Joseph Cummins: 'History’s Great Untold Stories'

From the macabre to the unfortunate to the highly unlikely, Cummins explores fascinating “footnotes” to history with detail and tact. Why did one pope put his predecessor’s rotting corpse on the stand, and why is the Vatican now silent on the proceedings? Who were the “white ghosts” in their city-sized fleet that rounded the horn of Africa decades before Vasco del Gamma? Which brilliant tactician conquered some thirty-two separate nations in sixty-five pitched battles, all in the name of his country? (Hint: It wasn’t Alexander the Great or Hitler.)

Targeted to the amateur but controversial enough to appeal to a history buff, these key personalities and forces echo disturbingly through time to reflect on the present. Maps, Renaissance paintings, photographs and sidebars place these formative events in their cultural context and reveal the historical significance of their time. Cummins also ties neatly into current events: The Chinese, the richest and most powerful nation in the world during the 12th century, involved themselves in a 20-year quagmire war with Vietnamese guerrilla forces. It crippled China’s economy and had drastic, unforeseen consequences for their future place in world politics. If Western leaders had paid closer attention to that outcome, perhaps they could have avoided their own military defeats 700 years later.

'History’s Great Untold Stories: Obscure Events Of Lasting Importance' is a book that needs to be read, and luckily, it’s so well written that it’s easy to get stuck into. As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Published 1st October 2006 by Pier 9.

Written by W. L. Clark.