My colleague, Tim Burke, won the Cliopatria Award for Best Writer among history bloggers. As the judges then said, he"writes strong, clear prose that advances interesting ideas and moves debates in new directions. His energetic and considered writing stands out even in such a competitive category as this one, and reaches out to historians, other academics and non-academics alike with great skill." It's no suprise, then, that good conversations on the net often are initiated, turn on, or are turned by him. Here are two current examples:

Academic Freedom and the Left:

Michael Berube,"Academic Freedom," 27 January;
Scott Eric Kaufman,"More Groovy Street Theatre," 27 January;
Tim Burke,"Liberal Procedure," 31 January.

New Directions in Political History:

Ralph Luker,"Well, Yah, ... So What _Is_ Wrong with the UCLA History Department?" Cliopatria, 20 January.
Tim Burke,"Political History or Not?" Cliopatria, 20 January;
eb,"politics by other ends," No Great Matter, 24 January;
Caleb McDaniel,"Defining Politics," Mode for Caleb, 27 January;
Eric Rauchway,"toward an increased focus on political history," POTUS, 1 February.
eb,"foci and presentism, No Great Matter, 2 February.

Then, there are the un-Burke-like conversations of the mind. Mary Francis Berry's"History's Unaverted Eyes," Washington Post, 1 February (which struck me as not being a very smart review of Vincent Carretta's Equiano: The African); and Scott McLemee's amusing and thoughtful column,"Disjunction Junction, What's Your Function?" Inside Higher Ed, 1 February, on the Oprah/Frey soap opera, made me try to envision her Winfreyship hauling Equiano before that camera's hot lights and weighing the claims of uplift and truth in the balances. It made my head hurt. Thanks to Hiram Hover for the tip.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 2/2/2006

Actually, Tim, I recommend Alex Byrd's article about Equiano in the January 2006 William and Mary Quarterly, which suggests an alternate explanation. Byrd's article is an ethnographic explanation of Equiano's use of the words "country" and "nation." It's good stuff and provides a thoughtful interpretation that doesn't shut the door on Equiano being born in Benin.

Timothy James Burke - 2/2/2006

I think increasingly many scholars are thinking that Carretta's argument about Equiano's place of birth is likely to be correct.

BTW, Ralph is right about the Mary Francis Berry review: it's incredibly weak. It reads like a mediocre undergraduate book review--summarizes the book in bland terms and then barely even takes note of the most important finding or discussion that the book has engendered.

Oscar Chamberlain - 2/2/2006

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the status of the "was Equiano really born in Africa" debate? I had thought that the evidence against his claim was strong but far from conclusive.

Am I wrong?