Damn History / March 2025 / Issue 88

Last month on Washington’s birthday, I read an excerpt from a letter the first president sent to his nephew in 1783. Along with giving other advice, Washington urged the younger man to cultivate his friends carefully. “True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation,” Washington wrote. Don’t leap into friendships prematurely or promiscuously.

Because I was already wondering how I would start this newsletter, Washington’s words made me think about the processes popular-history writers use to choose their subjects. Like Washington with friends, I am slow to embrace a subject or story. I keep clippings and notes around for years, sometimes for decades, before I decide to pursue a tale. Later, as I move close to a book topic, I test drive the story as an essay or article. That way I learn whether I like the story enough to spend a long time in its company.

Social media have taught us to interpret the term “friend” casually. There as in writing popular history, we do well to make sure we devote ourselves to tested and true companions.

Here in Damn History you'll find, as usual, recommendations on good and popularly accessible historical reading, with tips on writing and updates on my own work.

 — Jack El-Hai

Follow me on X at @Jack_ElHai, on Bluesky at @jackelhai.bsky.social, and on Threads at @jackelhai1.

Contact me by email at [email protected]

Personal Notes

Here is a thorough and coherent account of an ongoing 74-year-old missing-child story that I covered a few years ago in my book The Lost Brothers.

Whoa! The first paragraph of this AI-written article got wrong the year, title, and genre of my book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist.

For a bountiful collection of my popular-history book and article recommendations, search X, Bluesky, or Threads for the hashtag #popularhistory.

And for a collection of strange and memorable book covers that I (and others) recommend, search X, Bluesky, or Threads for the hashtag #OldBooks.

Recent Popular History from All Over

You may find some of these articles behind a paywall if you’ve exceeded the publisher’s allowance of free views.

When scientists opened an ostrich’s stomach 95 years ago, strange items emerged.

During the low ebb of jazz in the late 1960s, a Manhattan club remained a venue for “the best music you’ve never heard.”

A conspiracy theory from the world of eighteenth-century classical music keeps going.

A grave digger anchors a story of JFK’s burial.

An archivist says, “I immediately thought, Oh, wow.”

A writer searches for a lost and much-loved cookie recipe famed in Madison, Wisconsin.

Read a contemporaneously written report of the slave revolt that became one of the bloodiest in American history.

Japanese-Americans came home after World War II to no homes at all.

A quilt-maker incorporated the autographs of Victorian Era celebrities into her work.

Was stale pizza among the artifacts recovered from the remains of a nineteenth-century college dining hall?

A university lecturer continues the old tradition of using sheep livers for divination.

Bernarr Macfadden believed a fit body (like his) was a moral body.

A photographer’s final act was to protect the images he captured from a volcanic explosion.

Resources

Hear Hubert Humphrey’s civil rights speech from the 1948 Democratic national convention. [audio, 9 minutes]

Alice Munro’s biographer explains why he intentionally left out of his book the abuse of the Nobel Prize-winner’s daughter.

Authors: “Never open a book with weather.” – Elmore Leonard

Popular historians can learn to manage the mass of research below the surface of their work.

Here’s the most complicated answer to the question, “How do you shelve your books?”

A 90-year-old reflects on aging.

“I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t remember what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.” – P. G. Wodehouse, who died 50 years ago last month

Housekeeping

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More next month, and thanks for looking. And you are welcome to forward Damn History in its entirety to anyone.

About me: I'm a history and science writer. I've contributed hundreds of articles to such publications as Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, GQ, Longreads and many others. My books include The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines, and The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW2.

I frequently give talks and lead workshops on the topics of my books as well as on the craft of nonfiction writing. To book me for your event, please contact Jayme Boucher, Hachette Speakers Bureau, at [email protected].

Please feel free to get in touch.