History, Real Life, and Faith
Who should make the rules? A scientist friend has been thinking about the question for most of a week as he reflects on a recent talk by Andrew McAfee, author of The Second Machine Age. The scientist’s thoughts are interesting, and so I am turning this blog post over to him. Thank you, scientist friend! Artificial intelligence (AI) has interested me…
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The U-boat dilemma for a submariner’s wife
Finding Winner–in which we learn the true story of a funny old bear.
I was a year or so into writing a detailed genealogy when one of my distant cousins challenged my research discipline. “You’re a fine writer, and you concoct very interesting ideas, but it means nothing if you don’t cite the references.” Glenn had spent years researching his family history. He happily shared with me. However, I had to prove how…
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Do you like to read love letters? Well, certainly if they’re addressed to you. But what if, as an historian, you’re reading someone else’s love letters, say a husband to his wife during a war? I’ve written about this issue before and, frankly, it feels intrusive. The question still remains in my mind: “Is it research or voyeurism?” Look at the…
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If you’ve read as many WWI books and war-based fiction as I have, you may be wondering “what IS bandage rolling?” Why were women always rolling bandages and what did it have to do with war? As a child in 20th century America, the only bandages I knew were Band-Aids. How do your roll those? When we got too “proficient”…
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