Sunday Notes

History Carnival LVI is up at Tim Abbot's Walking the Berkshires. He calls it a"Rocky Road Pistachio Mocha Chip Edition (with Cracker Jack® Topping!)." I don't know about all that, but it's a damn good one!

Cliopatria gives advice:
Tim Burke,"I Choose You, Pikachu," Easily Distracted, 1 September, offers additional advice to those who are considering going to graduate school. No one's more thoughtful on a subject like this.
Rob MacDougall, My Back Pages," Old is the New New, 31 August, recalls his early experience as a blogger. It and Sharon Howard's"Pixelated Dust," Early Modern Notes, 1 September, spit contempt on the" commandments of blogging."

William Chace,"The Academy on Trial," NY Sun, 28 August, reviews Anthony Kronman's Education's End: Why our Colleges and Universities have given up on the Meaning of Life. Hat tip.

Stimulated by a reading of Alan Weisman's A World Without Us, Geoff Manaugh's"Derinkuyu, or: The Allure of the Underground City," BldgBlog, 19 August, focuses on the underground cities of Cappodocia in central Turkey. Weisman makes a debatable claim that these cities, which apparently thrived from about the 4th to the 10th centuries CE and are now being rediscovered, might be the last surviving evidence of our existence in a world without human beings. Hat tip.

Mark Mazower,"Political Inspiration," Washington Post, 2 September, reviews Michael Burleigh's Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror.

Abigail Zuger,"Collaborators in a Quest for Human Perfection," NYT, 28 August, reviews David M. Friedman's The Immortalists: Charles Lindhbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever.

Evan Thomas,"A Rush to Judgment," Newsweek, 10 September, reviews KC Johnson's and Stuart Taylor, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. The first major print review gives the book a thumbs-up.