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Articles by Neal Bascomb
The Salt Thief: Gandhi’s Heroic March to Freedom
. Sept. 2024. 272p. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9781338701999. COPY ISBN Gr 8 Up–Bascomb covers the facts of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who welcomed hardship as a normal part of life. He even sought pain and suffering if it was for a cause he believed in. The time period from 1858 to 1947 was known as the British Raj, or rule. England ruled India and placed taxes on many goods, including salt, which was essential for life.
Dalton Gang in the Wild West. Bob Drury. Tom Clavin. The Wild West
I’ve been deep in research for my new book, but I recently took a welcome detour to chat with fellow author Tom Clavin. His latest book, aptly titled The Last Outlaws, is a riveting exploration of life on the edge of the law during the twilight of the Wild West. Through a tapestry of history and high-stakes adventure, Clavin resurrects the infamous Dalton Gang—brothers bound not just by blood but by a spree of bank and train robberies that marked the American frontier.
The Lost Spy and the Green Dress
By – August 2, 2023 The tensions present in Israeli culture during the 1960s are at the heart of Alex Paz-Goldman’s engrossing novel, The Lost Spy and the Green Dress. Twelve-year-old Motti struggles with his ambivalent feelings about his parents, both of whom are Holocaust survivors. His father is unable to earn a living, both parents are depressed. Motti views their persistent use of Yiddish rather than Hebrew as a sign of intractable victimhood.
Developing My First TV Show
Welcome to all the new subscribers. Our community broke the 6,000 mark last week, roughly a year after beginning this newsletter. It’s been a joy. Thank you for reading! While finishing this post, the Writers Guild of America went on strike for a better slice of the pie for its members.
"The Best Job I've Ever Had"
As a young journalist, my ambition to become a White House correspondent was fairly keen. It was thrilling to imagine peppering the President of the United States of America with questions and calling truth to power. One too many viewings of All The Presidents Men probably did not help. I would be the next Woodward or Bernstein. My career took a different path, first with international reporting, then into my first true love: books.
The Multi-Hyphen Life
Since the 9th grade, I hoped to become an author. Like many ambitions, there was an inspiring teacher, Mrs. Barkely, behind it. One day after submitting an essay on Moby Dick, she advised, “You should think about being a writer.” At twenty-two, I was partly there, working as a journalist overseas. At thirty, I sold my first book to Doubleday. I was officially an author. For the next two decades, I thought of myself as just and only that: an author. It was enough.
Max Chen | Kid Reporters' Notebook | Scholastic Inc.
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My conversation with Neal Bascomb
Good morning, friends! ☀️ At the beginning of last week, I had the chance to talk with Neal Bascomb, whose book The Perfect Mile I wrote to you about last Thursday. Originally, I intended to send out the video to you last week, but then I started writing and the piece that started in my head became, by the time it made it to the screen, something else entirely. (Which happens sometimes for writers!) That said, I didn’t want to let too much time go by before I shared our conversation with you.
Path Lit by Lightning
First off readers, some of you might have been expecting a profile of a zookeeper. That’s understandable since I promised one was coming. Alas, there was a hiccup during fact-checking, but it’s coming next Saturday. Instead, as evidenced by the photo above, I have some wonderful HistoryCraft. In grade school, I read a short biography of Jim Thorpe, the Native American athlete who won two Olympic gold medals in track & field, reigned supreme on the football field, and played major league baseball.
Want to Work & Adventure Around the World?
Through Substack, I’ve made many wonderful connections. Some were born out of curiosity, others for collaborations, and still others out of pure envy. Brent and Michael surely fall into the latter category. As my wife will attest, I’d love nothing more than to sell our house, car, and belongings and then hit the open road. So, I reached out to this dynamic duo of digital nomads to learn about how they managed to do exactly that and to examine their daily workcraft.
"Look at Your Fish!"
I wanted to be a novelist. Beyond my journalism, I had never thought of writing non-fiction books. I’m not exactly sure why, perhaps because fiction had always been what I read throughout school and for pleasure. Then one afternoon at the Strand Bookstore in NYC’s East Village, I came across The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Of all places, the book was located spine out on a shelf in the cavernous fiction section. And what a spine it was, at least a couple of inches thick as I remember it.
How I Sold a Zombie Apocalypse
A little personal memory before I launch into my first CreatorCraftQ&A. Future interviews will feature artists as well as industry insiders, speaking to how they go about their work, whether it’s in the field of books, art, film, theater, music, dance, or another creative pursuit. It was the summer of 1998. I was living in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, inhabiting the cliché of a twenty-something ex-pat writing the great American novel. Called Chasing Blue, it was as bad as the title sounds.
The Superpowers of Anna Wintour
As most people who know me well will say, I am not terribly interested in fashion. My color palette borders on monochrome, and I buy for longevity rather than the latest trends. But I am fascinated by Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue. Her fearsome reputation. Her look. Her iconic command of fashion and media. Her longevity. That’s why I’m so glad to open my new series, THE WORKSHOP, with Wintour’s biographer Amy Odell.
The Story of a Lifetime on Ukraine's Frontlines (Part II)
In the first week of war, Brett and his fellow WSJ reporters rushed out of Kyiv on orders from their editors in London and New York. He never knew exactly why, but the increasing indeterminate bombing of the Ukrainian capital likely weighed in the favor of their removal. They made sluggish progress on their escape. The highways were bottlenecked with thousands of vehicles headed west, and the first seven miles from Kyiv took five hours.
On Ukraine's Front Lines, a First-time War Reporter Gets the Story at a Cost
On Saturday, April 2, 2022, Brett Forrest entered the streets of Bucha after Russian troops withdrew from this suburb fifteen miles northwest of Kyiv. His discoveries there would make front-page headlines across the globe. He had already been in Ukraine for two months for TheWall Street Journal, covering everything from the first attacks by Russia in Kyiv to frontline battles across the country. This was his rookie stint as a war reporter, and he tells his story for the first time here.
The Land of In Between
It was 2005. Emilio Perez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was nursing an early-morning hangover in his paint-speckled loft in Bushwick, an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. The phone clanged. Micaela, a curator who would become his life partner, was on the other end of the line. She was in Verona, Italy, preparing for the opening of a new gallery. “You’re in the show,” she said. “Another artist dropped out. You have to make a 60-foot-long piece.
How I Write History: Or, A Window into my Crazy
Since I intend to burrow into the work/craft of others, I thought it fair only to turn the gaze inward and allow readers to understand how I write my books. Here’s an autobiographical piece. I don’t know how to sew. Nor does my wife. By fate, we were handed a daughter (let’s call her Martha) who loves to knit and sew. Yes, she is an old lady masquerading as a young teenager. After Santa delivered a brand-new sewing machine through the chimney, the metaphor “threading the needle” never rang so true.
Saboteurs on Skis: The Secret Raid To Stop The German A-bomb
Norwegian commandos, depicted here in a 1948 dramatization, trek across the landscape to attack a hydroelectric plant in Nazi-occupied Norway. Hero Film/Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy Neal Bascomb July 2016 In a staggered line, the nine saboteurs of Operation Gunnerside cut across the mountain slope. Instinct, more than the dim light of the moon, guided the young men.
The Racers: How an Outcast Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Challenged Hitler’s Best
Gr 7 Up–Masterly history detective Bascomb provides a fascinating chronicle of the European grand prix racing scene during the 1930s. The text focuses on German driver Rudi Caracciola, who drove for the Nazi-sponsored team, and “the outcast” French driver René Dreyfus, who was excluded from the German teams because he was Jewish.
Racers, The
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Hitler's ‘Cavalry of the future’
Ullstein Bild/Getty Images Neal Bascomb Summer 2020 Adolf Hitler had an ulterior motive for ramping up the Third Reich’s investment in the German automotive industry and its racing teams. On February 11, 1933, Adolf Hitler strode into Berlin’s vast “Hall of Honor” to open the city’s International Motor Show. As he stood on a high, well-lit podium, dressed in a black suit, silence fell over the crowd inside. Hitler had become Germany’s chancellor only 12 days earlier.
Lucy Schell: The Pioneering Rally Driver Who Beat the Nazis
This story is based on the book Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler's Best, available now. If high society had its way, Lucy Schell would have attended the toniest schools, toured the capitals of Europe, married dynastically and, until her death in 1952, devoted her inherited fortune to hosting teas and flapper parties. She moved to Paris instead and became a rally driver.
The Speed Queen Who Took on Hitler
Courtesy of Richard Adatto Neal Bascomb April 13, 2020 They say history is written by the victors, and the 1938 German loss to a French-born Jew René Dreyfus, and his female boss, heiress and speed queen Lucy Schell, had to be destroyed from the annals of history. The Nazis could not stand what the latter had achieved in defeating Hitler’s Silver Arrow race cars in Pau, France in 1938.
How an American Heiress and an Outcast Jewish Racer Took On Hitler's Best
Midmorning, heading north on the I-405 from Los Angeles International Airport, I am stuck in a traffic jam. A sea of vehicles of every make surrounds me: long-haul semis, boxy sedans, Denalis with tinted windows, Priuses with Uber stickers, black town cars, landscaping trucks, and the occasional zesty convertible. My own rented black GMC Terrain is one of those nondescript compact SUVs that automakers stamp out with all the cookie-cutter variation of a Ford Model T.
On the Road with the Heiress Who Dominated Early Motorsports
Jacques Marsillac, a reporter for the popular Parisian daily Le Journal, arrived at a stylish Parisian restaurant ready for lunch. A distinguished correspondent who had covered insurrections in Ireland and North Africa, Marsillac, for his next assignment, would accompany American heiress and rally driver Lucy O’Reilly Schell on her next adventure. Trench coat draped over his arm, he surveyed the lunchtime crowd. A woman’s voice rang out over the hubbub.
Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best
This accounting of an iconic 1938 race recaps every twist and turn, for better or worse. Racing in the European Grand Prix is like playing at Carnegie Hall, singing at the Met, or scaling Mt. Everest: it is the epitome of excellence, achieved by few, but thrilling thousands.
The Jewish Racing Driver Who Beat the Nazis
In 1933, the newly-elected leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, announced that the Third Reich would dominate the Grand Prix. After the government poured funds into Mercedes and Auto Union, their top drivers Rudi Caracciola and Bernd Rosemeyer swept the field in their supercharged Silver Arrow race cars. A woman named Lucy Schell decided that something had to be done—so she launched her own racing team.
"Faster" Author Neal Bascomb on the Jewish Auto Racer who Defied Hitler
Neal Bascomb has written many works of nonfiction, digging into historical episodes to find stories of perseverance and triumph over adversity. The research for his latest book involved unearthing a forgotten challenge to Nazi doctrines of racial supremacy by a Jewish driver pushed out of racing by European antisemitism, and his unlikely allies. It also involved high-speed laps in a rare vintage Delahaye race car. He shares insight into the process of research and writing here.
Zimowa forteca
Prawdziwa historia, która brzmi jak najlepszy szpiegowski film. Spektakularna akcja sabotażowa, która zniweczyła nuklearne plany Hitlera. Jest rok 1942 i nazistowskie Niemcy dążą do zbudowania broni, jakiej świat dotąd nie widział. W tym celu powołują zespół fizyków i gromadzą zapasy uranu.
‘Return to the Reich’ Review: Refugee Redux
It was with noble purpose that Eric Lichtblau came to write “Return to the Reich.” He wanted to celebrate the anonymous, unsung heroes of World War II and sought the advice of Eli Rosenbaum, a former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations. Mr. Rosenbaum, a long-time Nazi hunter, suggested the author look up Freddy Mayer, who led one of the war’s most successful spy efforts. Mr. Lichtblau seized on the advice and immediately set out to meet Mayer, who was by then 94.
‘The Volunteer’ Review: A Noble Hero in a Savage New World
Few books have enthralled, incensed and haunted me as “The Volunteer” has done. There were times I felt compelled to set it aside. There were others when hours of reading passed in what felt like moments. I told myself that I couldn’t finish it—review be damned!—and yet hurried to the end. The actions of Witold Pilecki, and the superb account of them by Jack Fairweather, inevitably engendered an array of intense emotions. First, the dramatic prelude.
The Jewish Spies Who Posed as Arabs (Published 2019)
Nonfiction The unit’s first incarnation, the Syrian Section.Credit...Palmach Archive March 22, 2019 SPIES OF NO COUNTRY Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel By Matti Friedman If experience is any guide, spies are not wont to emote. On the rare occasions they do speak about their perilous missions, they avoid sentiment, as if recounting a visit to the dry cleaners. For this reason, histories often fall short in tapping the depths of their lives — or, more aptly, their humanity.
THE ESCAPE ARTISTS
This audiobook demonstrates that history is often more interesting than fiction. Narrator L.J. Ganser tells the true story of a group of Allied prisoners who escaped from a WWI POW camp. Ganser recounts the previously untold details of how this group of men overcame long odds to break out of Holzminden, a German prison camp under the control of an brutal commander. Ganser's performance is, as usual, spot-on.
Book Review: Spies in the Congo
By Neal Bascomb October 2017 • World War II Magazine BEFORE WORLD WAR II, workers unearthed tons of uranium ore from the open-pit Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo. The substance’s purity was unparalleled anywhere else on earth. But until the discovery of nuclear fission in late 1938, there was little market for the radioactive ore. Then uranium, an essential ingredient in developing an atomic bomb, became a substance of intense interest.
The Winter Fortress
The Winter Fortress charts an epic scientific adventure and spy story about the greatest act of sabotage in all of World War II. Here is an excerpt from the opening of the book, chronicling the heroic efforts to destroy Nazi access to deuterium oxide--"heavy water"--an essential ingredient in their plans to build a weapon that could decide the war. On February 14, 1940, Jacques Allier, a middle-aged, nattily dressed banker, hurried through the doors of the Hotel Majestic, on rue la Perouse.
NEAL BASCOMB -THE GRAND ESCAPE: The Greatest Prison Breakout of the 20th Century
Author: Neal Bascomb Book: THE GRAND ESCAPE: The Greatest Prison Breakout of the 20th Century Publishing: Arthur A. Levine Books (September 25, 2018) http://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Neal_Bascomb_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher): Neal Bascomb, author of The Nazi Hunters, returns with his next thrilling work of narrative nonfiction about a group of Allied POWs who staged an escape for the ages during World War I.
November Book-o-scopes: Narrative nonfiction to spice up small talk
Your next read is in the stars! Let Allie, the Book Psychic, pick a book for you based on your star sign. The holiday season is officially upon us, meaning you’re expected to attend a million and one parties. Spice up your small talk by reading some great narrative nonfiction. It’s a win-win: you’ll impress your coworkers, family and friends with fascinating stories and trivia, and you’ll also get to read an entertaining book. Aquarius: Jan. 20 — Feb.
Military History Book Review: Red Mutiny
More than a century has passed since sailors aboard the Imperial Russian Navy battleship Potemkin deposed their officers and challenged Tsar Nicholas II. In Red Mutiny, Neal Bascomb has taken a fresh look at the events of June 1905 absent the political bias of previous historians. The author doesn’t depict the mutiny as a mere isolated naval incident, but places it squarely in the context of the times.
Learn Something New: Historical narrative nonfiction
Who says history has to be boring?
Learning from the Best: Escape Artists of World War I
In 1917 the most troublesome, breakout-prone Allied POWs were sent to a land-locked prison called Holzminden. By assembling such a group with dozens of attempts under their belts, the Germans unwittingly created an “Escape University”.
The Escape Artists: A Band of Daredevil Pilots and the Greatest Prison Break of the Great War by Neal Bascomb
In The Escape Artists (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Neal Bascomb, author of The Nazi Hunters, delivers the spellbinding story of the downed Allied airmen who masterminded the remarkably courageous – and ingenious – breakout from Germany’s most devilish POW camp. Neal Bascomb, New York Times best-selling author, delivers the spellbinding story of the downed Allied airmen who masterminded the remarkably courageous — and ingenious — breakout from Germany’s most devilish POW camp.
The Grand Escape: The Greatest Prison Breakout of the 20th Century
Bascomb (who also wrote The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi and other adult titles) knows how to tell a tale that keeps the reaer on the edge of the seat.
THE GRAND ESCAPE
Allied prisoners of war stage a series of intrepid escapes from German captors in this young readers’ version of a true story from World War I. Established to hold captured Allied officers with histories of escape attempts, the camp at Holzminden, a “land-locked Alcatraz,” was 150 miles from the Dutch border and bristling with guards.
Breaking the News: KC’s Changing Mediascape
How do you get news about your community? Do you turn on the radio, scroll through phone apps or online feeds, flip on the TV, or pick up a hard copy of the daily paper?Representatives of the Kansas City area’s journalism community examine a local media landscape buffeted by dwindling revenues, cost-saving cuts in staff and resources, and increasingly splintered audiences.
Breaking Away
Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It. IN our own sporting age of vast salaries, commercial super-saturation and doping, the breaking of the 4-minute mile barrier 50 years ago, on May 6, 1954, looks an increasingly pristine, heroic achievement.
Book Review: Spies in the Congo | HistoryNet
Spies in the Congo: America’s Atomic Mission in World War II By Susan Williams. 432 pp. PublicAffairs, 2016. $28.99. BEFORE WORLD WAR II, workers unearthed tons of uranium ore from the open-pit Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo. The substance’s purity was unparalleled anywhere else on earth. But until the discovery of nuclear fission in late 1938, there was little market for the radioactive ore.
True Crime: Books, Podcasts, and Documentaries - The Hub
With Season 2 of the popular podcast Serial nearing the end of this current season, the FX original limited series, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and the runaway Netflix hit Making a Murderer, our fascination with crime stories doesn’t seem to wane.
13+ Things Your Child's Teacher Won't Tell You
If we teach small children, don’t tell us that our jobs are “so cute” and that you wish you could glue and color all day long. Technology has changed kids' behavior (for the worse) Kids used to go out and play after school and resolve problems on their own. Now, with computers and TV, they lack the skills to communicate. They don't know how to get past hurt feelings without telling the teacher and having her fix it.
The Race to a Norwegian Castle Fortress to Stop a Nazi Atomic Bomb
In 1942 the Nazis had the physicists and the uranium to build an atomic bomb, but they needed “heavy water.” Occupied Norway had the one plant—the castle fortress of Vermork—that makes it. And so began an espionage race like few in history—with the survival of whole countries hanging in the balance. In a staggered line, the nine saboteurs cut across the mountain slope. Instinct, more than the dim light of the moon, guided the young men.
How I Write History: Or, A Window Into My Crazy
I don’t know how to sew. Nor does my wife. By fate, we were handed a daughter (let’s call her Martha) who loves to knit and sew. Yes, she is an old lady in an eight-year old’s body. After Santa delivered a brand new sewing machine through the chimney, the metaphor “threading the needle” never rang so true. I wanted to toss the whole contraption into the fire by day’s end. Months later, Martha is into quilt-making, something my mother and grandmother did before her.
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