Why was Britain so dominant at sea for centuries? They had great rope, of course! Amazingly, traditional rope is still made at the 1,200-foot long ropewalk at Historic Chatham Dockyard in England. Read about how rope enabled the British to rule the waves in my piece from the UK Daily Express.
Was excited to look inside this box and see what the finished hardcover edition of Rope looks like in real life!
Click on the play button below or right here to give the unboxing video a watch!
Jørgen Håland/Flicker
In the Andes mountains of South America folk belief includes providing deceased members of the community with a khipu, a rope object with knotted cords that conveys information. Khipu were long used during the Inkan Empire and were still made after the Spanish conquest. In the case of the deceased and their funerary khipu, the knots on the khipu represent prayers that help the dead person negotiate the afterlife. But there is a dark side to this khipu-assisted afterlife, too.
Had a great time talking with Scott Rank, the host of the “History Unplugged” podcast, about my upcoming book, Rope. Click here and have a listen as Scott and I reveal the significance of rope in human history.
Bit.ly/RopeBook St. Martin’s Press
The Library Reads site has named Rope as the “Notable Nonfiction” book for August 2025!
Most sporting stories have a lifetime. A decade or maybe two after an athlete leaves the field or the court or the track, the memory of their exploits fades until only the historians of that sport are familiar with their career. Sometimes, though, an athlete is so talented and makes such a connection to the public that their reputations live on, burnished by time rather than buried by it.
In The Front Runner, author Brendan O’Meara tells us the story of the elite 1970s runner Steve Prefontaine. O’Meara’s impressive research and lively prose make it clear why Prefontaine’s, or “Pre” as he’s still known by so many in the world of running, legend still burns 50 years after his untimely death in Eugene, Oregon.
Werner Herzog’s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo tells the tale of a crazed opera-loving Irishman, played by Klaus Kinski, who wants to bring opera to the Amazonian jungle. He becomes obsessed with getting a steamship from one river to another to further his plan. And the steamship must be dragged uphill to do this. Most film directors would have shot that sequence with a model ship getting dragged up a model mountain and called it good enough.
But Herzog said “forget models.” He wanted to do the real thing. You could say he was like the title character of his film and he was obsessed with the idea. That is, drag a 320-ton steamship up a muddy 40% incline. But to do that he needed plenty of rope.
Reviews of one’s book are something of a “Be careful what you wish for” situation. Every writer eagerly seeks them but when they arrive you can have the understandable urge to dive under the covers and plug your ears.
We’re still a few months out from Rope‘s August 12 pub date, but Kirkus Reviews’ take on Rope dropped yesterday and thankfully there was no need to hide out. Here’s a quote:
“Queeney demonstrates that a seemingly prosaic subject is anything but. Tying our planet together with cordage, he surveys the history of rope … The next time readers hold a length of rope in their hands, it will be with heightened respect and admiration … Not simply a history of rope, but of the coils of whole peoples.”
In June 1752 Ben Franklin conducted his famous “kite experiment.” He flew a kite amid lightning and thunder to prove that a storm’s bright flashes were electrical in nature. He did this by lofting a kite in a thunderstorm that had a metal key tied to the kite line. The idea sounds a bit dangerous and Ben, indeed, is usually shown out cavorting in a field as lightning cracks all around him. In reality, the wily Franklin wasn’t quite so willing to sacrifice himself for science. Rope was an important element in the experiment since the hemp control line not only held the kite aloft but also was part of Ben’s electrical sensing system.
JKizzieHumanities/Wikipedia
As any scribbler who is lucky enough to get published knows, writing the book is the easy part. The real grind commences after the manuscript wings its way to the publisher. Then the writer is called upon to do that thing most writers avoid: sell. They must hobnob, chat and engage; throw themselves headlong into the churning wheels of the media machine — if the machine even notices them!
Writers have perennially faced this challenge. Had there been podcasts down through history, it might have gone something like this…