Pamela D. Toler

Like many history buffs, history first caught my imagination through stories. One of my favorite things to do when I was small was curl up next to my grandmother and ask her, "What did you do when you were a little girl?" From there it was a short step to reading biographies about historical women who ignored social boundaries and accomplished things—the kind that are written with the intention of inspiring young girls. My grade school's revolving library owned a whole series of them. Every week a new one arrived and I snatched it before anyone else could get it, eager to read about Clara Barton, Madame Curie or Julia Ward Howe. By the time I was in high school, I was that nerdy kid who hung out at the local historical society and at Wilson Creek National Battlefield on the weekends and in the summer. (I even learned to shoot a muzzle-loading rifle—a skill I never expected to be useful on my resume. Life takes funny twists sometimes.) My life as a history buff took an unexpected turn when at the age of eight or nine I fell in love with Rudyard Kipling's Kim. (Did I mention the importance of stories?) Kipling's India put me on the path to a PhD in South Asia history. It wasn't a straight path. And it wasn't a short one. The first day of my PhD program at University of Chicago, my advisor said, “You know there are no jobs, right?” I knew, but I didn’t care. Without the promise (or perhaps the threat) of a teaching job at the end of the road, I kept wandering down fascinating by-ways. I still do, every chance I get. Today my goal is to write books about important historical topics that will engage history buffs and nerdy kids and the intelligent general reader. (That's you, right?) Accessible doesn't mean easy. The history I write often turns what we think we know about history inside out, or at least looks at the familiar from an unfamiliar angle. In doing so, I ask us to look at the world today from a slightly different angle as well. The impact of this can be profound. If you are able to look at history from someone else's perspective for even a short time, you are more apt to see her as a person rather than "the other." When we re-introduce overlooked populations into the story, the historical framework gets a little bigger, a little more complex. On the other hand, sometimes I just want to tell a good story. Pull up a chair.