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Cliopatria

  • Aug 28, 2007

    Bush and Truman

    by Cliopatria

    The President likes to compare himself to Harry Truman, but the manner of Alberto Gonzales's leave-taking is yet more evidence that he is not.

    President Bush, we have been hearing for at least a year, likes to compare himself to Harry Truman, who spent the last two years of his Presidency with approval ratings at least as low as his own, largely because of an unpopular war. The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales provides an interesting test of that compariso

  • Aug 28, 2007

    The Greatest Virginians?!

    by Cliopatria

    Like Kevin Levin at Civil War Memory, I've received an email from the Library of Virginia and from the Richmond Times-Dispatch asking me to nominate...

    For each century - the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th - we would like you to name and write a short explanatory paragraph (about 200 words per nominee) for (1) a most influential Virginian and (2) a greatest Virginian. Please do not name the same p
  • Aug 28, 2007

    The Craig Scandal in Retrospect

    by Cliopatria

    Yesterday afternoon, Roll Call broke the story that Idaho senator Larry Craig, a married, ultra-conservative Republican, was arrested on August 8. The arrest came in a men's room of the Minneapolis men's room on the charge of disorderly conduct, allegedly for soliciting an undercover police officer engaged in a sting operation. The arresting officer's report is here.

  • Aug 27, 2007

    Some Varieties of Time Machine Worth Having

    by Cliopatria

    [Cross-posted to Cliopatria & Digital History Hacks]

    I've been invited to join the crack team of bloggers at Cliopatria, so I will be cross-posting here and at Digital History Hacks from time-to-time. I'm excited by the opportunity to develop a series of posts on a topic of general interest to historians, while keeping enough technical content to satisfy my regular readers. So... let's

  • Aug 26, 2007

    Paul Otlet, A Forerunner for Us All

    by Cliopatria

    Paul Otlet, 1868-1944, was a Belgium pioneer in information sciences.
    In 1895 he set about freeing the information in books from their bindings. He built a universal decimal classification and then figured out how that organized data could be explored, via"links" and a"web." In 1910 Otlet created a"radiated library" called the Mundameum in Brussels that managed search queri
  • Aug 25, 2007

    Byzantine Egypt

    by Cliopatria

    During the question session following his talk on his book Napoleon's Egypt, Prof. Cole makes a brief remark (around 38:40) about Byzantine Egypt that caught my attention, since one of my professional hobbyhorses is the old claim that the dissenting populations of the Near East"welcomed" or d
  • Aug 24, 2007

    Asian Affairs

    by Cliopatria


    " ... we have fought two more land wars in Asia" - George W. Bush, August 22, 2007.

    "Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha h
  • Aug 23, 2007

    Thursday Notes

    by Cliopatria

    One of our colleagues sent me a link to this. I trust you've seen it. It's the sort of thing one's glad about having nothing to do. I hadn't known that Dierdre McCloskey has an appointment in history at UIC. She's one of those economists who've thought economic history too important to be left to the historians.

    For our purposes, it underscores a point that

  • Aug 22, 2007

    Richard B. Frank: Review of Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism, ed. Robert James Maddox

    by Cliopatria

    [Richard B. Frank, a historian of World War II, is the author, most recently, of MacArthur.]

    This invaluable work comprises an introduction by the editor followed by nine essays on the highly contentious ending of the Pacific war. The individual essays assembled here display enormous merit, but this work is far more than the sum of its parts: It marks a key milestone in where the controversy has been, and where it is going.

    Nearly two decades after the end of the Pacifi