More Obscurity
August 23rd, 2004I have two books on hold at the library that I am very excited about. (Yes, I am like that.)
The Land That Never Was : Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History, by David Sinclair. I saw this one in Borders and the title caught my eye. It is “the outrageous and tragic story of Poyais, a South American nation that, as the subtitle indicates, never actually existed. Sir Gregor MacGregor, a pusillanimous and pompous soldier who fought in the South American wars of liberation, concocted the Territory of Poyais in the early 1820s as a means of getting rich off of land sales and financial speculation.” The author has tons of great stuff at his site.
Monturiol’s Dream : The Extraordinary Story of the Submarine Inventor Who Wanted to Save the World, by Matthew Stewart. “A marvelous rediscovery: the compelling story of the strange and noble life—and dream—of nineteenth-century utopian social revolutionary and self-taught engineer Narcís Monturiol, who invented the world’s first fully operational steam-powered submarine, not as a weapon of war but as a means of saving human life and spreading democracy.” First seen on Blankbaby.