Excerpt of the Day: "Random Obsessions" by Nick Belardes

Do you delight in random trivia?  Did you know some dinosaurs were teeny tiny as hens or that Thomas Jefferson’s grandson was an ax murderer? Before buying that plane ticket, don’t you NEED to know which exotic islands still have cannibals? Wonder what it’s like to live in Hell Town at the End of the World? How about an ailment so surreal it’s named after Alice in Wonderland?  Then Random Obsessions is truly “trivia you can’t live without.”  Historian Nick Belardes has dug into the raw source material found in historical archives, scientific studies, and libraries the world over.  You’ll also read first-person interviews with people who can explain the unexplained, from the permanently puzzling Mothman conspiracy to secret Star Wars Jedi religious cults, and the charmingly eccentric reason why British aerospace engineers sent teddy bears floating out into space.

Here’s a taste:

Examining the past, one must understand whether history comprises “everything that happened,” as philosopher R.G. Collingwood once wrote, or just whatever the written record illuminates. Dr. Oliver Rink, a professor of early Dutch America, once explained history as a drunk man searching for his lost keys under a lamppost. When the man was asked why he was searching near the lamppost while his car was a block away, in the dark, Rink imagined the drunkard saying, “Because there’s light over here.” If history is the light cast by that streetlamp, how much of the past is left to be illuminated and discovered?

The ever-changing prism of perspectives that defines our present also transforms long-discovered details of the past. That’s because historians are always experimenting with new approaches to reinterpret wars, peoples, culture, economics, and politics. History is under constant pressure in the present to shake the dustrags of past interpretations and reexamine what’s underneath. But, of course, that only leads to more questions and further mystery.

In “Amassed from the Past” you will get a look at many topics, including a peek at witchcraft in early America (“To Burn or Not to Burn”). Don’t even begin to think historians are done examining the Puritan obsession with the idea of Satanic people in their midst. You will read an account of a bizarre sighting by the maidservant Tituba. In “Did Napoleon’s Gastric Secret Cost Him Waterloo?” I examine the idea that an ailment affecting one man could have a great impact on the outcome of history. In “Why Obama Was Sworn In as President in Washington, D.C.” I look at the how yellow fever epidemics in the 1790s could have prevented the construction of the capital in the most enlightened city in America. Perhaps you didn’t know that Philadelphia was once called the federal city? Many wanted the capital there.

One of the greatest American mysteries revolves around what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke Island in North Carolina in the late 1500s. Did the colony perish at the hands of hostile natives? What were the cryptic tree carvings found at the site? We’ll look at an original source document that reveals more in “The Strange Fires of Roanoke.” In “September 11, 1775” I reveal a connection between tragic historical events and the idea of government betrayal. You’ll find even more enigmatic history in sections on Christopher Columbus’s ship’s log, Thomas Jefferson’s mental state and ax murderer grandson, the apocalypse of 2012, a note from the Kennedy assassination hearings, and a letter doubting President Abraham Lincoln. In reading this chapter you’ll find that while history constantly presents itself as fact, it really may be only a fuzzy glimpse of time past and just an elusive grab at the idea of truth.