Wednesday Notes
Jonathan Yardley,"Why are we so Fascinated by the Lives of Others?" Washington Post, 25 March, reviews Nigel Hamilton's Biography: A Brief History. See also: Hamilton's"Life Studies," Boston Globe, 25 March. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tips.
"Sex in the 1700s," Scientific Blogging, 24 March, reports on the research of Jenny Skipp at the University of Leeds. She argues that erotic literature was widely available in 18th century England and that it had a literary quality and sense of humor not often found in that of our own time. Hat tip.
Already, you can pre-order: Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Case (Thomas Dunne Books, September 2007). You go, KC!
Rick Shenkman's"The Storm Facing Tulane's History Department," HNN, 27 March, breaks a story about a department's internal warfare. As if recovery from Katrina hadn't been challenge enough ....
Darrin McMahon,"Europe, Economics, and History," Open University, 27 March, invites a discussion about the European economy. More, it asks us to consider the fate of economic history. In many places, economics departments or, even Business Schools, have taken history departments' responsibility for it. Eric Rauchway's"Where Are the Economic Historians?" OU, 27 March, is a particularly strong reply on that point. Has the AHA's Employment Information Bulletin advertised positions in economic history in the last twenty years?
The question goes beyond departmental teaching slots. McMahon recalls only a single paper in economic history at the last AHA convention. A good place to begin looking at the state of economic history is EH.Net. It offers abstracts, bibliographies, a conference calendar, reviews, syllabi, and a directory of members of the Business History Conference, the Cliometric Society, and the Economic History Association. One reason for the lack of economic history papers at the AHA convention is that these groups do not meet in conjunction with it. Of the three major economic history societies, only the EHA is affiliated with the AHA and even it does not sponsor sessions at the AHA convention.