Saturday, December 24, 2016

ICYMI - Some Fascinating History for Holiday Reading

Angels of the Resistance

The Secret Agent Shrink vs. The Nazis


The Socialite Spy Who Played So Dumb She Outsmarted the Nazis

The Slave Who Stole the Reb Codes

The Black Spies in the Confederate White House [need to change article in hed and the woman in the picture is not in fact the woman we are writing about, whose photo does no exist)

The ‘Spider’ Who Nearly Wrecked the CIA

The Second Empire Strikes Back 

Les Tuileries: The Phantom Palace of Paris

Monday, December 12, 2016

Bringing History Into the Present at The Daily Beast


As I looked back over the stories I've written for The Daily Beast this year, I was struck by how many of them were historical. Most were published under the rubrics of our regular Cloak & Dagger and Lost Masterpieces features, which are long reads that run on the weekends. But most of them also have some relevance to current events, especially the resurgence of fascism and Nazism, whether we call the new movements white nationalism, the alt-right, or just Donald Trump on Twitter. 




Cloak and Dagger

Angels of the Resistance in Nazi Paris


Brave women helped downed Allied flyers escape the Germans.... MORE

ARTICLE


Salvador Death Squad

The Nun Murders and the Transition Team

Nov 27, 2016 10:25 AM EST
During the transition from Carter to Reagan, the Salvadoran death squads started targeting... MORE


ARTICLE

Napoleon III

The (Second) Empire Strikes Back

Nov 20, 2016 12:15 AM EST
NapolĂ©on III was a vain authoritarian who came to power in a wave of nationalist populism.... MORE


ARTICLE

Jung

The Secret Agent Shrink vs. The Nazis

Nov 12, 2016 12:15 AM EST
At the height of World War II, the U.S.... MORE

ARTICLE

Socialite as Spy story, which is really about how underestimated women were in her day, WWII, with the twist that that's what saved her life

Socialite Beat the Nazis By Playing Dumb

Sep 25, 2016 12:15 AM EDT
Big game hunter, legendary French Riviera partier, and a quintessential WASP—Gertrude Sanford was... MORE

ARTICLE

Robert Smalls

The Slave Who Stole the Reb Codes

Jul 23, 2016 12:13 AM EDT
When three Confederate officers decided to go ashore for a night in Charleston, they left their... MORE