About Us – FAQs
Welcome!
A. More than 80 in three main departments:
1. Concise articles about historical figures and events. For example:
Cleopatra, Abraham Lincoln, Malcom X, Robert F. Kennedy, Isaiah Berlin’s Hedgehogs and Foxes, and the Cold War.
A full list is available at “Table of Contents.”
3. Book excerpts from a range of prominent writers (Gibbon, Tuchman, etc.).
Q. What is the goal of the website?
A. We of the 21st century are cut off from much wisdom of the past by the blitz of speed and technology. History is often regarded as quaint and/or inaccessible. HistoryAccess.com provides readable and accurate information about who we have been, with an eye toward expanding awareness of who we are, who we can be, and what we face.
Two quotations serve as our guiding lights:
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist: “To discard the hard-won information on how to live accumulated by our ancestors, or to expect to discover a viable set of goals all by oneself, is misguided hubris.”
Bertrand Russell, philosopher: “Out of the night come the voices of those who have gone before, clear and courageous; and so through the ages they march, a mighty procession, proud, undaunted, unconquerable. To join in this glorious company, to swell the immortal paeon of those whom fate could not subdue – this may not be happiness; but what is happiness to those whose souls are filled with that celestial music? To them is given what is better than happiness: to know the fellowship of the great, to live in the inspiration of lofty thoughts, and to be illumined in every perplexity by the fire of nobility and truth.”
Q. Who runs the site?
A. The site’s founder and editor-in-chief is Harold Frost, a journalist and speaker based in California. Harold has written dozens of history articles for major U.S. magazines, including Biography during its short-but-happy life as a mass-circulation monthly (1997-2003). He was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was educated in public schools there and at Brown University. He worked for many years as a contributing writer for West, the former Sunday magazine of the San Jose Mercury News. He is a member of the Organization of American Historians and the National Book Critics Circle.
Q. How can I contact you with comments?
A. Write to us here with comments, suggestions, broken links, etc. (Or use the yellow button at the bottom of every page.)
Q. Who are the site’s writers?
A. Harold is the main writer. Also contributing articles are Charles Matthews, an author, critic, blogger, and former editor for the San Jose Mercury News; J. Brent Norlem, a journalist, historian, and teacher based in Minnesota; Steven G. Kellman, a professor of comparative literature at the University of Texas – San Antonio; and Peter Richardson, a lecturer at San Francisco State University. In addition, as noted, we include selections from Edward Gibbon, Barbara W. Tuchman, etc. See here for listings of each writer’s pieces.
Q. Any other details you would like to mention?
A. Text and photographs by Harold Frost are copyrighted by him. He has slightly altered some of his material from its original published form. Text by Charles Matthews is copyrighted by him and has similarly been slightly altered from its original form. Text by J. Brent Norlem, Steven G. Kellman, and Peter Richardson, written for this site, is copyrighted by them. Some other material at this site is copyrighted by various parties; some stuff here is out of copyright.
Thank you for visiting. ●