Apr 3, 2008

Thursday Notes

by Cliopatria

From the BBC, 4,500 years of the history of Stonehenge in a minute and 20 seconds.

Terry Teachout,"Free the Piano Player," Commentary, April, reviews Kenneth Hamilton's After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance. Hamilton hopes to"inspire performers to break with ‘the fusty rituals of modern concert-giving, in which the music is served up with the superciliousness of a sneering sommelier offering overpriced wine at a too-long-established restaurant'." Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily, which recommends this as an example of what we've been missing.

Paul Collins,"Histories: When the internet was made of paper," New Scientist, 22 March, looks at the Mundaneum, an early 20th century proto-internet or proto-wikipedia. The article is subscriber only, but you get a taste of it at Collins,"House of Cards," Weekend Stubble, 30 March, where you'll also learn about the other major tragedy at Washington, DC's Ford's Theatre. Hat tip to Rob MacDougall.

Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, one of the most successful history bloggers, spoke at Princeton on Tuesday night about his experience as a political blogger and the transition from print to digital journalism. Marshall was introduced by Princeton's Anthony Grafton. The Daily Princetonian and TigerHawk have the story.

Finally, Tim Burke asks the question: If Ward Churchill's historical scholarship is unacceptable for the University of Colorado, why is John Yoo's legal scholarship acceptable in the Justice Department and at U Cal, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law?

More Comments:

chris l pettit - 4/3/2008

Amen...

Such shoddy legal analysis I would expect from state attorneys that went to a non-ABA accredited law school after getting a degree from Keiser College...or a non-lawyer. But the fact is that we have a couple of Supreme Court justices with legal scholarship that is as bad, if not worse (Scalia, Thomas, Alito). If they are allowed in the highest court in the land, why not in the legal academy?

CP

Ralph E. Luker - 4/3/2008

That's a legitimate question, Ed. But so many history bloggers primarily do "Contemporary Commentary" that we've got a whole section for that on the History Blogroll. Josh does have a doctorate, either in history or American civ from Brown, so his site gets included in history blogging's big tent. It's only if a blogger both lacks degrees in history, hasn't published in history, *and only does* contemporary commentary that we wouldn't include them.

Ed Schmitt - 4/3/2008

Though Josh Marshall is trained as an academic historian, can you really call him a "history blogger"? As a regular reader of the site, I see lots of political reporting and very little historical contextualizing except for, occasionally, very recent history.