Stories from History's Dust Bin: Volume 2

Is history made by great invidividuals or by ordinary women and men? Wayne Winterton's aim is not so grand as to try to settle the debate. Instead, he has assembled a delightful collection of stories that feature those who were great and those who were ordinary, those who were noble and ignoble, and those common and not so common. Each left their mark in their own unique way. Here in this collection are stories of how people lived their lives, how they struggled with the issues that confronted them and tried to do what they thought was right, or at least necessary, and in some cases, how they wronged society and paid for their misdeeds. These are stores that help explain, in part, why some things in the present are the way they are. Indeed, these are stories that remind us that those who lived before were not all that different from those of us in the present. In aligning these stories with the calendar year, so you can read what happened on any given day of the year, Winterton reminds us in a subtle way that the past never quite leaves us. In some ways, the past is always present. But consider for a moemnt, after reading a story for a given day, how many other stories there are to be discovered and told!