By Al Bell
I guess it’s appropriate that I should be the first faculty member to introduce myself since I’m the senior member of the department, both in age and in terms of service. I came to Hope in 1978. I’ve had the children of some of my first students in my classes.
If someone had asked me in 1978 to list five states where I would like to live, Michigan would not have appeared on that list. But I have enjoyed living in Holland and being part of the Hope community. Three of my children and both of my grandchildren live in Michigan. I have lost one daughter to California (she hates cold weather).
History has always been interesting to me for two reasons: 1) People’s lives in other times and other cultures have an intrinsic fascination. I want to understand why they do/did things the way they do/did. 2) Everything that happens in our world today is the result of what has happened in the past. Understanding the past gives us a fuller understanding of what we’re seeing and hearing in the news today.
Everything that happens in our world today is the result of what has happened in the past.
The first page of our website says that “historians are society’s storytellers.” I’ve taken that more literally than most people and have written several mystery novels set in ancient Rome. I use a real person, Pliny the Younger, as the detective in the novels. Pliny wrote a number of letters which show him as an inquisitive, skeptical person—just the sort to investigate crimes. His two letters on the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD are the basis of the modern study of volcanoes. The books are based on research I’ve done throughout my entire academic career. Reviewers have said they learned a lot about life in ancient Rome while enjoying a good read.