More Noted Things
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,"Folly's Antidote," NY Times, 1 January, argues that"... history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future." I'm less persuaded that"Many signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people."
Steve Paulson,"Seeing the light – of science," Salon, 2 January, features an interview with the University of Wisconsin's Ron Numbers, one of the United States' leading historians of science. Thanks to David Parker at Another History Blog for the tip.
Why has Jim Russell, chairman of the history department at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, not fired Fred Ruhlman as an adjunct instructor in the department? Ruhlman's"doctorate" is from"the American University of London", a notorious diploma mill (scroll down); and his book, Captain Henry Wirz and Andersonville Prison, was withdrawn from publication by the University of Tennessee Press because of its plagiarism from William Marvel's Andersonville: The Last Depot. Thanks to Margaret Soltan at University Diaries, who looks at Ruhlman's evaluations at RateMyProfessor, for the tip. F*i*r*e t*h*e m*a*n n*o*w, Jim.
Finally, the history department at Emory University has been notified that Elizabeth Fox-Genovese died yesterday at about 11:45 a.m. Betsey had been ill for several years. Plans for a funeral and/or memorial service are incomplete. Rest in peace.