Things Noted Here and There
On Black History Month: Jennifer Viegas,"Black Ancestry Records Yield Surprises," Discovery Channel, 15 February, discusses Ancestry.com's offer of free access to its 55 million documents for African American genealogy for three days during February. (Thanks to Dale Light for the tip.) Black History Month turns up interesting stories about African American students at white Southern universities long before the 1960s. Some of them have been well-known. Others, not. There's Samuel F. Harris at the University of Georgia. And George Moses Horton (or Pauli Murray or Zora Neale Hurston) at the University of North Carolina. There's even reason to think that James Meredith was not the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. Someone will write the book, with a big chapter on the University of South Carolina during Reconstruction, about African Americans and Southern state universities before the civil rights era.
On Technology: Hugh Pearman,"The Shock of the Old: Redefining the History of Technology," Gabion, 2007, reviews David Edgerton, The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900. Thanks to Rob MacDougall's The New New at Old is the New New.
On Cold War's Simple Clarity: Paul Kennedy,"The good old days of the Cold War," LA Times, 18 February, argues that"simpler times" weren't so simple. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.
On Sanctity: Stewart Derbyshire,"Mother Teresa and the ‘me, me, me' Culture," Spiked, 14 February, reviews Gezim Alpion's Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity?. The simple dichotomy probably doesn't explain the complexity.
On Free Speech: Scott Jaschik,"$500 Fines for Political Profs," Inside Higher Ed, 19 February, reports on legislation moving ahead in Arizona.