Google Analytics tells me that I received 46,487 visits in the past month. I think that is good for a history site. It was a fun experiment of mine. Thank you to everyone who read and commented here.

The site will remain online for the remainder of the year. All posts are now under a Creative Commons Attribution license. If you would like use any of the posts on your own site, go right ahead. Just attribute them to me, Theodore Scott.

I do not hold rights to most of the images on this site. Most of them are in the public domain. The ones that aren’t in the public domain are the book and television images.

Thanks again,
Ted

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

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On Sunday, HBO premiered the first episode of “The Pacific” - a new miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Above is an extended trailer.

If you don’t have HBO, you can still watch. HBO is showing the episode online. You do have to register with your email address, but it is free and quick. If you really get into, check out the extra behind-the-scenes videos while you wait for next Sunday’s episode.

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Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War
By Michael Kranish

In 1781, while Jefferson was governor of Virginia, the British invaded. Jefferson fled west.

This proved to be a decisive moment in Jefferson’s life - from his struggle to respond to the invasion, to the accusations that followed him the rest of his political career.

This book is about Thomas Jefferson’s difficulties as governor of Virginia, with a healthy description of his life leading up to the governorship.

I was initially uninterested in this book. At first glance, it seems to be a history on a very small event. I have read other Jefferson biographies, and found it hard to get excited about a book with such a narrow focus.

I was wrong. This is a compelling book about a period of Jefferson’s life that was unfamiliar to me. You will get more out of reading about this lesser-known part of Jefferson’s life than you would by reading yet another full biography. If you want to understand Jefferson, then you want to read this book.

More info:

• Michael Kranish has an excerpt of the book on his website.
• Flight From Monticello was published by Oxford University Press.
• There is an article from a talk given by the author, on the OUP blog.
• See the book on Amazon.
• For more reviews of recently published books related to American history, visit 1776’s book review page.

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• Frances Hunter profiled Moses Hooke, who was Meriwether Lewis’s backup companion, just in case William Clark couldn’t go on the expedition.




• There is a new blog called Lincoln Footnotes that tells some of the lesser known facts surrounding Lincoln, such as this post that explains Lincoln’s connection with the Donner Party.




• Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations is reviewed over on TOCWOC. I have this book as well. It looks good, but I haven’t made the time to read and review it yet.




• Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn’s Holy Experiment is reviewed on Common-Place. Everything over at Common-Place is great. You should add yourself to their mailing list to find out when a new issue is posted.

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Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology
By Mark V. Barrow, Jr.

In the time of Thomas Jefferson, many people - including scientists - didn’t believe that a species could become extinct. That would violate the natural order of things. The complete loss of a species would imply imperfection in God’s creation. The natural world was thought of as a “long chain containing every possible kind of organism in a linear, continuous series”. Destroying a species would break this chain. It was only after the destruction of several species that many would accept extinction as an idea.

In Nature’s Ghosts, Mark Barrow talks about our country’s stumbling attempts to preserve nature. Slowly, we have come to realize our impact on natural history. This is largely due to the work of naturalists studying, documenting, and publicizing the decline of our wildlife. The book touches on Thomas Jefferson, John Audubon, and John Muir, but it mostly concerns itself with the numerous lesser known dedicated naturalists who have shaped our understanding of our wildlife.

This book is very different from most of the books I recommend on this website. It doesn’t focus on politics and wars. It is about wildlife and conservation in the United States, which is far more important than many of us realize.

More info:

• Mark V. Barrow, Jr., is an associate professor of history at Virginia Tech.
• Nature’s Ghosts was published by University of Chicago Press. The publisher’s site includes an excerpt.
• See the book on Amazon.
• For more reviews of recently published books related to American history, visit 1776’s book review page.

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Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West

By Stephen Fried
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Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire

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Islands of Hell: The U.S. Marines in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945

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There is a tempting sale on iTunes right now, thanks to President’s Day. A&E is offering The Presidents (iTunes link) for $0.99 per episode on the iTunes Store through February 23rd (Tuesday). If you buy the whole season, instead of individual episodes, you only pay $6.99.

The Presidents is an 8-part series covering George Washington to George W. Bush. Each episode is 45 minutes.

A&E has also generously offered to giveaway a set of The Presidents on DVD to the readers of this website. So, I’ll make this really easy. To win the DVDs, email me or leave a comment on this post. I will draw a name for the winner.

Get your name to me before 10pm (central) Sunday, February 21st. I will notify the winner on Monday. That leaves plenty of time to download the sale episodes on iTunes if you don’t win.

Update - the contest has closed and the winner was notified.

The Presidents (iTunes link)
The Presidents (Amazon link)

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Recently I found the website Free History Books. There you can find history books in PDF format.

One of the recent features was The Photographic History of the Civil War, Volume 1.

This is the beginning of a ten volume set from 1911. The series presents thousands of Civil War photographs. All ten volumes are available through Google Books. Take a look.

• Volume 1: The Opening Battles
• Volume 2: Two Years of Grim War
• Volume 3: The Decisive Battles
• Volume 4: The Cavalry
• Volume 5: Forts and Artillery
• Volume 6: The Navies
• Volume 7: Prisons and Hospitals
• Volume 8: Soldier Life, Secret Service
• Volume 9: Poetry and Eloquence of Blue and Gray
• Volume 10: Armies and Leaders

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• The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal both reviewed Flight From Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War.




• The Massachusetts Historical Society has launched a web exhibition called Silence Dogood: Benjamin Franklin in The New-England Courant.




• Civil War Books and Authors reviewed Years of Change and Suffering: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine.




• My Adventures in History gave her Top Five Recommended History Podcasts. I listen to a couple of them (Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and BackStory with the American History Guys), so I’ll have to check out the others soon.




• Now, check out the trailer for the new HBO miniseries - The Pacific:

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Libby Prison Breakout: The Daring Escape from the Notorious Civil War Prison

By Joseph Wheelan
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As If an Enemy’s Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution

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American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll

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To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West

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