Blogs > Cliopatria > Cliopatria Welcomes Mark Grimsley and Caleb McDaniel ...

Feb 3, 2005

Cliopatria Welcomes Mark Grimsley and Caleb McDaniel ...




It's an enormous pleasure to welcome Mark Grimsley and Caleb McDaniel to Cliopatria. At the same time, it is almost redundant, because I've recently recommended their work to you so often. It's a bit like discovering that your second cousins are, in fact, your brothers.

Caleb McDaniel was born and raised in Texas, where he did his undergraduate work and earned an M. A. in philosophy at Texas A & M. From his National Merit Scholarship in 1997 through his graduation summa cum laude, Caleb had an undergraduate record of rare distinction and support for graduate education in philosophy, but he left Texas and philosophy in 2001 for doctoral study in American history at Johns Hopkins. There, McDaniel continues to win honors and offer leadership to his fellow students. His articles and reviews, already finding their way into American Quarterly, H-Net reviews, and several encyclopedias, offer intriguing foretastes of his dissertation,"‘Our Country is the World': Transnational Currents in American Abolitionism". After reading his new blog, Mode for Caleb, for about a month, I knew that he was an incipient Cliopatriarch, at least, and invited him to join us. Caleb pleaded inexperience and asked for time to find his weblegs. I continued to read and learn from him. We're delighted that he has agreed to join us now.

Mark Grimsley recently launched his own blog, War Historian, and quickly some of us who have debated the importance and practice of military history agreed that here was a military historian whose work both engages us and asks vital questions about his field and beyond. He's a graduate of Ohio State, did an M.A. at the University of London, and returned to Ohio State for his doctorate before joining its faculty. Mark's first book, The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861-1865 (Cambridge, 1995) won the Lincoln Prize. Between 1994 and 1999, Grimsley won three awards for distinguished teaching at Ohio State. In 2001-02, he published three additional books, And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May-June 1864; Civilians in the Path of War (with Clifford J. Rogers); and The Collapse of the Confederacy (with Brooks D. Simpson). At War Historian, Grimsley traces his path from Interrogating the Project of Military History to full-scale"blogadoon". But, already, he's joined his graduate students to launch Civil Warriors, inspired an advanced undergraduate to launch Classical Archaeologist, and produced a guide to the"Art of Blog."

Join me in welcoming Caleb McDaniel and Mark Grimsley to Cliopatria!



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Caleb McDaniel - 2/3/2005

Thanks, Jason, Oscar and Rob!


Rob MacDougall - 2/3/2005

(There's no way to say this without risking sounding smug, but I'm talking about my new colleagues here and not myself:) Wow! Do all other historian bloggers have such impressive CVs, with such a neat range of interests and accomplishments, or is it just the ones who end up at Cliopatria?

Welcome aboard, both of you. Great to have you.


Oscar Chamberlain - 2/3/2005

I hope you enjoy it here!


Jason Kuznicki - 2/3/2005

Congratulations, Caleb.


W. Caleb McDaniel - 2/3/2005

Thanks for the warm welcome, Ralph and Jonathan. I'm honored by your invitation and looking forward to being a part of the blog.


Jonathan Dresner - 2/3/2005

Ralph's right: both of you have been members of the Cliopatria discourse for some time, but it's still great to be able to claim you as colleagues. Makes me feel smarter by association.