History Bytes (Vulich)

History Bytes: 37 People, Places and Events That Shaped American History, Nick Vulich, 2015

I don't remember how I found this one. Maybe it was posted as a free ebook on Reddit. I don't know.

It was well-written and the bibliography, with some very old sources, shows that it was well-researched, too. If anything, however, I would have liked some references to the bibliography in the text. The tone, at times, is conversational, so it would be nice to know where some of this information is coming from.

This wasn't a book of little-known events, and for history buffs, there probably isn't much here. There was some interesting tidbits, but nothing that made me say either "I never knew that!" or "That can't be right!" But there was information about from Colonial times, the Revolution, the Civil War, western expansion and outlaws. Why 37 events? No answer, but why not?

(Aside: sure, there were probably things that, had I'd ever learned before, I'd forgotten about, but nothing so incredible to amaze me.)

Interestingly, there was some overlap with Great Train Robberies of the Old West, which I reviewed back in February. Nothing here contradicted anything from that one.

You might be able to find a lot of this information online, should you care to look for it. Question is: would you?

Quick read. Enjoyed it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1632 (or The Ring of Fire) (Flint)

Image
1632 (or The Ring of Fire) , by Eric Flint, 2000 In the year 2000, a freak occurrence, referred to as The Ring of Fire , sent the town of Grantsville, Virginia back through time and space, swapping places with a plot of land in central Germany in 1632, in the middle of the Thirty Years War. The small mining town quickly realizes the unlikeliness of a second cataclysm putting right what had been torn apart and sets out to acclimate to their way of life. And, of course, survive. Their weapons and technology give them a great advantage, but they no longer have the industry to produce that technology. Nor do the have the industry to produce the industry ... An alternate timeline is born as the United States of America is founded 144 years early (and on a different continent). History plays on around them. The book divides its time between brutal battles fought across Germany, building a new society and some overlong passages on just how well the Americans are getting along with thei...
Read more

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween Rain (Golden, Holder)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween Rain, Golden, Holder, 1997 An episode of the show which I hadn't seen. Killer scarecrow that comes alive during the rains on Halloween. Samhain can see through the eyes of any pumpkin and move if it's on a scarecrow. Quick read. Should've been quicker. Mind candy. There's a line that I left out that says, "Cute line about coupe....", except that I can't read my own handwriting, nor remember what the cute line was actually about. I'm also not sure if this was actually an episode, or if it was my belief at the time that it was based on one particular episode and not based on the characters from the series. Ultimately, it was forgettable.
Read more

Two Short Books

Image
Big Bullet Monster Bomb: lost little things: a short story for mature readers by Adam Archer (2020) The Race by John Russo (2021) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) I don't remember where I found these stories. I don't think it was reddit. It could've been on Facebook or Twitter. Nothing about the Bullet Bomb book was particularly geared toward mature readers, other than the cover showing a woman wearing rags that barely cover what they need to. It seems like a story set in a larger world that I haven't read but I have no idea of this is the case. It's post-apocalyptic and the last of the human race is slowly morphing into cratures. This much is interesting. The main character is pulling a sled of her belongings (including guns) and looking for some place to hide so she can sleep. Her sleep c...
Read more