I was at Antietam Battlefield last week. There were two volunteer interpreters stationed at the Burnside Bridge, one at the overlook, one down at the bridge. Not many visitors, despite great weather, and so I could have a long conversation with one of them. I discovered that he could talk about more than just tactics and maneuvers. He'd thought about Ethan Rafuse's idea that McClellan's Whig loyalties played a part in his reluctance to attack the Confederate army, that McClellan thought there'd be some sort of compromise worked out with the South and the war would be stopped, so bloodshed should be minimized. And he could talk about the divided loyalties of Maryland. He was trying to stay neutral on the subject of Confederate statues; I think the Park Service may have told their docents to keep clear of it, and I am not surprised, as , judging from the T-shirts, I'd say at least a quarter of the visitors would have liked Lee to stay put on his horse down in Richmond.

He was , he said, very grateful for the nice weather: August had been, he said, especially brutal. Especially having to wear a mask. Clearly, he loved his subject and was willing to put up with a lot of discomfort to talk about it. He also seemed to be retired and so could spend the time. As most of the news now seems to be coverage of the International Festival of Ignorance, it gave me a bit of a lift to meet someone who was making an honest effort to think.

It’s been a year since I quit smoking. Had my first craving in a while and it was in a dream. Then I got thinking about it. Were people addicted to tobacco when it first came around? Sent me down in a Reddit hole where I read some very cool threads on the history of smoking tobacco. But then I realized that wow, this dude steals some seeds from indians, it becomes an essential part of colonialism and 400 years later a billion people in the world are addicted to cigarettes that are killing them and its an industry worth a trillion dollars worldwide.

I’m also looking for a personal book recommendation. I dropped out of school a year ago, haven’t read one since and was thinking it might be good for me. I was going to be a history major. The main thing I might be looking for is something in the vein of my interest in smoking and tobacco. Meaning maybe that directly but like maybe also akin to that in spirit where some sort of concept or idea led to this and that and is now a part of our modern day life. Things I’ve read and liked. I’ve read Guns, Germs and Steel and enjoyed that. Read Under the Banner of Heaven and would be fascinated to read more about Mormonism and especially the era of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But at the same time I’m not much of a pure biography person. Very interested in Israeli history and Zionism. Interested in Native American history. Also read this document for class once about the CIA coup in Iran and a book on American intervention in foreign govs would be cool.

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Sorry I can’t format that well I’m on my phone but I have been watching Romanaov documentaries and it’s fascinating to see that picture of Alexandra and Nicholas (probably butchering someone’s spelling) and see how in love they were then hear in a different documentary how King George and Queen Mary could only communicate their feelings through notes and how he would shout at her and she would leave the table in silent protest. I know they’re only cousins and even if you’re related it doesn’t mean you’re similar but I think it’s just so fascinating to me to see the difference in marriages and how formal one was versus the other.

Recently I've been thinking we sometimes do a sort of Whig History in reverse; we fail to see the full complexity of our own time, in favor of an imposed narrative based on the past. (That narrative, of course, also wildly simplified.) Expecting history to repeat so precisely that whatever can't be forced into an analogy with something that happened before is just discarded as irrelevant.

Like, I think people have a certain narrative of the "fall of the Roman Empire", and when they've decided that the American Empire will surely fall, they start to look for parallels, whatever they may be, and discard all the things about today that are unlike then (which is, of course, basically everything) so they can confidently predict that America will fall. This is a bit of a silly example, but it does happen, and maybe serves to explain what I mean. The really weird thing is that this kind of person often considers themself to be a clear-eyed truth-teller, and the rest of us in denial.

Has anyone here had any success teaching an ancient language to their child?

How do you contact a historian/historical organization? I tried emailing the AHA but they told me it was inappropriate for "historians to interview other historians". I am not a historian, BTW, but I do wish to contact a historian because I need help with a school project.