Synopses & Reviews
Stories that history forgotand#8230; but readers will remember.and#160;and#8220;The only thing new in the world,and#8221; said Harry S. Truman, and#8220;is the history you don't know.and#8221; In this fascinating collection of historical vignettes, Martin W. Sandler (author of Resolute and Atlantic Ocean) restores to memory important events, people, and developments that have been lost to time.
Though barely known today, these are major historical stories, from Ziryab, an eighth-century black slave whose influence on music, cuisine, fashion, and manners still reverberates, to Cahokia, a twelfth-century city north of the Rio Grande, which at its zenith contained a population estimated to have been as high as 40,000 (more than any contemporaneous European city), to the most devastating fire in US historyand#8212;not the Great Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871, but the Peshtigo Forest Fire in Wisconsin, which occurred on the same day.
and#160;These tales are far from trivia; they illuminate little-known American and foreign achievements, ingenuity, heroics, blunders, and tragedies that changed the course of history and still resonate today. Includes 76 black-and-white illustrations.
Synopsis
In this fascinating collection of historical vignettes, Martin Sandler restores to memory forgotten, yet important, events, people, and developments that have been lost to time. Ranging from an eighth-century black slave to the worst peacetime maritime disaster ever, these tales are far from trivia; they illuminate little-known achievements, ingenuity, heroics, blunders, and tragedies that changed the course of history and still resonate today.
Synopsis
Stories that history forgot but readers will remember.
The only thing new in the world, said Harry S. Truman, is the history you don't know. In this fascinating collection of historical vignettes, Martin W. Sandler (author of Resolute and Atlantic Ocean) restores to memory important events, people, and developments that have been lost to time.
Though barely known today, these are major historical stories, from Ziryab, an eighth-century black slave whose influence on music, cuisine, fashion, and manners still reverberates, to Cahokia, a twelfth-century city north of the Rio Grande, which at its zenith contained a population estimated to have been as high as 40,000 (more than any contemporaneous European city), to the most devastating fire in US history not the Great Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871, but the Peshtigo Forest Fire in Wisconsin, which occurred on the same day.
These tales are far from trivia; they illuminate little-known American and foreign achievements, ingenuity, heroics, blunders, and tragedies that changed the course of history and still resonate today. Includes 76 black-and-white illustrations."
About the Author
Martin W. Sandler has received many honors, including two Pulitzer Prize nominations; a Boston Horn Book Award for The Story of American Photography: An Illustrated History for Young People (Little, Brown); and seven Emmys. His Library of Congress American History series has been a national bestseller with more than 500,000 copies sold. For television, Mr. Sandler was creator and cowriter for the acclaimed 12-part This Was America series. He has taught American history and American studies at UMass and Smith College. He lives in Cape Cod, MA.