Author/historian Nisbet to visit Moscow tonight

When I was a kid, history wasn’t so much involved with actual facts as it was in perpetuating myths . Not that myths are bad. But they’re analogous to the truth, not a substitute for it.

Which is why it’s so satisfying – for me, at least – to check out the work of historians/naturalists who delve into actual science to reveal the past. And one of those historians is Jack NIsbet , Spokane-based author of such books as “Visible Bones,” “Sources of the River” and the collection of essays “Ancient Places: People and Landscape in the Emerging Northwest.”

As reviewer Tim McNulty wrote in the Seattle Times , “Nisbet combines historic research with field work, personal interviews, and the kind of local knowledge that is gained only through decades of living in a place. He pays attention to stories told by longtime residents and tribal people, as well as geologists, paleontologists, anthropologists and university researchers.”

Nisbet will share and sign copies of “Ancient Places” at 6 p.m. tonight at Moscow’s BookPeople, 521 S. Main St. He will be joined by Dennis Baird and Diane Mallickan, co-edtors of “Encounters with the People: Written and Oral Accounts of Nez Perce Life to 1858 (Voices from Nez Perce Country).”

The event is free and open to the public.