Book Review: Burma ‘44 by James Holland – Popular historian James Holland of England has written a dozen nonfiction books on World War II and has appeared in twice that number of TV programs on the war. He’s perhaps best known these days as the co-host with Al Murray of the popular World War II podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk. (Coincidentally, his brother Tom Holland co-hosts another popular history podcast called The Rest is History.) This book, subtitled “the battle that turned World War II in the east,” was of interest to me because I know so little about the war in that part of the world. On the allied side, it was fought mostly by the British and Indians, but there was substantial US involvement, especially on the logistics side. Because that part of the world is both mountainous and impassable jungle, logistics meant air transport. Up until 1944, the allies were on the defensive in the China-Burma-India theater, seemingly unable to stop the Japanese who had attained a reputation of superior jungle fighters. Deciding to shake up their command structure, the English installed a young but experienced Naval officer, Lord Louis Mountbatten, as the Supreme Allied Commander for South East Asia Command, and General William Slim as the ground commander. With Mountbatten’s enthusiastic support, Slim emphasized training, logistics, and morale and turned a retreating demoralized force into a victorious army. This book is about a pivotal battle fought on the allied side mostly by support troops who were surrounded by the attacking Japanese but because they had been trained in infantry tactics and were adequately supplied by air, were able to not only fight off the attack but decisively defeat the Japanese in the first big allied land victory in that theater. The book tells this story in a dramatic, human way that makes for fast and enjoyable reading. 

Newspaper: “The Full Story of America” by Megan Marshall – This Op-Ed appeared in the Boston Globe “Ideas” section on February 22, 2026. Marshall, whose 2013 biography of Margaret Fuller won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, is one of my favorite historians so I eagerly read anything she writes. This essay is a defense of U.S. historians in the past two decades in the face of the Trump Administration’s “flag-hugging, Bible-thumping” rewriting of the American story. Here, Marshall argues that the best way to fight back is to draw attention to the important contributions of historians in the face of this revisionism. This is a concern that directly impacts Lowell: It’s been widely reported that Lowell National Historical Park removed two films that depicted harsh labor conditions in the city’s mills and industrial pollution in response to a Trump order demanding the removal of content deemed “negative” or “disparaging” of American history. This is part of a larger, ongoing effort to remove various historical, social and environmental narratives, particularly those about slavery and civil rights, from our National Parks. 

Movie Review: Widow Clicquot – The Netflix algorithm suggested this 2023 historical drama to me so I clicked play. The first few minutes captured my interest and, because the film is just a refreshing 90-minutes long, I watched it to its conclusion over two nights. Set in the Champagne region of Napoleonic France, it’s the story of Barbe-Nicole who married an eccentric vineyard owner named Francois Clicquot who had some radical ideas about growing grapes and making wine. However, much of his eccentricity was the manifestation of mental illness which caused his early death leaving Barbe a widow and the owner of an underperforming vineyard. Immediately after the burial, the menfolk arranged to sell the property to the neighboring vineyard owner, Mr. Moet, but Barbe objected on the grounds she wished to carry on the business as a tribute to her deceased husband. In the face of rampant male chauvinism, Barbe combined her husband’s innovative ideas with her own and powered them with her determination to succeed which she did, running the business until her death at age 89 and creating the Veuve Clicquot champagne dynasty. Not being a regular consumer of champagne or even wine, I may have missed some of the movie’s references to that field, but I am well-aware of the historic obstacles that have constrained (and continue to constrain) the achievements of women, so I appreciated that aspect of the movie. 

Newspaper: “Taking a long, cold look at the harsh winter that was” By Ken Mahan in the Boston Globe on March, 5, 2026. If it’s 6am or 6pm, I’ll tune in a live TV weather forecast. Old habits die hard and the integration of someone explaining something with supporting graphics is a method of consuming information that works for me. But the rest of the time, I rely on the Globe’s Ken Mahan and his associate, former TV weather person David Epstein who is a regular contributor. In this article, Mahan reviews this winter. He points out that meteorological seasons are month-based, so for weather people, winter is December-January-February whereas “astronomical” spring doesn’t arrive until the equinox on March 20. He writes that this winter was colder than normal, mostly due to El Nina in the Pacific Ocean which altered the jetstream. That caused record-breaking warmth in the west but when that happens, extremely cold air from Canada leaks into the northeast. Consequently, we had the coldest winter in 11 years with average temperatures nearly four degrees below normal. As for snow, two big storms in January and February gave southern New England high snow totals for the season, but overall our total precipitation was lower than average which means that unless we have a rainy spring, we’ll face a drought this summer.