Military History Carnival #5 is up at American Presidents Blog! An early modern edition (ca 1500-1800 CE) of goes up at Recent Finds on Sunday 19 August. Send nominations of the best in early modern history blogging since 20 June to henrik.karll*at*gmail*dot*com or use the form.

Slate's Blake Wilson looks at reviews of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us. Michael Grunwald's for the Washington Post is scornful of Weisman's hypothetical:"... trivia masquerading as wisdom." And his policy proposal?"‘limit every human female on Earth capable of bearing children to one.' Sure, right after we ration air, outlaw war and limit teenage masturbation to once a week."

At Rhine River, Nathanael Robinson projects a series of arguments against a genetic cause of industrialization, as suggested by Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms, and J. Carter Wood joins the discussion.

Carlin Romano,"God Before Food: Philosophy, Russian Style," CHE, 17 August, reviews Lesley Chamberlain's Lenin's Private War: The Voyage of the Philosophy Steamer and the Exile of the Intelligentsia and her Motherland: A Philosophical History of Russia. Hat tip.

William Grimes,"Prejudice and Politics: Sacco, Vanzetti, and Fear," NYT, 15 August, reviews Bruce Watson's Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders and the Judgment of Mankind.

Randll Reese Besch - 8/19/2007

Limiting even every fertile women to one child is still too much for this plantet to take. Do the math of population densities and check out good old Malthas. He was inciteful.We are due for one or more population calamities that will kill significant numbers. Especially in the richer countries where consumption is too high.