Things Noted Here and There

You may have read about it at Knitting Clio, Historiann, or Legal History. A letter,"Feminist historians for a New Deal," drafted by Mimi Abramovitz of Hunter College, Rosalyn Baxandall of SUNY, Old Westbury, Eileen Boris and Alice O'Connor of the UC, Santa Barbara, Linda Gordon of NYU, Alice Kessler-Harris of Columbia, Annelise Orleck of Dartmouth, and Sally Stein of UC, Irvine, reminds President-elect Obama that New Deal programs did not treat women equally and calls on him to attend to gender equity in his new economic stimulus proposals. Over 1000 American historians of women have now signed the letter.

Kathryn Shevelow,"River of Life," Washington Post, 21 December, reviews Peter Ackroyd's Thames: The Biography.

Philip Dray,"The Crucible of Reconstruction," Washington Post, 21 December, reviews Jacqueline Jones's Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War.

Scott Stossel,"Still Crazy After All These Years," NYT, 19 December, reviews Jonathan Engels's American Therapy: The Rise of Psychotherapy in the United States.

The AP's record of the biggest Ponzi-schemes in history misses two of the most spectacular, according to Josh Marshall: Richard Whitney and Ivar Kreuger. They both made Charles Ponzi look like a piker; and Bernie Madoff makes all of them look almost like honest men.

Finally, Edward Jay Epstein's"How Much Has Harvard Really Lost?" Huffington Post, 21 December, argues that the University's loss may be more than the $8 billion it acknowledges from its $36 billion endowment. The real loss may be closer to $18 billion, he says. Hat tip.