Harry Potter and History

It’s an interesting book, and I learned a few things, like where the term “hocus pocus” comes from, and learned more about things such as Nicolas Flemmel (you can visit his house!), and the compare/contrast with Nazis and Death Eaters. There's also good background on how Hogwarts both does and doesn'......more

I don't have a huge spiel to write about with this book. To be honest, I didn't read every single page, I skimmed through it to parts that I thought sounded more interesting to others. I love history, I really do, but sometimes it can drag on a bit. Even with this book comparing history to the histo......more

Usually I love critical essays that center around the Harry Potter books. However, this one was not very well written. It seemed to me like all of the essays were written by college students... that kind of style. It was also difficult to follow at times because all of the essayists would use "Muggl......more

Really interesting premise, however, the execution is not as good. The pacing is very uneven, with some topics rushed through, and some drawn out too long. Still worth a read if you're interested in Harry Potter and/or real life history.......more

Some of the essays were a stretch in terms of making relevant connections to the HP series, and a couple of times the authors seemed tripped up on small HP details. At least one of the essays seemed confused on whether we were pretending the HP world was real for this work and comparing "magic" and......more