Conan Doyle and the Tax Man

I’m thoroughly enjoying a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, by Dan Stashower:  Teller of Tales.  Stashower reveals the source of Holmes’ uncanny ability to deduce a person’s biography in the…

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Teddy the Historian-President

Books about Theodore Roosevelt are booming these days, including the third volume of Edmund Morris’ biography, the immense treatment of Roosevelt’s conservation record by Douglas Brinkley, and a volume (forthcoming at an undetermined…

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Historians at the Helm

As I read (really, listened to as a book-on-CD) a recent short biography of Winston Churchill by Paul Johnson, I found myself thinking about the two historian-leaders of the modern…

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"Impeached" in Paperback

On Tuesday, May 15, Simon & Schuster will officially release the paperback edition of Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy.  Although Amazon has been…

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Chestertown

For the next two months, I will be in Chestertown on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, as part of the Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellowship.  The deal involves living in…

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Who's Checking the Facts?

My question is prompted by a recent book out about General James Wilkinson — An Artist in Treason, by Andro Linklater.  It just received a respectful review from NPR, which absolutely baffles…

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