Sep 5, 2008

Friday's Notes

by Cliopatria

Marianna Torgovnick,"File Under Fleeting," CHE, 5 September, is a meditation on our time as the age of the archive. We are the archive and our time is passing. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.

Christopher Miles,"Baroque Then and Now," LA Times, 4 September, reviews"Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture," an exhibit at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Biancamaria Fontana,"Enlightenment geniuses together," TLS, 3 September, reviews Renée Winegarten's Germaine de Stael and Benjamin Constant: A Dual Biography and Angelica Goodden's Madam de Stael: The Dangerous Exile.

Burhan Wazir,"The enigma of arrival," The National, 29 August, reviews Ziauddin Sardar's Balti Britain: A Journey Through the British Asian Experience.

Sam Tanenhaus,"The Movement's Remains," TNR, 10 September, reviews Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule and Rick Perlstein's Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.

Finally, of which historian was this most recently said?"It is clear that as a pundit [______] possesses a rather less subtle and sophisticated mind than he does as historian." A) Victor Davis Hanson or B) Sean Wilentz ?

More Comments:

Jonathan Dresner - 9/6/2008

I've heard similar things said about both men, frankly (I read the post in question, so I'm not really participating), and what makes it fun is that it really does apply to both quite well.

In fact, it's likely to become a catch-all criticism for all historian-pundits....

Ralph E. Luker - 9/6/2008

I think you're simply wrong about that, Jeremy. Hanson's work as a classicist is well regarded, generally, by other classicists. Have you read any of it?

Jeremy Young - 9/6/2008

It had to be Wilentz -- I doubt there are many who would praise Hanson's scholarly work like that. I actually think Hanson may be a better columnist than a historian -- his prose is readable, which counts for a lot in a column, but not so much in a scholarly work.