Friday, March 29, 2013

The Greatest Stories Never Told

~ Rick Beyer 2003 History, Non-Fiction 200 pgs ~

A BOOK BLESSING  -For Reading

M ay we be blessed with an understanding of time, dawned with feathered wing, and danced into flight by the coaxing of history's treasures, not the doldrum rhythm dry of second grade fact or fiction, pencil tapped and eyelid waning, but the bold, brandished dangers of that dusted vault and attic mystery named, but nigh only night whispered:  Stories Untold, the better name for History.  

WHATS IN THE BINDING? -Book In Summary

S ometimes I wonder about the untold stories surrounding untold stories.  However I am always well excited for any movement forward in this direction, and Mr. Beyer along with the History Channel do not disappoint     Here is a book of immense insight and wisdom, with a beautiful layout and content to engage the mind for days.  Well it's just like talking a walk through two or three thousand years of history in 200 pages, and having someone point out to you all the many wonders you did not know about.  This book, rather like tree roots, stretches down into diverse subjects of stories untold:  invention, sports, foods, science, calendars, wars, discoveries, accidents, foods, mysteries, Einstein, Eifel Tower.  There is enough riveting content in this book to take it to the bolt store and let it hang with all the other metal tooled fashions.  The book weighing in at approximately 17 ounces does well to speak to the adage that History is stranger than fiction.  This is a book, well worth reading, that you may no longer continue on, without knowing the small things you do not yet know, which actually considerably change, alter and shape history as we were taught it.    


PAGE LEAFING -Thoughts & Impressions

I n fact I do believe I have already started reading this book again, even tonight as I am writing this review.  Simply because there are so many stories and life lessons and fascinations contained within.  It appears Mr. Beyer has some other books with similar titles branching off into other genres of more specifically science, and music.  I hope to get to those next!  

T he reoccurring theme I perceive and am amazed by in this Historically insightful mouthing watering watermelon of a book.  Is the fragility of history, in the sense and subtleness of the details.  For instance three cigars changing the course of the civil war, or the invention of the stethoscope due to a man's modesty.  Also the absurdity of some stories, such as Roman officials stealing time from a nation, or the Eifel Tower remaining standing only because the government realized it would be a good  radio tower.  What a singing in the rain experience this read was, I hope for more Spring reads of this caliber...


TAKE FIVE  -Book Samples

394 ad - The olympic games were stopped by Roman Emperor Theodisius and not started again until 1892 in France.
452 ad - The city of Venice (118 islands) was essentially a boggy swampland that offered protection to Roman Citizens fleeing Atilla the Hun and thus became settled and grew into a city now with 400 bridges.
1325 ad - Ibn Battuta, left one year after Marco Polo, but ended up travelling even farther than Mr. Polo, roughly 73,000 miles in 30 years.
1605 ad - King James raised taxes %4000 to try and stop people from smoking the newly transported sensation: tabacco. 
1860 ad - The much famous Pony Express in fact went bankrupt in less than one year due to the construction of the transcontinental telegraph.

PAIRS WELL WITH -Resources

A history lesson of the piano, by Victor Borge:

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