All too often, the phrase “local history” used to be synonymous with “boring.” I think that’s changing.

Part of it is the culture. Given the proliferation of publishing options (print on demand, e-books, etc.), and the blogging craze that is encouraging more and more people to channel their inner James Michener, local history has been dusted off and re-packaged.

No longer must such books present a grim choice between pseudo-genealogies thick with names, anecdotes of interest only to the immediate family of the author and extended graduate theses. Now you have, for example, Phyllis Coleman (“A Place Called Brookville”) and Charles Stinson (“Hogtown”).

Coleman and Stinson…

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