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Cliopatria

  • Feb 5, 2006

    Farewell to Two Feminists

    by Cliopatria

    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is largely dominated this weekend by events leading up to Coretta Scott King's funeral on Tuesday. Today, 42,000 people waited up to two hours to see her, lying in state in the rotunda of the Georgia state capitol. Another 5,000 people were still waiting in line this evening, when the building was closed. She is the first African American and the first woman to be so honored. Her body will be at historic
  • Feb 4, 2006

    Buy Danish

    by Cliopatria

    A"Buy Danish" site has now appeared. I can't recall seeing any of these items in a recent trip to the store, but in light of recent events, I'll certainly go out of my way to purchase Danish goods in the future.
  • Feb 4, 2006

    Noted Here and There

    by Cliopatria

    What do g_d, Michelle Malkin, Mr. Blackwell, Hillary Clinton, and y_u have in common? Ordinarily, I'd be skeptical of any list of"The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005." There are so many candidates and the temptation of political agendizing is so obvious. But The Beast,"Dysfunctions: 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005," Ocnus.net, 18 January 2006, does a fairly even-handed and wickedly funny job o
  • Feb 3, 2006

    Sanctions

    by Cliopatria

    Simon Jenkins’s recent piece in the GUARDIAN,
    “The West has Picked a Fight With Iran that it Cannot Win” http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1688777,00.html
    is not only an intriguing analysis of the current tangle over Iran's nuclear threat and the referral of the issue to the Security Council, but a spur to historical reflection. In the face of the Iran crisis—and also the trial of Saddam Huss
  • Feb 3, 2006

    Thomas Powers: Review of James Risen's State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

    by Cliopatria

    [Thomas Powers is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and is the author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda; The Man Who Kept the Secrets; and Heisenberg's War.]

    The challenges posed to American democracy by secrecy and by unchecked presidential power are the two great themes running through the history of the Iraq war. How long the war will last, who will "win," and what it will do to the political landscape of the Midd
  • Feb 3, 2006

    Last Call for Carnivalesque

    by Cliopatria

    An early modern edition of Carnivalesque Button goes up tomorrow, er, Saturday 4 February, at Pilgrim/Heretic. Send your nominations of exemplary posts that have appeared since 6 November on the period from ca 1400 to ca 1800 c.e. to: valdemoro*at*sbcglobal*dot
  • Feb 3, 2006

    To MySpace or Not To MySpace

    by Cliopatria

    Last week, on a trip to Pennsylvania, I met a smart young guy who was nightclerking at our hotel. He'd done a year and a half at Wooster; but then decided not to go deeper into debt for a B.A. He seemed to be doing well at self-educating, so we talked about William Faulkner, James Joyce, H. L. Mencken, other worthies, his life in music, and lots of other things. The subject of blogs would arise. We were both bloggers, we discovered; and we agreed that he'd show me his, if I showed him mine. So,
  • Feb 3, 2006

    That Infinitely Plastic Hansonian Reality

    by Cliopatria

    On January 6, as I've noted here before, the unfailingly hilarious Victor Davis Hanson wrote a Letter to Europe decrying the decision of that sissified continent to cave in to the Islamofascists. Europe, he wrote to the Europeans, had"dismantled your armed forces...in your faith that war has become obsolete." But Hanson also allowed that it might not be too late."Even in this era of crisis, we cling to the notion that in the el
  • Feb 2, 2006

    NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 12, #5; 2 February 2006)

    by Cliopatria

    1. SITE SELECTED FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM
    2. HISTORY GROUPS APPEAL TO SECRETARY SPELLINGS TO FUND STATE HISTORY ASSESSMENT
    3. HISTORIANS URGE COURT TO OPEN 40-YEAR OLD PRESIDENTIAL MEMOS
    4. BITS AND BYTES: Idea of America Essay Contest Announced; Comments Sought on Proposed ISSO Directive; Gilder Lehrman Postdoctoral Fellowships
    5. ARTICLES OF INTEREST: No posting this week

    1. SITE SELECTED FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY MUSEUM On 30 January 2006 the Smithso

  • Feb 2, 2006

    Conversations with Tim Burke

    by Cliopatria

    My colleague, Tim Burke, won the Cliopatria Award for Best Writer among history bloggers. As the judges then said, he"writes strong, clear prose that advances interesting ideas and moves debates in new directions. His energetic and considered writing stands out even in such a competitive category as this one, and reaches out to historians, other academics and non-academics alike with great skill." It's no suprise, then, that good conversations
  • Feb 2, 2006

    Figure of Speech

    by Cliopatria

    I am sure you have heard about the furor over depictions of Muhammad, the last Prophet of Islam, in a series of cartoons in the Danish newspaper, Meninger Jyllands-Posten. If not, you can click here for a rundown of the event; curious readers can click here to see what the fuss is about; irate readers can click here
  • Jan 31, 2006

    She Was Born at Heiberger

    by Cliopatria

    The family of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King announced her death this morning. Google and most of the obituaries will tell you that she was born at Marion, Alabama, the county seat of Perry County. But that wouldn't be quite correct. Coretta Scott was born at
  • Jan 30, 2006

    The Hamas "Surprise"

    by Cliopatria

    Secretary of State Rice has admitted that the administration was caught by surprise by the Hamas triumph. I really, really find this mind boggling.

    Here we are, over four years past 9/11, and we are led by people who have chosen to try to create political change in the Middle East but who still apparently have no understanding whatsoever of the

  • Jan 29, 2006

    On the Web

    by Cliopatria

    Princeton's Robert George urges colleges to spend more time teaching civics--a good idea in theory, though I'm skeptical as to whether George would be comfortable with how today's professoriate would teach civics.

    The New Republic looks at Latin America, and issues"a bold call for inaction" in light of the growth of the anti-American left. Thi