Review: The Lies of the Land Is a Lopsided But Informative Read
Like many history books, Steven Conn’s The Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America For What It Is—And Isn’t is a showcase of and argument for nuanced thinking. In his […]
On the Road: POWs in the Midwest—A Road Trip to Algona, Iowa
How do you store 425,000 prisoners of war? What sounds like the setup for a tasteless joke was an actual concern for the US in World War II. England ran […]
Review: Against All Odds, The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History, by Edward Achorn
In a year or so, the 2024 Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago, marking the 27th time the city has played host to one or both of the major […]
Review: When Illinois Base Ball (sic) Was for Fun, Ballists, Dead Beats, and Muffins: Inside Early Baseball in Illinois, by Robert D. Sampson
In the handful of years after the Civil War, Illinoisans went crazy for baseball, a game that was then spelled as two words “base ball.” By 1868, however, an editor of […]
Review: God Save the Queens: Hit Girls, by Jen B. Larson Celebrates Punk Women of the 70s and 80s
Tonight, Quimby’s will host an off-site book party for Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA, 1975–1983, at GMan Tavern (3740 N. Clark St.), Thursday, April 27, at 7:30 […]
Review: The Last Stand, Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America’s Community Newspapers, by Dave Hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra has loved newspapers since his boyhood in west suburban Naperville. He understands the important role newspapers play in the life of a community, and how a newspaper—the best […]
Interview: Tim Samuelson and the Intangible of History
When Timothy Samuelson stood in the center of his windowless, crowded studio, surrounded by gorgeous artifacts of the past, I thought he might break into song. “Nothing in here doesn’t […]
Feature: Beautiful Bronzeville Explored by TikTok Historian Dilla for the CHF
The Chicago Humanities Festival sponsored a bus tour of Chicago’s South Side, the “Black Belt,” for the spring Public-themed series. Hosted by “TikTok historian” Shermann “Dilla” Thomas, the two-hour tour began […]
Review: Visualizing and Honoring Black America, the Story W.E.B. Du Bois Told at the 1900 Paris Exposition
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America—The Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Edited by Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Britt Rusert Princeton Architectural Press Black Lives 1900: […]
Review: Why Chicago Is Chicago, A History of the Chicago Portage, by Benjamin Sells
A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads That Made Chicago and Helped Make America By Benjamin Sells Northwestern University Press Let me tell you: I’m a huge Chicago history […]
Review: On Beyond Lincoln: Exploring the Land of Lincoln: The Essential Guide to Illinois Historic Sites
Exploring the Land of Lincoln: The Essential Guide to Illinois Historic Sites By Charles Titus 3 Fields Books I asked my non-Illinoisan Twitter followers to tell me three things they […]
Review: The Loop: The ‘L’ Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago, by Patrick T. Reardon
The Loop: The ‘L’ Tracks that Shaped and Saved Chicago by Patrick T. Reardon Southern Illinois University Press Reviewed by Mary Wisniewski There are lovelier and more prestigious symbols of […]