Tristram Hunt's"Historians in Cahoots" in the Guardian sees a connection between the politics of the Bush era and the resurgence of admiring biographies of the Founding Fathers. He's not much impressed by either of them. Thanks to Chris Pettit for the tip.

At Easily Distracted, Tim Burke's"Misrecognitions and Mythologies" continues his reflections on teaching African history, but it reaches to illusions about all of our pasts to which we might want to return.

Haunted by the writing demon, Scott McLemee looks at"Academic Freedom Then and Now" by revisiting Richard Hofstadter and Walter Metzger's The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary. McLemee reminds us of the fragility of traditions only recently acquired.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that philosophers tend toagree with philosophers and historianswith historians when we talk about philosophy and history. I've long thought they were the only two disciplines that might be the heart of a liberal arts curriculum. Much of modern philosophy seems to have abandoned all pretense to it; and much of modern history seems to have abandoned all interest in it. But we do need to begin talking with each other again.

The Second Meeting of the Skeptics Circle is up at Respectful Insolence.

Jeff Cooper at Cooped Up has a good piece on"The Shape of a Blog(g)"; and Blurt at Pish Tosh has a good post up on"The Rhetoric of Blog Humor." Thanks to Eugene Volokh and Bitch. Ph.D. for the tips.