About The Historian's Herald

Staff

• Chester Bly III

  Founding Editor

  A counterfactual history enthusiast and retired patent attorney who funds his own research trips and has opinions about all of them. Chester covers alternate history scenarios, wargaming-as-methodology debates, and the eternal question of whether the South could have won (his answer: no, and he has forty pages on why). The 'III' is aspirational — he added it himself.

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  A counterfactual history enthusiast and retired patent attorney who funds his own research trips and has opinions about all of them. Chester covers alternate history scenarios, wargaming-as-methodology debates, and the eternal question of whether the South could have won (his answer: no, and he has forty pages on why). The 'III' is aspirational — he added it himself.

• Dr. Simone Bécquer-Torres

  Standards Correspondent

  A former history professor who was denied tenure for publishing a monograph arguing that her department's most-cited paper contained a critical translation error. Now a full-time contrarian and The Herald's most-complained-about columnist. Simone covers revisionist takes, citation fraud, and consensus opinions she believes are 'just vibes with footnotes.'

  Read full bio

  A former history professor who was denied tenure for publishing a monograph arguing that her department's most-cited paper contained a critical translation error. Now a full-time contrarian and The Herald's most-complained-about columnist. Simone covers revisionist takes, citation fraud, and consensus opinions she believes are 'just vibes with footnotes.'

• Dr. Yevgenia Sorokina

  Civic Affairs Desk

  A historiographer's historiographer — Yevgenia writes about how historians write about history, which she insists is not as recursive as it sounds. Tenured at a mid-tier state university she refuses to name, she covers academic publishing, peer review scandals, and the politics of who gets to narrate the past. Her doctoral thesis had a thesis about theses.

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  A historiographer's historiographer — Yevgenia writes about how historians write about history, which she insists is not as recursive as it sounds. Tenured at a mid-tier state university she refuses to name, she covers academic publishing, peer review scandals, and the politics of who gets to narrate the past. Her doctoral thesis had a thesis about theses.

• Farah al-Rashidi

  Culture Columnist

  An archaeologist by training who keeps getting pulled into historical debates because she has the physical evidence and they don't. Farah covers material culture, the archaeology-history turf war, and museums behaving badly. She once described a peer-reviewed history paper as 'a lovely story unsupported by a single potsherd' and it became her bio.

  Read full bio

  An archaeologist by training who keeps getting pulled into historical debates because she has the physical evidence and they don't. Farah covers material culture, the archaeology-history turf war, and museums behaving badly. She once described a peer-reviewed history paper as 'a lovely story unsupported by a single potsherd' and it became her bio.

• Jordan Nakamura-Ellis

  Field Reporter

  A former BuzzFeed features writer who pivoted to historical journalism after a listicle about medieval plagues went unexpectedly viral. Jordan covers history-in-pop-culture, public misconceptions, and the r/AskHistorians beat with the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered footnotes are incredible. Frequently accused of being 'not a real historian,' which they consider a compliment.

  Read full bio

  A former BuzzFeed features writer who pivoted to historical journalism after a listicle about medieval plagues went unexpectedly viral. Jordan covers history-in-pop-culture, public misconceptions, and the r/AskHistorians beat with the enthusiasm of someone who just discovered footnotes are incredible. Frequently accused of being 'not a real historian,' which they consider a compliment.

• Kwame Adjei-Boateng

  Letters Editor

  A computational historian who left a machine learning career at Google to build neural networks that read 16th-century trade ledgers. Kwame covers digital humanities, cliometrics, and the ongoing war between 'real historians' and anyone who uses Python. He once live-tweeted a conference paper's statistical errors and was not invited back.

  Read full bio

  A computational historian who left a machine learning career at Google to build neural networks that read 16th-century trade ledgers. Kwame covers digital humanities, cliometrics, and the ongoing war between 'real historians' and anyone who uses Python. He once live-tweeted a conference paper's statistical errors and was not invited back.

• Margaret Ashworth-Pennington

  Institutional Memory Desk

  Former head archivist at the British National Archives who took early retirement after what she calls 'the digitization betrayal.' Margaret covers primary source methodology, archival preservation, and the slow death of proper penmanship. She has never once cited a Wikipedia article and wants you to know that.

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  Former head archivist at the British National Archives who took early retirement after what she calls 'the digitization betrayal.' Margaret covers primary source methodology, archival preservation, and the slow death of proper penmanship. She has never once cited a Wikipedia article and wants you to know that.

• Obi Eze

  Weekend Editor

  A Lagos-born, London-educated cartographer and spatial historian who believes that every historical argument improves with a map and most of them fall apart when you add one. Obi covers borders, territorial disputes, historical mapping errors, and the surprisingly vicious world of cartographic history. He has strong feelings about the Mercator projection and he is not sorry.

  Read full bio

  A Lagos-born, London-educated cartographer and spatial historian who believes that every historical argument improves with a map and most of them fall apart when you add one. Obi covers borders, territorial disputes, historical mapping errors, and the surprisingly vicious world of cartographic history. He has strong feelings about the Mercator projection and he is not sorry.

• Professor Alistair Drummond

  Public Records Fellow

  Forty-two years in medieval studies at Edinburgh, three ex-wives, and one Festschrift he pretends he hasn't read. Alistair covers academic conferences, tenure politics, and the decline of everything since roughly 1986. He writes his columns longhand and his editor retypes them, which he considers a reasonable division of labor.

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  Forty-two years in medieval studies at Edinburgh, three ex-wives, and one Festschrift he pretends he hasn't read. Alistair covers academic conferences, tenure politics, and the decline of everything since roughly 1986. He writes his columns longhand and his editor retypes them, which he considers a reasonable division of labor.

• Ruthie Kowalski

  Copy Chief

  A stand-up comedian with a history degree she swore she'd never use, until she started a podcast about ridiculous historical deaths that now has more listeners than most academic journals have readers. Ruthie covers the absurd margins of history — bizarre laws, doomed expeditions, and the footnotes that real historians skip. She is technically the Herald's humor columnist but keeps accidentally writing serious analysis.

  Read full bio

  A stand-up comedian with a history degree she swore she'd never use, until she started a podcast about ridiculous historical deaths that now has more listeners than most academic journals have readers. Ruthie covers the absurd margins of history — bizarre laws, doomed expeditions, and the footnotes that real historians skip. She is technically the Herald's humor columnist but keeps accidentally writing serious analysis.