The graduate students' Sixth Carnival of GRADual Progress is up at Working Writing Wailing Mama. Tony Keen hosts an ancient/medieval edition of at Memorabilia Antonina on 25 January. Send your nominations of the best in ancient and medieval history blogging since late November to keentony*at*hotmail*dot*com or use the form.

John Seabrook,"Wonder Boys," New Yorker, 29 January, reports on last Tuesday's first meeting of the Athanasius Kircher Society at CUNY and, yes, Princeton's Anthony Grafton presented on Kircher, himself. Thanks to David Meadows at Rogue Classicism for the tip.

Angel Gurria-Quintana,"In No Other's Footsteps," Financial Times, 19 January, reviews Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration and other recent work on world explorers. Thanks to Alfredo Perez at Political Theory Daily Review for the tip.

Caleb Crain,"Bad Precedent," New Yorker, 29 January, reviews Matthew Warshauer's Andrew Jackson and the Politics of Martial Law: Nationalism, Civil Liberties, and Partisanship. There's more at Steamboats are ruining everything, where Caleb comments thoughtfully on the corpus on Jackson.

The New York Times looks at the controversy over the"quilt/code" and the Frederick Douglass monument. The headline's misleading. The"folklore" is a 20th century fantasy.

Goeffrey Wheatcroft,"A Good Kill," Boston Globe, 21 January, reflects on the career of England's premier 20th century executioner, Albert Pierrepont.

Martin Amis:"You Ask the Questions," Independent, 15 January. Amis responds candidly to questions from the Independent's readers. Thanks to Ben Brumfield at Horizon for the tip.

Jeffrey Herf,"We Humanists and the Military," Open University, 22 January, responds to Anthony Grafton,"Princeton Diarist: Military Academy," TNR, 23 January.

Dinesh D'Souza's The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 has tanked with even the most conservative critics. See, for example: Dean Barnett, Hugh Hewitt and Scott Johnson at Powerline.