Travel Back in Time With Guidebooks That Make History Fun

Here’s a new series of Thrifty Time Traveler’s Guides that makes learning history fun! These books can be read for educational purposes, or just enjoyed; alongside a lot of good information there’s plenty of humor to make the facts go down very easily indeed!

The first of these books, The Thrifty Guide to the American Revolution, by Jonathan W. Stokes, provides useful information for the practical visitor to the 1770s, like:

– Where can you find a decent hotel room in colonial New England? Are major credit cards accepted?
– How can you join the Boston Tea Party without winding up in a British prison?
– What do you do if you’re being shot at by a cannon?

In an effort to make your time in the past the best that it can be, the Guide highlights experiences you won’t want to miss (except you might want to miss them because there’s a risk of ending up dead….with no refund!). But if you want to hurl tea into Boston Harbor, join Paul Revere’s spy ring, or fight with George Washington, this is just the book for you.

– Where can you find a decent hotel room in ancient Rome for under five sesterces a day? Is horse parking included?
– What do you do if attacked by barbarians? (Answer: “Don’t panic. The barbarian is probably as afraid of you as you are of it.”)
– Does the army with the most elephants win?
– What’s the best picnic spot for getting a good view of the assassination of Julius Caesar?

“Ancient Rome” is a much bigger topic than the American Revolution, and so this guide is a bit less comprehensive. It starts with a practical list of ways your life is endangered in Ancient Rome (flood, fire, disease), and includes tips on how not to end up enslaved…Time Corp, after all, is a business and wants repeat customers! There’s an emphasis on military actions, and a whole chapter devoted to the complicated life of Cleopatra (her many marriages are handled with age appropriate tact). The descriptions of some of the more horribly insane Roman Emperors are colorful reading, although the wise Time Traveler would want nothing to do with them.

Both books focus more on happenings (battles, assassinations, and politics, with useful maps included), and how to survive them, than they do on social customs, although there’s information on what to wear, and some entertaining reviews of where to eat, and which historical figures (some of whom you won’t have heard about, and some, like Alexander Hamilton, whom kids today are already enthusiastic about) that you’ll want to meet.

Illustrations, ven diagrams, scorecards for particular battles, and reviews by previous customers, are generously interspersed with larger blogs of historical narrative, and add considerable interest and fun. My favorite part of both guides are the little sections on how to prank the past. My favorite, from the Guide to Ancient Rome: “Ever wonder who would win a fight, a Roman legionary or a samurai? Time to find out. Simply travel to feudal Japan, find an unsuspecting flock of samurai, and transport them inside a Roman army barracks.” Some pranks also involve velociraptors…and history is always more entertaining when you throw in velociraptors!

So in short, these books are educational and entertaining as all get out (but don’t travel back to the past expecting to make it home again safely…).

Both The Thrifty Guide to Ancient Rome and The Thrifty Guide to the American Revolution are on B&N bookshelves now!