My goal with History Geek is to enlighten, entertain and inspire through a collage of ephemera, snapshots, and documents combined with a few sordid stories, original research and personal tales of historical misadventure.
Many posts featured on this blog focus on original items from my own personal collection and as such many of these are previously unpublished. To me, they are unique personal windows into times gone by and it is always such a shame when they are stripped of their context and abandoned. I like to use these items as a starting point – and through research discover and share the stories that they can tell. Other times I just like to share good historical yarns, often that I’ve stumbled across by chance while researching something else.
My approach to history is not to offer comprehensive academic analysis of historical events. There are many much more qualified people already doing that. My interest in history lies not so much in who was right and who was wrong but in what it was like to be there.
Living in New Zealand it is natural that many of my musings will be from the Kiwi perspective but I do make an honest attempt to be as objective as possible (except perhaps when the Australian cricket team is concerned!).
If something sparks the interest of a reader then I urge them to do their own research on the subject and where possible I will recommend further reading or viewing.
It is my sincere hope that visitors to this little corner of the Internet will find something of interest.
I love history. I wish more people would inspire their children to learn more of it, the schools merely skim over the events.
Completely agree. The kind of history taught at schools can sometimes be dry and difficult to relate to. I think there is a lot that can be done to make history a lot more accessible both to children and the wider public.
All I can remember in history class is memorizing dates.
G/day from Darwin Au expat Timaru Heeney.
History is people. Academics tend to forget this … people, not dates.
G’day from Melbourne ! Love history in general, and occasional blog on military history. I look forward to reading your blog.
Great to have a history loving follower in Melbourne! I’ve always wanted to visit your city to see where some of the characters from the New Zealand goldfields first earned their reputations.
Just delighted to find this site! I look forward to enjoying all of the postings that are put up here.
Thank you and welcome!