Overview of the Blackstone River Valley, Massachusetts written by David White and published by the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce in 2005. Since the book is celebrating its 20 th birthday, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to not only see what it teaches the reader but also how our understanding of history has changed in the past two decades. The book is divided into eight sections and not only explores how revolution and industry shaped the region but offers a snapshot of important local business from the time of its publication. The first section, “1 Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares” riffs on a line from the song “Amazing Grace”, reminding the reader how European colonization of the area was motivated in part by religion. Missionary John Eliot committed to converting Nipmuc people to Christianity, which allowed the colonists to more easily manipulate N...

I recently listened to the short podcast We the Museum: A Podcast about Museum Workers hosted by Hannah Hethmon. Previously, Hethmon hosted the podcast, Museums in Strange Places , while her newest show is Huminites Equal for the Federation of State Humanities Councils . I will add these podcasts to my ever-growing listening list. Meanwhile, the fifteen episodes of We the Museum discussed current topics including museum unionization, social media stardom, and exhibits curated by historically excluded communities.

Today, I am taking a break from the Philadelphia adventure (to return next week) and rants about hobbits (to return next Sunday) to try something different. While I have posted several reviews of books and documentaries on my blog, this is the first time I have written a game review. I received Tangram Master as a gift between fifteen and twenty years ago but I had never played through the entire game until recently. Since the set of four high-quality wooden tangrams comes with a well-researched book on the history of the game, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to explore how games can lend insight to history and culture.

I am a longtime listener to the podcast Lingthusiasm recorded by linguists Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne . I had first learned about this podcast while watching “Tom’s Language Files” , a miniseries created by educational YouTuber Tom Scott . The title of the podcast is a portmanteau of “linguistics” and “enthusiasm”, and its tagline is “A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics”. For me, it is nice to experience a show so focused in its purpose and habitual in releasing new episodes, as a new thirty-minute conversation comes out every third Thursday of the month. Gretchen and Lauren provide straightforward explanations of complex concepts in a way that makes the listener feel intelligent and never overwhelmed. Besides singing them praises, I will discuss several of their over one hundred episodes that I found most interesting.

On Christmas 2023, I was gifted the book Interesting Facts for Curious Minds by Jordan Moore along with similarly titled Interesting Stories for Curious People by Bill O’Neill, which I reviewed in March . As mentioned in past book reviews, my book pile is extensive, and I need to read through my books more quickly. Much like Interesting Stories , Interesting Facts is written at a middle school reading level, mixes humor with more serious topics, and cites none of its sources, although some sections match Wikipedia almost verbatim. As an added bonus, the name Dr. Seuss was frequently misspelled as Dr. Suess. This is a great place to get a taste of many different historical topics but not something to cite in a school project. As a result, this review will contain connections to my past blog articles and links to more reputable resources.

A few months ago, I was gifted St. Eustatius Historical Walking Tour Guide , written by archaeologists Gay Soetekouw and Joanna K. Gilmore, and published by the St. Eustatius Historical Foundation in 2007. This tropical island is also known as Statia and located in the Caribbean Sea. While I have no plans to visit in-person in the near future, I did enjoy a rainy Saturday morning exploring on Google Maps while listening to cheerful island music and using the book to learn history.

In her MasterClass, U.S. Presidential History and Leadership , award-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discussed topics surrounding leadership, such as whether leaders are born or made, how emotional intelligence factors into leadership decisions, the ability to help rivals work together, and ways to relax from work. With each topic, she related stories from the lives of her four favorite presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt (TR), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), and Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBR). The course is based on her book, Leadership in Turbulent Times , published by Simon & Schuster in 2018 , which followed the lives of these four presidents, while she won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995 for her biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt . Additionally, the 2012 Steven Spielberg film Lincoln was based on her biography, and she conducted a popular “exit interview” of president Barak Obama for Vanity Fair in 2016 .

I first learned about the documentary Whitin through a Blackstone Heritage Corridor newsletter upon its release about five months ago in November 2024. The documentary was edited, written, and produced by filmmaker Heather Riley of North Grafton with significant input from members of the Whitin family. The documentary is about twenty-seven minutes in length and currently hosted on the ValleyCAST YouTube channel.

On Christmas 2023, I was gifted the book Interesting Stories for Curious People written by Bill O’Neill. This was the second book by this author that I have read, as I reviewed The Great Book of Alaska in December 2022 . Today’s review is also a reminder that I need to move more quickly through my ever-growing book pile. Just like Alaska , Interesting Stories is written at a middle school reading level, mixes humor with more serious topics, and cites none of its sources. This is a great first stop for learning interesting facts but certainly not a work to include in a bibliography.

I began listening to the podcast series Articles of Interest back in 2018 when it was a mini-series within the award-winning podcast 99% Invisible hosted by Roman Mars . Hosted by Avery Trufelman, this spin-off focuses on the history of Western fashion and subcultures. After four seasons — two episodic seasons with 99% Invisible , an independent serialized season, and an independent episodic season — the podcast is on hiatus as Trufelman writes a book, making this the perfect time for a review.

Continuing through my history book pile, I recently read an antique pamphlet, One Hundred Years of Banking Service published by Blackstone National Bank in 1925. At two hundred years of service, the Uxbridge-based bank is now a branch of UniBank. The book is only thirty-three pages in length but offers a wealth of insight into local history along with photographs and engravings of important people, places, and things. While a product of its time in some aspects, I was impressed by the research that went into the publication.

Having a master’s degree in Museum Education means one is gifted many books related the topic. Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums by Bob Eckstein was published just last year in 2024, and I received it for my birthday. The small hardcover with glittery gold title text and a watercolor painting of the MET on the front cover made for a lovely coffee table book. Inside, the contents was light and humorous, making an easy read for museum enthusiasts. While overall a delightful experience, my issue with this book was the disconnect between the title, the author’s original intention, and his apparent methodology of choosing the “most fascinating museums”.

During my winter holiday break, I began working through my pile of history books. I had found The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in Our Food and Drugs by Gail Jarrow in a giveaway pile at my local library and decided to give the book a new home. I was familiar with the story of the poison eaters, young men who volunteered in a study to assess how food preservatives altered the human body, after listening to the episode “A Pure Food Father and His Poison Squad” for the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class , which was released in 2011. The two questions I needed to answer were 1) What else was there to this story? and 2) Why was this book “weeded” from the library collection?

During my relaxing winter break, I began reading through my stack of history-themed books that I accrued throughout the year. The first book I completed was A Pictorial History of Costume by Wolfgang Bruhn and Max Tilke, which I found for a mere $7.00 at the Book Barn in Niantic, CT . The book combined a pair of earlier books: Deutsche Kultur-Bilder: Deutsches Leben [ German Culture Pictures: German Life ] published by Bruhn in German in 1934, and Kostümschnitte und Gewandformern [ Costume Patterns and Garment Designs ] published by Tilke in German in 1948. I read the 1988 English language edition with a publisher’s note on the “archaism” found within the book, a polite way of warning readers that some depictions would not be politically correct. The book was divided into two sections. In the front half were written descriptions of the costumes, which include information on the culture represented through clothing, famous people who might have worn the clothing, and o...

Look who’s back after the holiday break! For the new year, I am changing my posting schedule to include reviews of the podcasts, books, documentaries, and more that I absorb in preparation for my travels and essays. This style of post will typically appear on Mondays when I am not posting a blog roundup to LinkedIn. My first review of 2025 is on the episodic podcast Mobitituaries hosted by Mo Rocca . Rocca is a humorous correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning who got his start in television as a writer on the PBS children’s show Wishbone , which received its own episode . During each episode, he speaks with experts to uncover the story of a forgotten person, thing, or idea mostly in modern American history, although a few episodes cover Europe and East Asia, and one episode focused on prehistory. Topics might be serious, such as overturning bans on interracial marriage in the United States , but they are equally likely to be frivolous, like the cancellation of the Lawrence W...

This post marks the 300 th entry to my blog! I visited the Berkshires in the summer of 2023 and stopped by First Congregational Church of Lee, MA . During a December blog post , I hinted that I might review the virtual tour hosted on the church website , so here it is a year after the first visit.