Special Recommendation

"One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary… The enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization."

John Jay Chapman, American author (1862-1933)

"History is not the past but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view, to be useful to the modern traveler."

Henry Glassie, US historian (1941- )

"History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises, and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it."

Henry Steele Commager, American historian (1902-1998)