The Rogue Historian

Okay admit it. The Peach Orchard at Gettysburg confuses the hell out of you. Want to figure it out and impress your friends on the battlefield? Grab a copy of this book. 

It's great to welcome Kevin BACK to the show...we discuss his new book, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth - and get down to why the myth is so compelling to so many. We also talk about blogging as academics and using social media effectively. Listen up!! 

It was great to speak to NPS ranger Nick Sacco about his work in public history at the Ulysses S. Grant Historic Site in St. Louis Mo. 

Join me as I speak with Heath Hardage Lee about the women who defied gender assumptions and red tape to lobby the US government and bring their POW/MIA husbands home from Vietnam. 

Ronald D. Kirkwood's new study, “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg, really helps us understand the significance of a vital piece of farmland just east of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. 

I never really thought finance, inventions, and entrepreneurial activity were all that sexy...until I read this book.   

Some have called him Twitter's historian...so I spoke with Kevin Kruse about what that means, the usefulness of social media, and the historian's responsibilities to the public. 

I was very pleased to speak with Dr. Victoria Bynum...who wrote the book The Free State of Jones, which inspired the Matthew McConaughey film of the same name. But the story, as you will see, goes a lot deeper than what the movie covers. We talk about the history and memory of Jones county, and of course, the film. 

I read this book straight through with increased interest at every turn of the page…and I don’t want to spoil the intricacies of the ending. Let’s just say that Gayle used the “I was just kidding” defense and well…he was not among those on the gallows when justice was finally served...so go figure. 

This is a remarkable collection, as we have one physician writing to another...and sharing vivd details about Civil War medicine in the process.