History's footnotes made fascinating.

This is a pretty cool book of sprawling essays on obscure but interesting history... stuff like the Vikings in Greenland, early anthropology and the many hoaxes and misapprehensions it overcame, and the nastier details of Antarctic exploration. ( )

Begins in the dirt and ends in the stars. A wonderful series of essays on history, lost civilizations, science and human nature by a fine writer. A reviewer (Emily Vincent) identifies exactly what I most appreciated about these essays: Connell "cherishes the unusual telling fact about people and places...such details, like fine plums, ought to be plucked and tenderly boxed. This is a crate of the juciest, temptingly preserved." ( )