More Noted Still
Michael Pahl,"The Historicity of Jesus," The Stuff of Earth, Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V, is a very good series. It should be read, together with Brandon Watson's comments at Siris.
In the Michael of Rhodes Project, a team of scholars from Canada, Germany, Italy, and the United States is preparing the manuscript of a 15th century Greek sailor in the navy of Venice for publication by MIT Press next year. Thanks to PK at BibliOdyssey, who reproduces some illustrations in the manuscript, for the tip.
Richard Gott, the author of Cuba: A New History, has an op-ed,"The Brutal Story of British Empire Continues to this Day," Guardian Unlimited, 22 July. The comment threads are interesing. Gott's currently writing a book on imperial resistance. Thanks to Mark Brady at Liberty and Power for the tip.
Almost a year ago, I wrote at Cliopatria about visiting Moore's Ford Bridge, east of Atlanta, with my virtual son, Chris Richardson. Moore's Ford was the site of a multiple lynching on 25 July 1946. Here's an AP update about a local activist and the fear that keeps witnesses from speaking about the lynching, even sixty years later. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.
I'm inclined to agree with Andrew Sullivan's claim that Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Penguin, 25 July), will get a lot of attention. Ricks covered the Pentagon for the Wall Street Journal until 2000, when he moved to the same beat for the Washington Post. Even before publication, it's jumped from #1428 to #94 in Amazon's sales rank. There's a foretaste of the book in Ricks,"In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam," Washington Post, 23 July.
70% of Jackson, Mississippi's 174,000 people are now African Americans, but there's no longer even a movie theater in the city. A month ago, its African-American mayor declared a"state of emergency" to fight rising crime rates in Jackson. Tom Brokaw's NBC special report,"Separate and Unequal," takes a close look at poverty in a deep South city tonight at 7:00 p.m. (edt and pdt, 6:00 p.m. cdt).