Sunday's Notes

by Cliopatria

Ian Morris,"Latitudes not Attitudes: How Geography Explains History," History Today, 20 October, argues that geography blessed western civilization.

Edward Rothstein,"Abraham's Progeny, and Their Texts," NYT, 22 October, reviews"Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam," an exhibit at the New York Public Library.

E. J. Wagner,"A Murder in Salem," Smithsonian, November, features a crime that may have inspired both Hawthorne and Poe.

Elyssa East,"Criminal Mind," NYT, 22 October, reviews Douglas Starr's The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science.

David Greenberg,"Hating Woodrow Wilson," Slate, 22 October, takes another look at Glenn Beck's favorite President to hate. Earlier, see: Radley Balko at Reason, John Milton Cooper of Wisconsin, Mark Atwood Lawrence of Texas, Jill Lepore of Harvard, Michael Lind of the New America Foundation, George H. Nash, Edward Tenner of the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center, and Thomas G. West of Dallas.

Clifford Green,"Hijacking Bonhoeffer," Christian Century, 5 October, reviews Eric Metaxas's Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Thanks to John Fea.

Lincoln Caplan,"The Political Philosopher Beneath the Robes," Slate, 21 October, reviews Seth Stern's and Stephen Wermiel's Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion.

James Mustich,"Talkin' Bob Dylan," Barnes & Noble Review, 19 October, interviews Griel Marcus and Sean Wilentz.

Jonathan Alter,"The State of Liberalism," NYT, 21 October, evaluates books and ideas on the contemporary American left. Christopher Caldwell,"The State of Conservatism," NYT, 21 October, evaluates books and ideas on the contemporary American right.

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Jonathan Jarrett - 10/24/2010

I'm glad Ian Morris's piece does list Jared Diamond's <em>Guns, Germs and Steel</em> in its bibliography, or I was going to be mildly outraged at the rip-off. However, while overall his take is less subtle than Diamond's (and hey, this is a web article, Diamond's book is a fat paperback) he doesn't use half as much uncheckable and subjectively-read archaeology, his theory incorporates change over time more elegantly and the actual machinery of it is simpler. Stimulating stuff! Thanks for posting it, Ralph.

Chris Bray - 10/24/2010

God, that David Greenberg thing is bizarre:

"On one program [Glenn Beck] seemed unsure whether Birth of a Nation was 'the first big silent movie' or 'the first silent movie,' and said he'd read that it was 'based on Wilson's writings'—something one of his guests, uneasily, said he hadn't 'verified.' (For the record, Griffith borrowed some language from Wilson's History of the American People for the title cards, but the movie was based on a contemporary novel, The Clansman, and Wilson's take on Reconstruction and the Ku Klux Klan was much more moderate than the film's.)"

Sure: Woodrow Wilson was a racial moderate.

And so on. Greenberg references Wilson's "idealistic internationalism (given a bad name by George W. Bush)," but takes care not to notice how idealistic Wilson was when Ho Chi Minh approached him in Paris and said hey, about that self-determination you keep mentioning...

I also quite enjoy the trailing away into vagueness: "Public opinion demanded a stronger role for government, which was the only institution possessing the resources to make a difference."

And make a difference government did, from Jim Crow to trench warfare. But thank god the progressives stood up to corporate power, because now we don't have any -- they cleared that problem right up.

Radley Balko asks some worthwhile questions at the end of his piece on Wilson. Presidential biographers: mere worshippers of power. They rate presidents highly when they do lots of stuff. This is, I'm repeating myself, a faith.