“I'm looking at the Solar System display when I hear a child close by shouting at his mum, to which she replies 'No need to bite my head off!' I've heard of laughing your head off (to laugh a lot) and even biting your tongue (to be quiet) but biting someone's head off puts a rather more vivid picture into my mind!”During a trip to London, taking in tube announcements, guitar shops, and the Science Museum Michael Barton explores and explains the confusing “neurotypical” world of con...

An anthology of landmark scholarship on the histories of the common soldier in the U.S. Civil WarIn 1943, Bell Wiley's groundbreaking book Johnny Reb launched a new area of study: the history of the common soldier in the U.S. Civil War. This anthology brings together landmark scholarship on the subject, from a 19th century account of life as a soldier to contemporary work on women who, disguised as men, joined the army.One of the only available compi...

For much of the 20th century, the name Steelton represented a great industrial complex that stretched nearly four miles along the Susquehanna River near the state�s capital of Harrisburg. Immigrants from all over Europe, particularly Slavs and Italians, worked with African Americans from the South at the Bethlehem Steel Company and gave Steelton its reputation for ethnic diversity, second only to its fame for industrial productivity. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews filled the town�s vario...

While Joseph Dobbs Bishop was serving in Louisiana with the 23rd Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, he wrote letters ceaselessly to his wife and children. In several ways, his correspondence is typical of Civil War soldiers—he sends news of his comrades, he mentions his duties (he was a musician as well as an infantryman), he observes the landscape, complains about weather, illness, boredom, and homesickness, and longs for more letters from his wife. But Bishop’s letters go beyond typical to ...

Discussions with school children aged 5-11 reveal that there is still a degree of uncertainty amongst students about whether it is ok to ask questions about autism. Autism can be a sensitive topic, and is often not discussed in order to avoid awkward conversations. It is very important that children are made aware of what autism is, in order to encourage healthy friendships and understand that it is ok to talk about. By raising awareness of autism with children, it will become a less taboo...

This book is a history of a community, and, moreover, a history by that community. In January, 2007, Jeannine Turgeon began to recruit a committee of Bellevue Park neighbors, volunteers who would be willing to produce a book about their neighborhood in honor of its 100th anniversary. Initial members were Clark and Vickie Bucher, Dan Deibler and Elizabeth Johnson, Chris Dick, Frank Haas, Hannah Leavitt, Carol Lopus, Mo Lynn, Bonnie Mark, Debbie Nifong, Peggy and Dan Purdy, John Quimby, Sue ...

In the years following the American Civil War, many participants—generals, politicians, journalists, and soldiers—authored first-hand accounts of their unique experiences. As Alfred E. Smith of the Library of Congress wrote in 1998, “No chapter of American history has been so voluminously recorded.” While the quality and reliability of the memoirs vary, a large number provide important perspectives that, taken together, offer vivid descriptions of major battles, political developments, and...

In this rich and diverse collection, 28 writers describe what positive experiences they have had as an autistic person, and show how the most unexpected subject areas can be a source of the positive. They demonstrate that individuals can, and do, experience life in positive ways, sometimes in the face of adversity. Sharing both dark and joyful moments with unreserved honesty, their insights are moving, often hilarious, creative, and highly intelligent, and usually surprising. From hair-rai...

Glorious Recollections: J. Howard Wert's Lost History of the 209th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, 1864-1865, including the Battles of Bermuda Hundred, Fort Stedman, and Petersburg is a Civil War regimental history originally written in 1894. It was not published at the time and has now been edited and supplemented for today's readers. Wert's text is both a detailed history and a devoted memoir. It describes his regiment's actions in the closing months of the war, particularly i...

The Civil War Memoir of Sgt. Christian Lenker, 19th Ohio Volunteers, was originally published as a series of 174 articles appearing from 1912 to 1915 in the Pottsville (PA) Evening Chronicle. The authorat that time a physician practicing in nearby Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvaniahad been invited by the editor to describe his service fifty years earlier in an Ohio regiment fighting in the western theater. Composing his articles from field notes and letters, Dr. Lenker tells in great detail hi...

Graham Michael Barton is an Englishman retired on a tiny island of less than three thousand souls in the Philippines. Emponet Barton Beach Resort and 60 per cent of the homes on Higatangan Island, Biliran, were destroyed by Yolanda. Two weeks after the super typhoon passed through, Graham returned with a modest amount of supplies and food, distributed throughout the island by his partner, Emily Poyos, who had been born there. The devastation was so severe that Graham returned to Cebu to or...

This is one mans slightly cynical view of the Philippines, a group of islands tucked between the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. These are his experiences as a middle-aged foreigner living on a tiny island where there are no cars and fewer than 3,000 people. He is the only Englishman in the village. His snapshots of daily life and incidents that perhaps anywhere else in the world would come under the headings of Are you sure? and Really? are designed to entertain, amuse, and perhaps...