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Cliopatria

  • Apr 17, 2008

    David Kaiser: Response to Max Holland & John McAdams

    by Cliopatria

    To the Editor of HNN:

    When HNN informed me that they wanted to post something about my book The Road to Dallas, I was naturally pleased. The forum and participants they have chosen, however, make it impossible for me to contribute anything useful except the suggestion that those interested in the case actually read my book themselves.

    The contributions they have printed by Max Holland and

  • Apr 17, 2008

    Thursday Notes

    by Cliopatria

    So, you thought that Thomas Aquinas pondered the issue of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? Brandon Watson's"Telephone Game," Siris, 16 April, shows that you only think that because of Isaac D'Israeli's parody.

    Timothy Hyman,"Cranach's Golden Age," TLS, 16 April, reviews"

  • Apr 16, 2008

    Exhibit Notes

    by Cliopatria

    The biggest event in Washington, DC's museum world last weekend was the opening of the $450 million, seven story, 250,000 square foot Newseum, dedicated to the history of news gathering. Online, it offers Today's Front Pages, each day's front pages from nearly 600 newspapers around the world. David Darlington,"Newseum Re-opens Apri
  • Apr 14, 2008

    Has Tibet always been a part of China or not?

    by Cliopatria

    [Elliot Sperling is the director of the Tibetan Studies program at Indiana University’s department of Central Eurasia Studies.]

    FOR many Tibetans, the case for the historical independence of their land is unequivocal. They assert that Tibet has always been and by rights now ought to be an independent country. China’s assertions are equally unequivocal: Tibet became a part of China during Mongol rule and its status as a part of China has never changed. Both of these assertions are at
  • Apr 11, 2008

    Friday Notes

    by Cliopatria

    Penn's Alan Charles Kors on the history of civilization in less than 1½ minutes:

    What did he miss?

    Tony Perrottet,"

  • Apr 10, 2008

    Fitness Functions

    by Cliopatria

    [Cross-posted to Cliopatria & Digital History Hacks]

    One of the distinctions that applied mathematicians make is between linear and nonlinear problems. In a linear problem, you have a set of variables that you can tweak, and as you adjust each variable you can get ever closer to an optimal configuration. Using techniques such as linear programming, it is straightforward to determine precisely how many scoops of rais
  • Apr 10, 2008

    Intensity in Indiana

    by Cliopatria

    Something you don't see on the campaign trail every day: Barry Welsh, the Dems' long-shot nominee in Indiana's 6th District (Muncie), was punched in the face by Republican election official Will Statom after Welsh stepped in to break up a fight between the election official and a local reporter.

    Statom was angry at what he considered the reporter's pro-Democratic bias in explaining the surg
  • Apr 9, 2008

    Wednesday Notes

    by Cliopatria

    Adam Kirsch,"Those Who Do Know the Past," NY Sun, 2 April, reviews John Burrow's A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century.

    Keith Thomas,"When England Turned Orange," Guardian, 5 April, reviews Lisa Jardine's Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's