Things Noted Here and There

John McClymer,"teaching in a ‘collaborative, interactive, multimediated, networked, nonlinear, and multi-accented' environment," if:book, 27 July, describes how new possibilities have changed his approach to teaching history at Assumption College. His remarkable syllabus for HIS 389: SPECIAL TOPICS: AMERICA IN THE GILDED AGE AND PROGRESSIVE ERA, 1877-1920 illustrates the changes, but the approach has applications for all history education.

Stacy Schiff,"Know It All: Can Wikipedia Conquer Expertise?" New Yorker, 24 July, is a skeptical look at"a lumpy work in progress."

Stacy Chase,"The Last Ones Standing," Boston Globe, 23 July, outlines the plans of the world's four last Shakers to preserve Maine's Sabbath Day Lake Shaker Village.

Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998), war correspondent and novelist, lived a remarkable life (lover [?] of H. G. Wells, friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Ernest Hemingway, etc.) and she wrote remarkable letters. Carl Rollyson,"Half-Baked But Better Than Nothing," New York Sun 25 July, finds Carolyn Moorehead, ed., Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn flawed by the problems common to authorized biography and editing. Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for the tip.

The first sirens of the day had just gone off when Mechal Sobel wrote to me from Haifa this morning. Anthony Bourdain,"Watching Beirut Die," Salon, 28 July, tells the sad, sad story of his experience of the destruction of Beirut. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.