Friday's Notes

Timothy Garton Ash,"The freedom of historical debate is under attack by the memory police," Guardian, 16 October, decries the legislation of memory. Ash joins Eric Hobsbawm, Jacques Le Goff, Heinrich August Winkler, and other European and Israeli historians in the"Appel de Blois," Le Monde, 10 October. Here is an English translation of the"Call of Blois." You can add your name to it by emailing: contact*at*lph-asso*dot*fr . Hat tip.

Richard A. Fortey,"A flood of fossils," TLS, 15 October, reviews Ralph O'Connor's The Show on Earth: Fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802–1856 and Martin J. S. Rudwick's Worlds Before Adam: The reconstruction of geohistory in the age of reform.

Trev Broughton,"Yours rudely, Katherine Mansfield," TLS, 15 October, reviews Vincent O'Sullivan and Margaret Scott, eds., The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield. Volume Five: 1922-1923.

Matthew Sutton,"A Tale of Two Mavericks," The Immanent Frame, 16 October, suggests that, if you're having trouble absorbing John McCain and Sarah Palin, consider the possibility of Huey Long and Aimee Semple McPherson. Yah. That's the ticket! Hat tip.

Andrew Sullivan,"Why I Blog," Atlantic Monthly, November, puts his apologia for blogging in historical perspective.