David Reamer is an academic and public historian who has published on subjects as diverse as baseball, housing discrimination, the 18th century English Gin Craze, and toilet paper. He writes weekly for the Anchorage Daily News (Histories of Anchorage) and daily on Twitter (@anc_historian).

Although most historians specialize in topic, approach, or both, David’s subject choices do not fit these norms. He says, “I have covered a broad range of historical narratives, from the tragic to the ludicrous. This reflects the reality of history, whiplashing between disasters, the mundane, and outright comedy. No personal anecdote better illustrates this truth than how a deep dive into the depressing history of housing discrimination in Alaska led me to one of the silliest episodes in local history, the midcentury chinchilla breeding boom and bust.”

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David Reamer