Welcome to Bill Thayer's Web Site

An American History site, which has slowly turned into one of the larger ones on the Web. Started as my small wartime contribution after September 11 when like many other Americans I found myself drawn to the history of my own country, its principal subsites now include American Naval History (27 complete books currently onsite), American Railroad History, and American Catholic History, several books on West Point (plus over 3500 entries from Cullum's Register). In addition, large sections on Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, and North Carolina are joined by books and articles on the history of a number of other States, Freeman's monumental 4‑volume biography of Robert E. Lee, a book on Washington's presidency and one on Wilson's, a contemporaneous account of the Baltimore Riot of 1812, a book on the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the log kept by the Spanish commander at the siege of Pensacola in 1781, the journal of a Mormon pioneer, journal articles on a variety of subjects, and many other items. More is on its way.

[ 9/1/24: 6200 webpages
(including 90 complete books)
— 38,425 pages of print, 1698 photos,
307 maps and plans, 572 other illustrations ]

My History of the Americas section is of course hardly an appendage to United States history, but the other way 'round; still, I'm a North American, so we can expect the broader part of the site to be smaller. Right now, Bourne's Spain in America, Galdames' History of Chile, and a large section on the History of Brazil, including a full-length book on the subject in addition to a number of journal articles; W. S. Robertson's Life of Miranda and Guillermo Sherwell's Antonio José de Sucre; and a section on the History of Canada.

[ 12/21/17: 173 webpages
(including 7 complete books)
— 2712 pages of print, 64 photos,
16 maps, 20 other illustrations ]

Readings in European History collects material on Italian, Ukrainian, British, French, Lithuanian, and Dutch history. If most of the books here focus on specific topics, the sections on Ukraine and Lithuania include comprehensive histories of those countries, and the Italian history section is home to Thomas Hodgkin's 8‑volume Italy and Her Invaders.

[ 10/26/24: 832 webpages
(including 33 complete books)
— 13,312 pages of print, 417 photos,
159 maps and plans, 231 other illustrations ]

Readings in African History collects very disparate resources as well, most of them for now also falling (and previously counted) under European history of one stripe or another: but along with a good portion of native North African historian Muhammad al‑Idrisi's Geography, you'll find Bevan's excellent book on the Ptolemies and other ancient Egyptian material, some Roman history, a book on American entanglement with the rulers of North Africa, some World War II material; and then there's two books on the remote African outpost of Tristan da Cunha, 2400 km from the continent.

[ 11/12/24: 166 webpages
(including 9 complete books)
— 2105 pages of print, 126 photos,
5 maps and plans, 6 other illustrations ]

Readings in Asian History is my orientation page to a few very disparate resources: Vahan Kurkjian's History of Armenia, Deane Dickason's Wondrous Angkor, E. D. Sokol's The Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia, and some smaller items.

[ 9/14/24: 79 webpages
(including 3 complete books)
— 869 pages of print, 80 photos,
12 maps and plans, 62 other illustrations ]

LacusCurtius: the narrow field of Graeco‑Roman antiquity occupies a disproportionately large chunk of the site (although now gradually ceding the spotlight to more relevant and less Eurocentric material). It includes a photosampler of Roman and Etruscan cities and monuments — with a very large site on the city of Rome of course; many complete Latin and Greek texts, usually in English translation as well; Rodolfo Lanciani's book Pagan and Christian Rome, Christian Hülsen's book on the Roman Forum, Bury's 2‑volume History of the Later Roman Empire, Bevan's House of Ptolemy, 4 books on Roman Britain, George Dennis's Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria; Platner and Ashby's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (nearly complete) and most of Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities; about 45% of Plutarch's Moralia; a quick sketch of a site for teaching yourself to read Latin inscriptions; some maps of the Roman Empire, and more.

In a different category, one pretty specialized item, but for some few people it should be very useful, and it's free for the downloading: Polytonic Greek Typinator Set — a timesaving utility for anyone inputting a lot of ancient Greek.

[ 5/12/23: 3916 webpages, 779 photos,
772 drawings & engravings, 120 plans, 139 maps ]

My Gazetteer of Italy — currently over 1600 mostly non-Roman pages of churches, frescoes, etc. — is my own favorite part of the site. Since 2003, I've mostly been adding to the Churches of Italy section, which currently (2/22/24) covers 712 churches in 401 pages and 1639 photos, as well as several dozen wayside shrines, with more photos of course; plus, quite separately, three entire books on the churches of Rome, covering about 900 of them, past and present, in great detail; and several books covering many of the churches of Umbria and of the city of L'Aquila in the Abruzzo. (The merest drop in a bucket, by the way: Italy's churches present and past must number at least 500,000.)

The United States, my home, I know far less well than I do Italy: for one thing, they're a much larger country. My American Scrapbook for now — 1/21/10 — is mostly about Kentucky (in particular the little town of Jenkins), with a bit of Chicago.

Also, a loose end:

About 16 months' worth of my diary. Nothing terribly titillating, really; but it's the laid-back section of this website (read: "easy to put online"), and the raw material for much of the Gazetteer. A bit of London, France, and Kentucky, and lots of Italy: Rome, Milan, Tuscany, Umbria and the Marche, large tracts of which I explored on foot, so that the diary includes details that could be useful if you're planning a trip or a bike tour. Illustrated with photos not usually found elsewhere onsite, cross-linked to Gazetteer pages and external sites, and partly indexed by place and topic.

In a similar vein, eight Letters from Colombia written in 1993.

[ 6/30/06: 330 pages, 741 photos ]