Guest post by Richard C. Carpenter The sweeping view from the interstate includes traces of many abandoned railroad lines. During the last 30 years, nearly half of the 165,000 Class I railroad route miles remaining in 1980 in the United States were reduced, falling to 94,000 route miles by 2009. Traveling on the Ohio Turnpike (Interstate…
Guest post by Robert C. Post As of January 22, 2014, fifty years will have elapsed since the opening of the National Museum of American History (NMAH), the Smithsonian museum at the west end of the Mall. Designed “to illustrate with authentic original relics the elements of our technology and culture,” it was originally called the…
by Michele Callaghan, manuscript editor Like an actor assuming a role, we editors need to inhabit the voice and the knowledge base of our authors. In recent months, I have been a precise medieval historian, a statistics-spewing football fan, a physicist with a flair for describing science for a lay audience, and a political science…
by Michele Callaghan, manuscript editor Like an actor assuming a role, we editors need to inhabit the voice and the knowledge base of our authors. In recent months, I have been a precise medieval historian, a statistics-spewing football fan, a physicist with a flair for describing science for a lay audience, and a political science…
Guest Post by Mark Osteen A sharply creased fedora rests atop the oiled hair of a smart-talking detective, whose steely eyes gaze at a seductive blonde smoking a cigarette. When they kiss, a slinky jazz saxophone plays. Hat, blonde, smoke, jazz: these are the signature tropes of classic film noir. But there’s a problem: the…