The company you keep

Submitted by mhindley
on Thu, 05/09/2013 - 01:02

It’s been a busy spring and I’ve spent it in the company of two fabulous women. For the January/February issue of Humanities, I wrote about Jane Austen on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice. Like many female writers, Austen struggled to find a balance between the demands of her family, her purse, and the page. It was also bittersweet to read Austen’s letters chronicling her crush on an inappropriate suitor. From there I jumped 160 years ahead to take a ride on the Lady Bird Special for the May/June issue.

Admirals, poets, and historians, oh my!

Submitted by mhindley
on Fri, 11/30/2012 - 02:07

I really enjoyed writing about Barbara Tuchman. First, there was the pleasure of revisiting The Guns of August, a book that I hadn’t read for more than two decades. There are lots of lessons for historians interested in writing popular history to be found in Tuchman’s book: the way she uses a grand scene as an entry point into a complicated story, her ability to describe the people she’s talking about, and a willingness to use big sprawling sentences. Second, I loved getting know the feisty woman behind the books.

Buried under a pile of books

Submitted by mhindley
on Tue, 08/14/2012 - 15:40

Oouff. I’m behind on blog posts. But I have a good reason: I’ve been writing up at storm this spring and summer, and all of the essays have required lots reading. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!) It’s a good thing that I get excited rather than intimidated by a stack of thick books or a pile of documents.

I followed Gouverneur Morris while he trekked through Central Europe after leaving his post as the American minister in Paris during the French Revolution. Morris was one of those Founding Fathers that I’d heard of, but not done much reading about. When I interviewed Richard

On Brown and Lincoln

Submitted by mhindley
on Mon, 01/16/2012 - 01:37

I’ve posted two more pieces that I’ve recently done. The first is a book review of Tony Horowitz’s Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War. There are many admirable things about this book, but one of the things that I particularly liked was Horowitz’s willingness to let Brown be something more than the religious zealot that he is frequently portrayed as. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I came away liking Brown—I remain appalled by the disregard he had for the welfare of his family—but I understand him better.

I also revisited the Trent Affair, but this time

Revisiting the Civil War

Submitted by mhindley
on Sun, 12/11/2011 - 18:21

I know, I know, I’ve been negligent about updating the website. Other projects have been keeping me busy, preventing the kind of serendipity moment where I think “hey, I should do a post about this.”  But as of today, I’m current.

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in full swing, I find myself writing about the conflict.  It’s not foreign territory for me. I became hooked on the war and military history generally because of Mr. Hastings, my 10th grade history teacher. He was a tremendous lecturer and brought the era and the war to life.

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