About A Blast From The Past
I write books.
But when I’m not writing, I read a lot, and when I read it’s almost always history. The history that I like best is the stuff that no-one else is interested in – I’ll never knuckle down to Henry VIII if I can curl up with a strange old book about a forgotten island in the Pacific or social banditry in Brazil. So I tend to stumble across stories that I love, but that are too small, too odd or just too fragmentary to tell my publishers about.
They know much better than I do what is marketable, and inevitably what sells isn’t always what I find fascinating. So I created A Blast From The Past to write about these small, strange stories. Because they’re eye-opening, and because they offer insights of their own into the world we live in. Because I think they ought to be better known. And because, secretly, I think you’ll like them too.
About the author
I’m probably in love with my subject just a bit too much. I read history at Cambridge and went on to complete a PhD at King’s College London back in 1990. Since then I’ve enjoyed an eclectic career as a journalist, magazine publisher and author, in the course of which I’ve written five (and counting) heavily-researched popular histories: Tulipomania, Batavia’s Graveyard, Thug, Satan’s Circus and The First Family – if you really want the full story, go here. Oh, and I live in London with my wife and daughter in a house stuffed with approximately 5,000 books, about a third of which I’ve actually read all the way through. I don’t know why people always ask me about that, but they do.
Contact
If you would like to contact me, you can do so here.
Fantastic stuff – if only my school history had been like this.
These posts are fantastic.
Mike, I manage a history group blog, Cliopatria, at History News Network, http://hnn.us/blogs/2.html . Annually, we give Cliopatria Awards for the Best in History Blogging. I’m pleased to tell you that your “The Emperor’s Electric Chair” has won the Cliopatria Award for Best Post in 2010. We’d be pleased if you would display the Award’s logo on your site. Best wishes for continued success in the new year.
Sincerely yours,
Ralph E. Luker
A Blast From the Past is the most interesting, entertaining, and informative blog on the web. Hats off to you, Mike. Carry on
I spent some time on your blog and loved it – and what it said about journalistic practice! Nothing much has changed by the way…
I am in love with your blog! Thank you so much for writing it!
I’ve just found this (via Metafilter) great stuff. If you take suggestions for things to research, years ago, in a book about the end of the Ottoman Empire, I read a footnote about the bones of victims of the Massacre of Smyrna being shipped to the UK, I’ve since lost the book and cannot find anything about it on tinternet.
Interesting. To which massacre at Smyrna are you referring, though? There were significant outrages in that city in 1770 (1,500 dead), 1772 and September 1922, the latter at the time the Greeks were expelled from Turkey. On the last occasion the violence lasted for three days, and estimates of the number of dead range from 25,000 up, many clustering around the 100,000 mark.
There were certainly Royal Navy ships present in the harbour in 1922, which saved a few but could do nothing to avert the general massacre or the burning of the town. In his The Grey Dilplomatists (1938). Kenneth Edwards refers to British sailors tackling bodies floating in the harbour by securing iron weights to them to sink them (p.52), but that’s the only book that deals with the subject in much detail that I have in my own library and – like you – I’ve read nothing about the repatriation of bones.
If I get a chance I will dig further.
It was the 1922 massacre, the interpretation that I got from the note I saw was that the bones were bought to Britain to be be used in an industrial process (fertiliser manufacture?).
Came across this website during my surfing. It’s full of intriguing stories, sure to be something here for everyone. Fascinating.
[...] “A Blast From the Past – Oddities, striking characters and incidents, strange days… this is history with all the interesting bits left in, by the author of Batavia’s Graveyard, Tulipomania and The First Family.” Author! Mike Dash. You can subscribe and new posts will be auto-delivered to your email address. [...]
There were certainly Royal Navy ships present in the harbour in 1922, which saved a few but could do nothing to avert the general massacre or the burning of the town. In his The Grey Dilplomatists (1938). Kenneth Edwards refers to British sailors tackling bodies floating in the harbour by securing iron weights to them to sink them (p.52), but that’s the only book that deals with the subject in much detail that I have in my own library and – like you – I’ve read nothing about the repatriation of bones.
+1
For the love of God, please post more often!!!!
Adoringly,
A Fan
There will be some excellent news on this front within the next week. Stay tuned.
Your website is an inspiration to us all. I can only hope that my site will capture the interests of history buffs as yours apparently has. Thanks for this great site!
[...] Check out Mike Dash’s fascinating blog here. ‘History with all the interesting bits left in,’ indeed [...]
Mike Dash? Sexiest asian alive.
[...] Mike Dash is the sort of blogger I wish I were [...]