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Getting to Know Camp Followers
by Paula Backscheider, author of Women in Wartime: Theatrical Representations in the Long Eighteenth Century Getting to Know Camp Followers When I began the research for Women in Wartime, I was simply looking at how wartime women were represented on the stage...
wiw
Military Recruiting
by Paula Backscheider, author of Women in Wartime: Theatrical Representations in the Long Eighteenth Century A student wrote of my book, “What I found most interesting were … resonant examples of wartime women and the similarities that continue to be...
wiw
Who Makes Meaning? What Does My New Book Do?
by Paula Backscheider, author of Women in Wartime: Theatrical Representations in the Long Eighteenth Century Last night UPS delivered a book including an essay of mine. The contributor’s list gave my title as Wartime Women: Intimate Conscripts on the British...
wiw
Reproductive Rights and Healthcare : A Reading List
Last month’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization walked back longstanding legal precedents that affirm the constitutional right to an abortion. Abortion is now illegal in thirteen states that had what are known as...
The front facade of the US Supreme Court building, carved in stone are the words "Equal Justice Under Law"
Sustaining an Empire
I followed an unconventional path to Venezuelan history while a graduate student at the College of William and Mary, where I benefitted from a small PhD program linked to a rigorous community promoting scholarly innovation at the Omohundro Institute of Early...
Pompeian blog
What the Birds Taught Me About Environmental Change
The geese were back on the pond this morning, their honks heralding the changing season. I’ve always noted their springtime arrivals and autumn departures, but since writing my book, The Market in Birds: Commercial Hunting, Conservation, and the Origins of...
Smalley Blog Post
Revising the Traditional Interpretation of Rural Electrification
Even after decades of retelling, the story of rural electrification in the United States remains dramatic. As textbooks and popular histories inform us, farmers obtained electric service only because a compassionate federal government established the Rural...
Hirsh blog post
Why Rural Electrification has Policy Resonance Today
Rural electrification in the United States (and most industrialized countries) is now a historical fact. But it remains an important goal in several developing countries, where (in 2019) about 13 percent of the world’s population--940 million mostly rural...
Hirsh blog post 2
When your research surprises you...
The most surprising thing that I learned in writing this book, and the thing I hope readers take away from it, is as simple as it is counterintuitive: early modern scientists really didn’t like the printing press. The technology that proved so transformative...
Loath to Print