Star Wars and History.   I’m Fred Fishkin with technology BootCamp, a report on gadgets and gear.   If you’ve got a Star Wars kind of geek on your holiday shopping list, a fun find is a new book called Star Wars and History.   Co-editor and Pace University history professor Nancy Reagin worked with Lucas Films to create the volume…

“I mean if you’re a historian and you watch those movies you see the Trade Federation and you say, oh, that’s like the British East India Trading Company.  So when we were first working with Lucas Films we drew up an abstract of where we saw all of the historical parallels and we sent them to Mr. Lucas and he said yes, that’s all correct and furthermore I had this and this and this in mind for different individuals.  Because some of the individuals represent or are modeled on several different historical events or they represent a combination of different particular individuals.”

Even Princess Leia’s hair-do has a historical basis.  Star Wars and History is out now, published by Wiley.    You can find us at BootCamp.com.  I’m Fred Fishkin.