It was an early summer day in 1792, and a gloomy man was in a bad mood. Charles Nisbet, a Presbyterian minister in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to his bookseller, William Young, in Philadelphia. The two had been corresponding about twice a year since 1790; Nisbet was beginning his sixth letter to Young.
Whitfield Jenks Bell, Jr., (3 December, 1914-2 January, 2009) was born in Newburgh, New York, and grew up in suburban Philadelphia.1 After graduating from Lower Merion High School, he enrolled in Dickinson College, graduating in the class of 1935.
While it may not be an historian's job to "praise famous men," it is his job to tell of men and women, famous or less so, and remember that they were human beings with a human capacity for the remarkable. Henry Heisey Brubaker—in the formal custom of the day, he always styled himself "H. H. Brubaker"—was an imposing figure in the Brethren in Christ Church during the middle years of the twentieth century.
John Lukacs, A Student's Guide to the Study of History. (Wilmington: lSI Books, 2000). Paperback, 49 pp. ISBN 188292641-2 $5.95.
John H. Light, An Infantryman Remembers World Wtzr II. Shippensburg PA: Beidel Printing House, Inc., 1997. vii, 157 pp. Paperback, $10.95.
John B. Frantz and William Pencak, eds., Beyond Philadelphia: The American Revolution in the Pennsylvania Hinterland. (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1998) viii, 273, maps, index. Hardback $55.00 (ISBN 0-27 1-01 766-X) Paperback $ 19.95 (ISBN 0-271-01767-8).
Oliver P. Williams, County Courthouses of Pennsylvania: A Guide. (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001) xi, 244 pp, glossary, index, illustrated; paperback, $19.95 (ISBN 0-8117-2738-6)
Brian Butka and Kevin Patrick, Diners of Pennsylvania. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999. 250pp. Paperback, $19.95. ISBN 0-8117-2878-1
G. Kenneth Bishop, From Horses to Horsepower: How Goods Got and Get to Market. (Carlisle: 250'" Anniversary Committee, 2000). 16 pp. Paperback $2.00 (This edition limited to 250 copies.)
John Keegan, The American Civil War: A Military History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 416 pp.; index, photographs, maps. Hardcover, $35.00; ISBN: 978-0-307-26343-8; Paperback, $16.95; ISBN: 978-0-307-27493-9