At Progressive Historians, Ahistoricality poses a question about the appropriate relationship between advertising and editorial policy in professional journals. If I'm not mistaken, some journals have occasionally even had agreements with a private interest to underwrite the cost of a whole issue of the journal. So long as such arrangements are openly acknowledged, I'm not sure that there's a problem, but it's an issue that deserves more discussion.

Adam Kirsch,"The Old World Order," NY Sun, 18 July, reviews Adam Zamoyski's Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.

At The Lede, Patrick Lyons points out current reports of conflict over history textbooks: Isabel Kershner's"In Arabic Textbook, Israel Calls ‘48 War Catastrophe for Arabs," NYT, 23 July; and AP,"Taiwan Eyes Editing China from Textbooks," NYT, 23 July.

Michael Kazin,"Surging for Obama," Huffington Post, 20 July, treats Barack Obama's presidential candidacy in the history of insurgent candidacies.

Finally, Tim Burke, Russell Arben Fox, and Unfogged are hosting the discussions of Harry Potter.

Jonathan Dresner - 7/24/2007

I hadn't noticed that about the H-Net links -- they may appear in the web archive, but not the listserv version -- but I can say that H-Net's instructions to reviewers say nothing whatsoever about being extra nice, nor are authors generally allowed to review their own books.

Nonpartisan - 7/24/2007

Manan, check your e-mail -- you should be able to post on PH now. Sorry about that!

Manan Ahmed - 7/24/2007

Some reason I cannot post on the PH site, but if one looks at any generic review that runs on H-Net, it includes a link to the Amazon book buy [through the affiliate program]. I have supported that, when I can, because it helps keep H-Net afloat. Could this be the same case?