Thursday's Notes

James Bridle,"On Wikipedia, Cultural Patrimony, and Historiography," booktwo.org, 6 September, argues that history is not"a set of facts, but ... a process, and one in which, whether we agree or not with the writers, our own opinions and biases are always to be challenged." He illustrates his vision with 12 bound volumes of all the editorial revisions of a single Wikipedia article on"The Iraq War". See also:"Post-Factual History," Andrew Sullivan, 8 September, and Heather Cox Richardson,"But Is It History?" THS Blog, 10 September. Thanks to Alan Baumler.

James Delbourgo reviews Judith A. Carney's and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff's In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World for the THE, 9 September.

Kirk Davis Swinehart,"They Died With Their Myths On," The Book, 8 September, reviews Nathaniel Philbrick's The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Charles McGrath,"A Writer's Long Journey to Trace the Great Migration," NYT, 8 September, reviews Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns.

Greg Grandin,"It Was Heaven That They Burned," Nation, 8 September, takes another look at the popularity of, controversy over, and durability of I, Rigoberta Menchú.

Peter Stothard,"Tony Blair's Journey," TLS, 8 September, is easily the most important of the reviews of Blair's memoir.