Tag: historical

  • Behind the Scenes with the Library of Congress Chinese Manuscript Collection

    Here is another interesting accidental find, this time from papers at the Library of Congress. In 1917, Professor S.C. Kiang, an academic at the University of California in Berkeley, traveled to China to procure for the Library of Congress valuable Chinese manuscripts relating to geography, and on his return, reported on his doings in China…

  • A Lucky Accident

    Many of the most interesting discoveries you make when doing archival research are the things you weren’t looking for, and this interesting Pepsi ad in the Egyptian sports magazine al Abtal is one of them. Al Abtal (Arabic for “Heroes”) was published in Cairo in the early- and mid-20th century, and over time, its readership…

  • Sometimes, what you see is what you get…sometimes…

    Most military history narratives confine themselves to the dry recitation of the facts of battle. With this style of historical story-telling, you get the blow-by-blow of moving lines on the map, the killing and being killed, the who, what, when and where of human warfare, but you don’t get the why.  The story which wartime…