Death by Petticoat

I’ve been possibly the worst blogger in the history of bloggers recently, but since Amazon has changed their rules on reviewing “incentive products” aka books and other products received by the reviewer for an honest review, I’ve decided to get the blog back up and running!

Death by Petticoat: American History Myths Debunkedby Mary Miley Theobald and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Rating: 2 stars

 I enjoyed this book, it was fun way to spend an hour or so on a Saturday afternoon, however, there are some major issues with it that caused me to only give it a two star rating. To start with, there’s no real rhyme or reason to the organization of this book. The myths are numbered, but the numbering system seems fairly arbitrary. Occasionally there will be two myths in a row that sort of related to each other (two shoe myths in a row, etc.), but other than that, myths are randomly assigned numbers. 

The main issue I had with this book, however, was the lack of information and citation. Many of these myths I had never heard of, so it was interesting to read short blurbs about each myth (no myth has more information than a page and a half, and most are decidedly shorter), but I found myself wishing for more. There are no citations for the information the author presents “debunking” each myth, which makes it hard for me to feel that they truly were debunked. There are times when she mentions research on certain myths, but I got the feeling for most of book that the reader should just trust that the author knows what she’s talking about and take her word for it. And while I think she does know what she’s talking about (her credentials and the acknowledgments confirm that), I would take it much more seriously if there was some citation to back it up. 

All in all, I thought the idea of this book was a good one, but the execution was lacking. If you’re looking for a quick read with some superficial information about common American history myths, this is a good one to pick up. If you’re ever at a museum or historical site selling this book in their gift shop, it’s a great souvenir. If you’re looking for some in-depth information on common history myths, give this a pass and look for something else.