Star Trek and History
Star Trek and History is an unlicensed reference book that explores the relationship between the then-entire Star Trek body of television and film productions and the real world in all its aspects, ranging from history through science and philosophy to pop culture.

Author/Editor Reagin, a history professor holding three academic degrees, was chairwoman of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at the The State University of New Jersey at the time of her writing.  Her book therefore is a work of academia, exempt from copyright issues, and written from a historical point-of-view.

Summary 
A guide to the history that informs the world of Star Trek – just in time for the next JJ Abrams Star Trek movie

From the back cover
For a series set in our future, Star Trek revisits the past constantly. Kirk and Spock battle Nazis, Roman gladiators, and witness the Great Depression. When they're not doubling back on their own earlier timelines, the crew uses the holodeck to spend time in the American Old West or Victorian England. Alien races have their own complex and fascinating histories, too.

The Star Trek universe is a sci-fi imagining of a future world that is rooted in our own Human history. Gene Roddenberry created a television show with a new world and new rules in order to comment on social and political issues of the 1960s, from the Vietnam War and race relations to the war on terror and women's rights. Later Star Trek series and films also grapple with the issues of their own decades: HIV, ecological threats, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and terrorism.

How did Uhura spur real-life gender and racial change in the 1960s? Is Kirk inextricably linked with the mythical Old West? What history do the Klingons share with the Soviet Union? Can Nazi Germany shed light on the history and culture of the Cardassians? Star Trek and History explains how the holodeck is as much a source for entertainment as it is a historical teaching tool, how much of the technology we enjoy today had its conceptual roots in Star Trek, and how by looking at Norse mythology we can find our very own Q.

Features an exclusive interview with Nichelle Nichols, the actress behind the original Lt. Uhura, conducted at the National Air and Space Museum
Explains the historical inspiration behind many of the show's alien races and storylines
Covers topics ranging from how stellar cartography dates back to Ancient Rome, Greece, and Babylonia to how our "Great Books" of western literature continue to be an important influence to Star Treks characters of the future
Includes a timeline comparing the stardates of Star Treks timeline to our own real world history

Filled with fascinating historical comparisons, Star Trek and History is an essential companion for every Star Trek fan.

Contents
Acknowledgments
A Timeline of Stardates
Star Trek Series and Movie Titles
Introduction
Part One: Characters [Are] Welcome: Backstories
Chapter 1: Riding Posse on the Final Frontier
Western Culture Lassos Eastern Hearts?
Noble Savages in the Neutral Zone
The Federation's Manifest Destiny
JFK, JTK, and the Final New Frontier
Chapter 2: More Than "Just Uhura"
"Changing the Way People See Us"
"The Next Einstein Might Have a Black Face"
"Be Careful What You Wish For"
"Was I Not One of Your Top Students?"
Chapter 3: The Compassionate Country Doctor and Cold-Blooded Biomedicine
The Country Doctor and Biomedical Science at the Crossroads
Dr. Bones McCoy: Marcus Welby in Space
Bones and Spock at the Heart of the Matter
Chapter 4: Who Is Q?
Testing Humanity and the Frankenstein Complex
The Shifting Faces of Q
It’s a Hell of a Life, Jean-Luc
The Coyote Parallel
Part Two: Kirk and Spock Take on Earth History
Chapter 5: The Final Reflection?
"We Need No Urging to Hate Humans"
Too Klingon to Be Human
Hell Hath No Fury...
Foreign Engagements
"What Hope Is There for the Empire?"
Chapter 6: Vietnam, Star Trek, and the Real Future
Vietnam Genesis, Cosmic Exodus
Wars for Peace?
The Enterprise Changes Course!
Chapter 7: You're Doing It Wrong
Gangsters in Space
The Accidental Time Travelers
The Historian's Folly
The Rise of the Nazis
Explaining the Holocaust
The Rome That Never Fell
Back from the Future
Doing it Wrong
Chapter 8: If This Is the (Final) Frontier, Where Are the Natives?
No One Here but Us Noble Savages
A Cartoon but Not a Caricature
You Can Tell by Their Outfits
Boldly Going... a Step Backward
Does Out of Sight Mean Out of Mind?
Who Mourns for Chakotay and His Imaginary Tribe?
A Mixed Grade for a Mixed Legacy
Chapter 9: Terrorizing Space
One Man's Terrorist Is Another Man's George Washington
"They're Terrorists, Dammit": So Let's Negotiate with Them
The Terrorists Among Us
The Xindi as al-Qaeda
Chapter 10: To Boldly Go When No One Has Gone
Before (or After)
The Directive
Time Travel: Possibilities and Paradoxes
The Observation Effect, Butterflies, and Further Causality
Paradoxes
Violating the Temporal Prime Directive versus Preserving the Timeline
Conclusions and Continuums
Part Three: Future Culture
Chapter 11: Shakespeare (and the Rest of the Great Books) in the Original Klingon
A Fondness for Antiques
"You Do Have Books in the Twenty-fourth Century?"
I Wrote It Again Yesterday
"Actually, I Never Read It"
Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor, Not a Literary Historian!
Chapter 12: Information Technology in Star Trek
I Can Has Internet?
Techies for Trekkies
The Android with a Billion Apps (or: Why Don't I Have Cool Stuff Like That?)
Jean-Luc Picard Has Joined Faceborg
Chapter 13: History on the Holodeck
The Big Goodbye
A Fistful of Datas
Elementary, My Dear Data
A New Life-Form Rides the Orient Express
Behaving Badly on the Holodeck
Edutainment of the Future
Chapter 14: Why Star Treks Cartography Is So Stellar, or How the Borg Mapped/Changed Everything
Lines, Logs, and a Frenchman Named Picard
A History of Star Treks Cartography
Über-mapping the Unimatrix: The Borg Shift
It's All Over: The Map
Chapter 15: Who's the Devil?
Live and Let Live
What We Don't Know Can Hurt Us
Intervening to Right Past Wrongs
The Enterprises Evolving Environmental Mission
Part Four: Other Races Have Histories Too, You Know
Chapter 16: Nothing Unreal Exists
"Vulcan Is Not My Idea of Fun": Life on a Desert Planet
Is Biology Destiny?: The Nature of Vulcan Difference
"Vulcans. Deep Down, You're All Just a Bunch of Hypochondriacs": The Dreaded Vulcan Sex Drive
"My Mind to Your Mind... My Thoughts to Your Thoughts..."
The Animalistic Past: Ancient Vulcan and the Rise of Surak
The Time of Awakening
Relationships with the Galactic Community
Reformation
The Federation and Beyond
Logic Is the Cement of Our Civilization: Vulcan "Humanism"
Logic Is the Beginning of Wisdom, Not the End
Chapter 17: Alien Babes and Alternate Universes
I Am the Goddess of Empathy: The Women of The Next Generation
Warrior Women
A Commanding Woman
To Boldly Go... or Not
New Civilizations, Old Patterns
Chapter 18: Klingons
The Savage Race of Klingons
The Medieval Mirror
Kahless the Unforgettable and Karolus Magnus
"Even Half Drunk, Klingons Are among the Best Warriors in the Galaxy"
Chapter 19: Nazis, Cardassians, and Other Villains in the Final Frontier
Nazis in the Star Trek Canon
The History of the Cardassian Empire
The Nazis of Star Trek
Cardassians Aren't Always Nazis; Sometimes They're Soviets
The Place of Cardassians in Star Trek History
Negotiating the Legacy of Star Trek and Its Fans
Starfleet Academy Instructors
Index: Databanks

Background information
 Considering the scope of her work, Reagin invited a range of fellow academics, more versed in a particular subject matter, to contribute texts for particular chapters or sections thereof. All of them, quite a few of them self-professed "Trekkies" like Reagin herself (who was inspired by the Guardian of Forever in  to pursue a history career), are dutifully credited in the "Starfleet Academy Instructors" closing section.
 The "Vietnam Genesis, Cosmic Exodus" section of chapter 6 deals with the 1992-1993 Star Trek Smithsonian Exhibit (and its environs) and was written by its then-Advisory Curator , who had initiated the exhibition. A latter-day Smithsonian Institution successor of Franklin and academic colleague of Raegin, Margaret A. Weitekamp, also contributed to the book. Weitekamp, a closet Trekkie, gained Star Trek renown as the overall project supervisor for the 2014-2016 fourth restoration of the .
 Similar works Reagin has written as well include the Twilight, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings pop-culture franchises.

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