Lost to Time ─ Unforgettable Stories That History Forgot

In this fascinating collection of historical vignettes, author Martin W. Sandler restores to memory important events, people, and developments that have been lost to time. Though barely known today, these are major historical stories, from Ziryab, an eighth-century black slave whose influence on music, cuisine, fashion, and manners still reverberates, to Cahokia, a 12th century city north of the Rio Grande, which at its zenith contained a population greater than any contemporary European city, to the worst peacetime maritime disaster ever, the explosion and sinking of the Sultana on the Mississippi in 1865, and the deadliest fire in U.S. history, in Peshtigo, Wis. These tales are far from trivia; they illuminate little-known American and foreign achievements, ingenuity, heroics, blunders, and tragedies that changed the course of history and resonate today.--From publisher description.

Martin W. Sandler has received many honors, including two Pulitzer Prize nominations; a Boston Horn Book Award for The Story of American Photography: An Illustrated History for Young People (Little, Brown); and seven Emmys. His Library of Congress American History series has been a national bestseller with more than 500,000 copies sold. For television, Mr. Sandler was creator and cowriter for the acclaimed 12-part This Was America series. He has taught American history and American studies at UMass and Smith College. He lives in Cape Cod, MA.