Welcome!
US History, UK History, And The Bits That Are Both, with Dr. Annette Laing, the Non-Boring Historian
Readers Rave About Non-Boring History
I am so captivated by the stories and love Annette’s sense of humor!
The variety of topics covered has been really great.
I love it. I like the humor, the down to earth method, and the asides. Annette, your personality sells it for me, as much as the learning.
I always learn something unexpected when I read your articles. I also introduced my daughter to NBH for use during homeschooling her son.
Your content has allowed me to realize people are not so much all good or all bad. Things can be grey.
(NBH) has allowed me to have great conversations with other readers and to think more deeply about the past.
The depth of storytelling is excellent -- provides both context and character.
The stories are relatively quick reads, entertaining and informative, and introduce me to new topics I never would have read about on my own. I love it!
Terrific variety and verve!
I think it's opened up my horizons. As a British person, I've only ever studied British history; I've really enjoyed the information that NBH has provided about the US, and the links with British history.
A Warm Welcome from Non-Boring House
Is Non-Boring History for You? It Might Be! Any of These You?
You read historical fiction. You would like to read actual history, but every book you pick up is boring.
You watched Downton Abbey, Twelve Years a Slave or Outlander, but now what?
When you go to museums and historic sites, you get bored. First, you thought it was because you just don't like history. Now you suspect it's because your history education sucked.
Maybe you're a Brit who dismissed American history as, er, you know, American, and unworthy of your attention But now you're curious. Meet a Brit with a PhD in American history! And do I have news for you . . . Sock knocking-off news.
You’re an American or Brit (or neither, welcome!) who’s curious about US and/or British history, and how they connect.
You are of any identity you care to name, or you don’t care for labels. You are Gen Z, Millennial, Boomer, or Silent Generation, or don’t care about that, either. You’re welcome.
You want to know about people, not just wars, politics, presidents, dates.
You teach K12 in the US and you hate sometimes feeling like you’re your feeding students a superficial, dry, and even misleading version of history. You’re also fed up of feeling like a political football.
You think that history is dry, and you wish historians would write more about the rich diversity of the past. (Surprise! They do. Have for decades. Thousands and thousands of books and articles. This is your first hint that things may not be what you think)
Welcome to Non-Boring History!
I’m your host and guide, Annette Laing. I'm a real historian, with a PhD and publications. I'm also a Brit in the US, and a missionary for history who loves to chat, especially with non-academics (aka normal people).
At Non-Boring History, I present relaxed, pleasant opportunities to see history like you never saw it before. This is not the same old stuff the public gets fed. Give Non-Boring History a try, and prepare to be surprised.
Here at Non-Boring House, the number one thing I do is translate academic historians’ work (incredibly boring to almost everyone except scholars), into posts and podcasts that normal people enjoy.
How Non-Boring History Works
Everything I write belongs to one of several areas of the Non-Boring History site, listed along the top of the home page. When you become a paid subscriber, you get them all.
Don’t want podcasts? Not into my road trips? You can opt out of any type of feature you decide you don’t want, anytime, with one click.
TALES: Annette Tells Tales. These long-form posts are the heart of what I do. Here’s where I rewrite historians’ often (sorry, historians) boring prose and complex ideas, as well as original documents, into something normal people actually want to read.
ALOUD: Non-Boring History Aloud. Podcasts of Annette Tells Tales posts.
ROAD: Annette on the Road. Join me virtually and in (almost) real time as I journal my journeys in the US and UK and their histories. I’m often accompanied by my non-historian, real-person husband (He Who Shall Not Be Named On The Internets, or HWSNBNOTI, pronounced Hoosen Benoti).
BITS: Bits of History. Random items from my personal collection, and how they’re not so random as you might think!
THROWBACKS. Writing and experiences from a life lived in archives, classrooms, and museums. I have opinions.
NEW! HISTORY & MEMORY: How what people, real people (i.e. not academic historians) think about the past has changed over time. And let me tell you, this will rock your world.
The Bottom Line
Most of what I write about will be news to you. Most of it is news to me, and I’m a historian (scroll down for my bio!) But let's be clear: Non-Boring History is NOT a fluffy supplement to “important” or “real” history. This IS real history, and it's often more important to my readers than the stuff you (sort of) learned at school. It just happens to be funny much of the time, and fascinating all the time.
Stick with me, and you're going to see truly amazing connections. Our understanding of the messed-up world we inhabit, and always have, will soon feel completely refreshed.
Non-Boring History. It's like a facelift for your brain.
Already hooked? Great! Right here, right now, let's do this.
Not convinced but still interested? Good! Go on, have a bit of a scroll.
A Great Newsletter, A Great Site AND A Great Experience Talking To Your Own Historian!
Here at Non-Boring House, we’re building a varied collection of pieces you can enjoy at the Non-Boring History site, reading whatever grabs your interest, and whenever you feel like it.
For paid subscribers, Non-Boring History normally appears two or three times each week in your inbox or app, at midweek (Tuesday-Wednesday) and on weekends.
Want to try it for free first? You’ll get some of my posts, to help you decide.
I’ll introduce you to a variety of subjects, places, and people in a variety of styles, and you read as the mood strikes.
Non-Boring History comes to your inbox so you stay in the loop and so, if you like, you can comment in real time. Comments are almost always reserved for paid subscribers, so the comments section is a pleasant space, NOT the usual dumpster fire.
Here are your options:
FREE: You will get Non-Boring History emails a few times a month, with my best wishes.
Want to support my work bringing real history to real people? Want to participate in the Non-Boring History community? Want access to everything I write and have written at Non-Boring History? Then:
Become a Nonnie
Subscribe on the monthly, annual, or Founding paid plans, and:
Talk with me and other Nonnies in Nonnie-only comments sections on almost every post.
Get immediate access to everything I’ve written at Non-Boring History’s searchable archive. NO, archive does not mean old and past it. The features are fresh and current! (Are you in education? While NBH is aimed at a general adult audience, you will find great material for teaching here.)
Great pride in supporting us at Non-Boring House in reaching more and more real people with real history in entertaining ways.
Invites to Nonnies-only Zoom events! Maybe, dare I say it, one day, invites to live in-person events!
Meet the Non-Boring Historian
Annette Laing’s Serious Cred
I mean, just look at her, all serious and stuff.
When we’re talking history, you should know who your guide is. I'm not glamorous, but I can write. I’m a shambolic little middle-aged British woman with a wicked sense of humor who lives in the States, and is right at home in the aisles of the supermarket.
Also me, though:
PhD in Early American and British history.
Former tenured professor in the history department and member of the Africana (African and African-American) Studies program at Georgia Southern University. No, I wasn't fired, thank you. After careful consideration, I told Georgia Southern University to shove it where the sun don’t shine, because I had more important things to do. Like Non-Boring History!
Twelve years experience voluntarily teaching hungover freshmen in Georgia at 8 a.m. If I can entertain them, and I did, you don’t scare me.
BA in Journalism. Award-winning campus newspaper editor, reporter, and opinionator here! I write Non-Boring History as journalism, so no footnotes, no jargon, nothing stuck up.
As a historian, I’m best known for an article on 18th century African-American religion. Title on request, because it’s long and boring. But it hit the historical big time! That means professors might talk to me at history conferences after they glance at my nametag, and graduate students (some of them, anyway) bow down before me. Bwahahaha. Am I at Hahvahd, um, Harvard, with a massive pile of books to my credit? No. Of course I’m not. If I were, I wouldn’t have time to write Non-Boring History, and would hire some poor underemployed PhD to write it for me (ughhhh, nope). I’m a POH (Plain Old Historian). And that’s enough, promise. Hey, I have important historian friends. I’ll introduce you to them. The nice ones.
Non-Boring History focuses on what I know best: American and British history, especially the history of real people like us, and how it affects us today. I also have a particular interest in African-American history. I mostly emphasize real life stories about real people that will get us thinking about ourselves, RIGHT NOW.
For many years now, I have been entertaining kids and young teens with history around the US, especially in the rural South. My work with kids quickly drew national attention. I can't afford to be boring.
Author, The Snipesville Chronicles, historical time-travel novels. I thought I was writing for kids, but turns out that adults are big fans too. If you like my writing at NBH, check out Snipesville. And vice-versa.
Presenter to teachers around the US, via Zoom and in person. I help teachers use meaningful stories to be Non-Boring.
Presenter to community groups on Zoom. Does your book club, service group, or similar want to chat? It’s free, but subject to my availability. Book me at AnnetteLaing.com
I am not posh, although I can play posh. I'm an overeducated lower middle-class Scot who grew up in a working-class town in England. I have lived in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Atlanta, a small town in rural Georgia called Statesboro, and now Madison, Wisconsin. I still spend a lot of time Down South, and I speak fluent Georgian: Hey, y'all! How's your mama ‘n them? I've also returned to the UK almost every year for more than 20 years, not just to visit, but to tour historic sites around the country, and to stay in touch with Britain and Brits in the present.
I’m a missionary for history for everyone, and that includes you! I promise not to turn up on your doorstep with a pile of books.
Go on! Give Non-Boring History a Spin!
Have friends in the US, UK, or beyond who might want to know about Non-Boring History? Tell them, too!
Extra: What We’re Really Doing at Non-Boring History
You read this far? Brilliant! Still got some time? You might want to know what this is really about.
Non-Boring History isn't history.
It’s a gateway to the history you never got at school, written by an academic historian, me, who reaches out for critiques and direction from other academic historians as she goes.
I'm a historian, writing for you as a journalist. But, as a historian, I don't tell you stuff just to tell you stuff. I don’t do clickbait, I don’t do trivia.
At Non-Boring History, I also have a transparently personal take on the past.
I'm working to demo why fun deep dives into history matter, unlike the usual textbook stuff. I’m showing the weird ways in which historians think. I really want to help us out of the shouty mess we’re in right now.
Not that historians don't argue. Heck, I once listened to one distinguished scholar suggest to a packed auditorium at a national conference that her equally esteemed colleague's brain had been kidnapped by space aliens, while he sat scowling next to her {sharp intake of breath from grad students}.
But I won't be arguing here. As was once said of Thomas Jefferson, with whom I have nothing else in common, I'm a scholar, not a debater.
I bring the ethics of history and good, old-fashioned journalism to what I do. I pay close attention to evidence, investigate doubt, embrace complexity and empathy, play Devil’s advocate, consider my own biases, keep an open mind and refuse to accept something untrue just to be polite. This is also why I don’t get invited to parties.
Don’t I make mistakes, covering so many subjects? Of course I do! That's why I revisit my posts, and make corrections. That’s why I invite academic historians and other experts to let me know if they see a problem. Then I fix it, and show you how and why it happened.
STILL want to know more about me? Good grief. Visit: AnnetteLaing.com. But first . . .