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Cliopatria

  • May 15, 2008

    Rick Shenkman: Just How Stupid Are We?

    by Cliopatria

    In this video historian Rick Shenkman discusses the subject of his new book: JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? FACING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AMERICAN VOTER (Basic Books, June 2008).

    Mr. Shenkman is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and the editor of the History News Network.

    He

  • May 15, 2008

    Concept Courses

    by Cliopatria

    Last fall, Bill Turkel had a great blog entry calling for"concept projects" in academic history: like concept car prototypes or catwalk fashions, these would be imaginative efforts that need not prove wholly workable or utilitarian, but that might serve to get ideas into circulation, push the boundaries of the form, or, a la Thoreau, simply"affect the quality of the day." A similar staple of my old Bosto
  • May 15, 2008

    The Backwards Survey

    by Cliopatria

    Here's a second concept course, though the idea is neither new nor mine, and maybe it's not really a concept course if several people have done it. Still, I would really like to try this someday.

    The Backwards Survey
    "Every single event is the offspring not of one, but of all other events prior or contemporaneous ... it is an ever-living, ever-working Chaos of Being, wherein shape after shape bodies itself
  • May 15, 2008

    The Besieged LBJ and Israel

    by Cliopatria

    On May 1, the LBJ Library released the recordings from the first four months of 1968--which include items on Tet and the President's decision not to run for re-election.

    I'm currently working on a piece about the recordings and Johnson's policy toward Israel. One of the newly released items features Johnson chatting with UN ambassador Arthur Goldberg, one week before LBJ announced his withdrawal from the 1968 election. The ostensible subject matter was a UN resolution condemning Isr
  • May 14, 2008

    Colorado Conservatives

    by Cliopatria

    The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the University of Colorado, seeking to redress its problems with intellectual on diversity on campus, has created a newly endowed professorship in conservative thought and policy.

    The move has generated criticism from the left. Poli sci grad student Curtis Bell: "Why set aside money specifically for a conservative? . . . I'd rather see a quality academic

  • May 13, 2008

    Rick Shenkman: Just How Stupid Are We?

    by Cliopatria

    In this video historian Rick Shenkman discusses the subject of his new book: JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? FACING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AMERICAN VOTER (Basic Books, June 2008).

    Mr. Shenkman is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and the editor of the History News Network.

    He

  • May 13, 2008

    Senator Apostate Clings Bravely to Life

    by Cliopatria

    In a recent post, Manan Ahmed noted the presence of an aggressively stupid op-ed piece in the New York Times. (Stupid op-ed pieces in the New York Times are like peaches on a peach tree, but never mind.) In that essay, Edward Luttwack warned that Barack Obama would be seen throughout the Muslim world as an apostate, w
  • May 13, 2008

    From Utah to West Virginia

    by Cliopatria

    2008 has the potential to be a realigning election (in either direction). Perhaps its most remarkable potential element, however, comes in the potential new electoral map associated with the Obama candidacy. Despite his status as the (slight) favorite to be elected President on the Democratic ticket four of Obama's six worst states in polling against John McCain are states that voted Democratic for President as recently as 1996: the Appalachia
  • May 13, 2008

    A Different Reading of Muslim Law

    by Cliopatria

    Lest you think that Imams like Richard Pipes and Edward Luttwack are the last word on Islam's attitude toward"apostates", see: Ali Eteraz,"Obama Islam Smear Changes Stripes," Huffington Post, 12 May. Beyond his close reading of Muslim teaching about descent, Eteraz makes the interesting point that, because his grandfather was Turkish, London's newly elected Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson, oft
  • May 13, 2008

    Martin Luther King Would Have Totally Favored the White Power Agenda

    by Cliopatria

    Best Martin Luther King canard ever.

    Over the last couple of weeks, a series of (usually anonymous) angry letters have appeared in the pages of the Claremont Courier, a twice-weekly community newspaper published in a small California college town. The letters describe a disturbing incident of racial animosity in 42nd Street Bagels, a shop in the Claremont Village. Witnesses
  • May 12, 2008

    Once a Muslim

    by Cliopatria

    For a while, the exemplar op-ed for ridiculousness and gross violation of logic, reason, history and straw-men argumentation was Bernard Lewis's appearance on the WSJ pages declaring the End of Times. But, I think that standard has now been met, if not exceeded, by Edward Luttwak's incredibly offensive President Apostate?
  • May 12, 2008

    Sunday Notes

    by Cliopatria

    Gavin Robinson hosts Military History Carnival #14 at Investigations of a Dog on Thursday 15 May. Send nominations of the best in military history blogging since 17 April to him at fallon*dot*young*at*4-lom*dot*com or use the form. Jonathan Jarrett hosts
  • May 11, 2008

    Kirk Bane: Review of John Dougan's The Who Sell Out (2006)

    by Cliopatria

    [Mr. Bane is a professor of history at Blinn College.]

    In The Who Sell Out (New York: Continuum, 2006), author John Dougan deftly analyzes the connection between pirate radio, Britain’s early pop art scene, Swinging London, and the making of Pete Townshend and company’s brilliant third record. Sell Out, which boasted the compelli