Latest News (Including clarifications & corrections) 

“History does not run on rails,” a well-known professor of history at Yale is fond of telling his students. Neither does historical research. The first edition of American Disruptor is no exception.

We won’t post every typo out of the well more than 100,000-word manuscript (for example, “principal” should be “principle” on p. 68.) Known issues such as this will get fixed in the next edition. More substantial issues require immediate attention.  

Although painfully exacting and time-consuming (and not inexpensive!) research was conducted into Leland Stanford’s claims to have passed the New York State bar, the first edition lays serious doubts about that. New evidence has come to light since then proving he did, in fact, pass the bar and was certified to practice law in New York in 1848. Questions regarding his sudden abandonment of Albany for Port Washington, Wisconsin remain. 

Questions have been raised about Civil War casualty figures cited by numerous distinguished historians and repeated in the first edition of American Disruptor. Whether the numbers refer to death and wounds is being explored more aggressively and will be resolved before publication of the next edition.