Great Cities Through Travelers’ Eyes

If you’ve spent any time here on the Margins, you know that I love to go traveling with My Own True Love, and that I love to share stories about our travels with the Marginalia. In fact, we’re heading out soon for another stint on our on-going efforts to drive the Great River Road from…

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Sudden Courage

A little less than a year ago, I posted a review of Paige Bower’s  The General’s Niece, a fascinating biography of Genevieve De Gaulle and the role she played in the French resistance  I recently read an excellent book that put Genevieve in the broader context of teenage resistants. In Sudden Courage: Youth in France…

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Before Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll…

In Meredith Wilson’s 1957 hit musical The Music Man, con man Professor Harold Hill sings out about “ragtime, shameless music” as one of the pending disasters that threaten Riverside if the parents of the town don’t get their collective act together. It’s intended to be funny. In 1957, parents were facing new musical threats that…

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