Customer Reviews

Ambrose Bierce Is Missing: And Other Historical Mysteries

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This book was both informative and entertaining. Nickell examines a number of historical mysteries. These mysteries include the disappearance of Ambrose Bierce mentioned in the title, the authenticity of historical artifacts alleged to have belonged to Daniel Boone and others, establishing the identity of Nazi war criminals, and several more. These cases are rather disparate, but Nickell uses them to illustrate the common use of the investigative method in historical studies. I enjoyed reading this book quite a lot. This is no dry academic treatise: it reads a lot more like a good-paced detective novel. Rather than an just describing the methodology of historical investigations, Nickell shows it through entertaining case studies. I learned a lot about how historians investigate questions, as well.