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Cliopatria

  • Aug 17, 2005

    Some Noted Things

    by Cliopatria

    Miriam Burstein,"Agony! Misery! Woe!" Little Professor, 15 August, reminds Thomas C. Reeves that there seems to be a general propensity to think that people who are not like us must, by reason of that fact, be unhappy.

    A framed 19th century lithograph of Frederick Douglass is one of my most treasured possessions. He is also a popular s

  • Aug 17, 2005

    Some Noted Things

    by Cliopatria

    Sally Greene's"Field Trip: Carrollton, Mississippi," Greenespace, 11 August, recalls a heavily armed white mob's massacre of two dozen African Americans in the courthouse at the county seat north of Jackson in 1886. The firearms' damage to the courthouse was so extensive, Greene reports, that it was not fully repaired until 1990. Thanks to
  • Aug 16, 2005

    Calling Islamism the Enemy: Originally Posted 1/29/04

    by Cliopatria

    Calling Islamism the Enemy Although I sense much backsliding in the current war – with many Democrats advocating a return to the law enforcement model rather than the war model – I also see that there is a growing inclination to assert that Islamism – or at least a vague hostile ideology – not"terrorism," is the enemy and that it includes a war of ideas as well as it one of violence. This recognition is vital if the barbarous enemy is to be defeated. Here are some notable examples, in reverse ch
  • Aug 16, 2005

    Death in London

    by Cliopatria

    On the morning of 22 July, an innocent young man, a Brazilian electrician named Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead by London police who believed that he might be a suicide bomber. Soon after, fragments of 'information' began to circulate. We were, over the following days, given a picture of a dreadful tragedy, but one that we had to understand in the context of heightened security following the London bombing of 7 July and
  • Aug 16, 2005

    Londonistan Follies: Originally Posted 5/16/03

    by Cliopatria

    The British government won itself the reputation for being tough because it joined with the U.S.-led effort in Iraq, quite in contrast to France. But when it comes to domestic counterterrorism, the French are far ahead of the hapless, head-in-the-sand Londonistanis – as I have noted earlier. Indeed, it sometimes seems like one could handsomely fill a blog with nothing but entries documenting the British follies. Here are some examples, in reverse
  • Aug 16, 2005

    Hawaiian Coup: NPR Boo-Boo

    by Cliopatria

    A report on NPR this morning noted that the United States had supported a coup against the Queen of Hawaii. It implied that this coup led directly led to the incorporation of Hawai into the United States.

    The full story of Hawaiian annexation is more complicated and more interesting. In earl

  • Aug 16, 2005

    we are all counterfactualists now

    by Cliopatria

    All historians, especially those who write about presidents, practice what-if history; it's just that some of us don't know it. But any claim that this or that decision mattered includes an implicit counterfactual: if it hadn't happened this way, things would have been markedly different. And if we aren't prepared to argue that, at least to ourselves, we haven't got much of a case.


    For this reason, a historian friend of mine really only likes history you can

  • Aug 15, 2005

    Sheehan

    by Cliopatria

    A colleague of mine from the Presidential Recordings Project, Tim Naftali, recently posted at the Huffington Blog on Cindy Sheehan's activities outside of the Bush vacation home in Crawford, Texas. Entitled"Cindy Sheehan and James Madison," Naftali's post argues that Sheehan's questions"are those that Congress should be asking more forcefully but because the legislative and executive b
  • Aug 15, 2005

    What Book Are You?

    by Cliopatria


    You're Ulysses!
    by James Joyce
    Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are cont

  • Aug 15, 2005

    William Safire: What Does It Mean to Have an Up-or-Down Vote in the Senate?

    by Cliopatria

    [T]oday let me deal with the hot modifier or intensifier before vote on Congressional and White House lips: up-or-down and its variant, up-and-down.

    Up-and-down, in the 19th century, meant ''plain; direct; unceremonious.'' Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote in ''Old-Town Folks'' (1869) that ''Miss Debby was a well-preserved, up-and-down, positive, cheery, sprightly maiden lady.'' (I found this in the Century Dictionary, a 10-volume set published a century ago, an invaluable etymological r
  • Aug 15, 2005

    Review of Peter Irons's War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution (Metropolitan)

    by Cliopatria

    CONSERVATIVE judicial scholars love the Founding Fathers, and they have created a legal theory called "originalism" in which the Founders'
    words essentially are carved in stone. If you're stuck with a complicated legal question, just think about what James Madison would do. "The Constitution means what the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention and of the state ratifying conventions understood it to mean; not what we judges think it should mean," Supreme Court Justic
  • Aug 15, 2005

    what it takes costs

    by Cliopatria

    Two points noted in catching up on summer periodicals.

    (1) Grover Norquist calls out George Soros for going shopping in a market he didn't adequately research:


    The one thing that surprised Norquist about Soros's appearance ... was the revelation that Soros had spent only twenty-seven million dollars during last year's election."That is so goofy," Norquist said."The guy is worth, what, seven billion dollars, and he tried to buy the Presidency on the ch
  • Aug 14, 2005

    Everything You Know Is False (Or Not)

    by Cliopatria

    Scott Eric Kaufman, working on a dissertation, has discovered something. Namely, that "Social Darwinism" as it is commonly known and described never really existed, at least not as most of those who invoke it or mention it think.

    This is something that my colleage Robert Bannister noted at length some time ago, that the common idea of "Social Darwinism" derived from a 1944 book
  • Aug 13, 2005

    Thank God for the Lutherans

    by Cliopatria

    By a nearly 3-to-1 margin, the Lutheran Church assembly passed this evening a resolution declaring a campaign called"Peace Not Walls: Stand for Justice in the Holy Land." Although the resolution did not commit the Lutherans to supporting divestment from Israel, its wording--hoping for the"stewarding financial resources — both U.S. tax dollars and private funds — in ways that support the quest for a just peac
  • Aug 13, 2005

    Infantalizing Students or Disciplining Institutions?

    by Cliopatria

    The National PTA has admitted its first college parent-teacher association, Parents and Friends of UH-Manoa. That doesn't affect me directly, being at UH-Hilo, but it's something to watch.

    Among the issues the UH-Manoa PTA hopes to address are underage and binge drinking, health and security, campus housing shortages and parking.

    "Many of the students still feel the PTA is the stuff for younger kids, those i

  • Aug 13, 2005

    Things Noted Here and There ...

    by Cliopatria

    Early in the new school year, History News Network will feature an article or series on Ten Young Historians to Watch by its assistant editor, Bonnie Goodman. I have nominated someone to be included among those ten and you are invited to nominate candidates to be considered for inclusion among them, as well. Your nominee must be someone under forty, who currently holds a tenure track appointment in history at a college or university in North America and who we have reason to expect will publish
  • Aug 12, 2005

    When Did the British Begin Drinking Heavily?

    by Cliopatria

    Even the Norman invaders writing in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1,000 years ago remarked on how drunk the English soldiers were, said Dr Angela McShane-Jones, a historian at Warwick University.

    But she believes it became a defining part of the national identity after the Restoration, when gangs of Royalists would roam the streets in search of Puritans. Those who refused a drink in the local inn risked being beaten up.

    "The willingness to get hammered has always been seen as

  • Aug 12, 2005

    More on the NYS Curriculum

    by Cliopatria

    Today's Newsday carries a piece from AP reporter Michael Gormley raising additional concerns about the initiative on which I wrote yesterday to increase the attention to African-American studies in the US history curriculum.

    The bill's sponsor was Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Clarence Norman