May 19, 2007
Weekend Diversions
What do we live for, if not to link to our neighbours, and be linked to by them in our turn?
SHOTnews (the weblog of the Society for the History of Technology) has posted a collection of interviews with eminent historians of technology (Thomas Hughes, John Staudenmaier, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, more) going back to the 1980s. Many of the interviewers (Jackson Lears, Robert Post, more) are plenty eminent too.
Curious Expeditions is a fine new blog dedicated to"travelling and exhuming the extraordinary past." The territories they cover--animal hypnotism, museums of medical oddities, the blackest of the pudding arts--are similar to those mapped by the Kirchies, but if I am reading it right, D and M are actually travelling to many of the strange locales involved.
Another terrific blog exploring the old, weird Enlightenment is Heather McDougal's (no relation, afaik) Cabinet of Wonders. Here's her review of a book I'm also digging, David Standish's Hollow Earth.
David Bell and Eric Rauchway are discussing military history, counterfactuals, and anti-counterfactualism at Open University.
Data Mining offers some pretty maps of the blogosphere. (via Joho the Blog) What do you know, it is a sphere!
At No Fear of the Future, Jess Nevins (friend, terrifying polymath, and author of the essential Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana) offers an Alternate History of Chinese Science Fiction, from Liu Hui Wen's"Call of Cthulhu" to the"Spicy Gweilo" stories of Judge Bao.
Infocult has a link-rich post on medieval automata, a topic dear to my heart. These clockwork creepy-crawlies at Da Vinci Automata are not very historical, but aren't they cool?
Are you not diverted?
SHOTnews (the weblog of the Society for the History of Technology) has posted a collection of interviews with eminent historians of technology (Thomas Hughes, John Staudenmaier, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, more) going back to the 1980s. Many of the interviewers (Jackson Lears, Robert Post, more) are plenty eminent too.
Curious Expeditions is a fine new blog dedicated to"travelling and exhuming the extraordinary past." The territories they cover--animal hypnotism, museums of medical oddities, the blackest of the pudding arts--are similar to those mapped by the Kirchies, but if I am reading it right, D and M are actually travelling to many of the strange locales involved.
Another terrific blog exploring the old, weird Enlightenment is Heather McDougal's (no relation, afaik) Cabinet of Wonders. Here's her review of a book I'm also digging, David Standish's Hollow Earth.
David Bell and Eric Rauchway are discussing military history, counterfactuals, and anti-counterfactualism at Open University.
Data Mining offers some pretty maps of the blogosphere. (via Joho the Blog) What do you know, it is a sphere!
At No Fear of the Future, Jess Nevins (friend, terrifying polymath, and author of the essential Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana) offers an Alternate History of Chinese Science Fiction, from Liu Hui Wen's"Call of Cthulhu" to the"Spicy Gweilo" stories of Judge Bao.
Infocult has a link-rich post on medieval automata, a topic dear to my heart. These clockwork creepy-crawlies at Da Vinci Automata are not very historical, but aren't they cool?
Are you not diverted?