CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
Two Noted Things
The Bulwer-Hanson Awards: David Noon started this thing. He wrote this parody of Victor Davis Hanson. [Er, David corrects me. Hanson actually wrote that stuff!]*
So, now there's a contest for the Best Parody of Victor Davis Hanson. Noon calls it "sort of an Edward Bulwer-Lytton Award for historical hackery." What would the Hanson admirers over at Big Tent do with that? If Chris Bray doesn't hear about it and get inspired, everyone else has a chance to win! Click on the link for rules, deadlines, prizes!
*Or, see this.
Sic et Non: Andrew Sullivan and Josh Marshall have been reflecting on the possibility that chaos in Iraq could plunge the whole Middle East into religious wars comparable to those that Europe experienced in the 16th and 17th centuries. Marshall seems to think that the mention of it reveals the superficiality of widespread earlier observations that what Islam needs is a Reformation. Such calls ignored the century and a half of European warfare before they were settled. "Not to worry, though," says Marshall.
By 2146 or so, after a century or so of bloodletting, there may be a broad political and ideological consensus in favor of relegating religion to the private sphere and leaving the whole thing to personal conscience.
Sullivan and Marshall are right to warn about the horror of the Reformation's unleashing the dogs of war. But I'm stunned by Marshall's conclusion. He's a historian, after all. One of the standard essay questions, when I used to teach Early Modern Europe, was to compare and contrast the Peace of Augburg, the Elizabethan Settlement, and the Edict of Nantes. They brought peace to Germany, England, and France, but the settlements differed remarkably in interesting and important ways. Whatever their similarities and differences, however, none of them represented "a broad political and ideological consensus in favor of relegating religion to the private sphere and leaving the whole thing to personal conscience." Dr. Marshall risks failing History 2.
- Maybe by Oscar Chamberlain (December 6, 2006 at 5:27 PM)
- Re: Maybe by Ralph E. Luker (December 6, 2006 at 6:10 PM)
- Josh Marshall's Reformation History by Martin White (December 12, 2006 at 10:54 AM)
- Re: Josh Marshall's Reformation History by Ralph E. Luker (December 12, 2006 at 12:02 PM)
- Re: Josh Marshall's Reformation History by Martin White (December 12, 2006 at 12:54 PM)
When you are finished with the comments for this entry, close the window to return to the blog.
