Cliopatria

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• Nov 13, 2011
  

  Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery

  by Cliopatria

  I read very little historical fiction, but I do read Umberto Eco.

  

• Nov 12, 2011
  

  20th Century Personal Notes

  by Cliopatria

  Dwight Garner, "Mass Slaughter on a Personal Level," NYT, 10 November, reviews Peter Englund's The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War. Trans. by Peter Graves.

  Arthur Herman, "Parallel Lives," WSJ, 10 November, reviews Susan Hertog's Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson, New Women in Search of Love and Power.

  

• Nov 11, 2011
  

  Friday's Notes

  by Cliopatria

  John Scalzi, "Omelas State University," whatever, 10 November, thinks some things should be obvious to adults. Thanks to David Silbey for the tip.

  David Mikics, "The Unexamined Socrates," The Book, 10 November, reviews Paul Johnson's Socrates: A Man for Our Times.

  Stephen Bates, "Medieval monarchs' books showcased by British Library," Guardian, 10 November, reviews "Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination," an exhibit at London's British Library. Charles McGrath, "Separating Royal Myth From Fact," NYT, 8 November, is a biographical sketch of Robert K. Massie, Catherine the Great's most recent biographer.

  

• Nov 10, 2011
  

  Notes on Contemporary History

  by Cliopatria

  Jennifer Schuessler, "Ranking History's Atrocities by Counting the Corpses," NYT, 8 November, features the work of the ultimate amateur, Matthew White, his The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities, and his website. He's won praise from Harvard's Charles Maier and Steven Pinker. Scott McLemee, "Under the Sign of Saturn," IHE, 9 November, reviews Teofilo R. Ruiz's The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization.

  

• Nov 9, 2011
  

  Notes Ancient & Modern

  by Cliopatria

  Gilles Bransbourg, "All Roads Lead to (Ancient) Rome," Daily Beast, 6 November, argues that Roman Europe and the European Common Market had a single currency. Why the difference?

  Chris Campbell, "The China Rule & Cult of Confucius," Genealogy of Religion, 6 November, suggests that if you test your favorite generalization against ancient or modern China's example, it's likely to fail.

  

• Nov 8, 2011
  

  More Noted Things

  by Cliopatria

  Daisy Banks interviews "Thomas Penn on Henry VII," The Browser, 7 November, for his recommendation of five essential books on the English monarch. Owen Matthews, "Catherine, the Great Human Being," Daily Beast, 6 November, reviews Robert Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.

  Natasha Lehrer, "Friendship in the time of the Resistance," TLS, 7 November, reviews Caroline Moorehead's A Train in Winter: A story of resistance, friendship and survival. It's a study of women of the French resistance in Nazi concentration camps.

  Robert Zaretsky, "Camus the Jew," Tablet, 7 November, draws on Zaretsky's Albert Camus: Elements of a Life.

  

• Nov 7, 2011
  

  Things Noted Here & There

  by Cliopatria

  November's Biblical Studies Carnival, "the Undead Edition," is up at The Musings of Thomas Verenna.

  For the Washington Post, 4 November, Kris Coronado reviews "Eureka! Rare Books in the History of Scientific Discovery," an exhibit at Johns Hopkins's George Peabody Library.

  

• Nov 6, 2011
  

  20th Century Minds

  by Cliopatria

  Sophie Ratcliffe reviews PG Wodehouse: A Life in Letters for the Guardian, 4 November.

  Michael Kimmage, "Lionel Trilling's Life of the Mind," NYT, 3 November, reviews Adam Kirsch's Why Trilling Matters.

  Jon Wiener, "The Age of Revolution," LARB, 4 November, reviews Eric Hobsbawm's How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism.

  Janet Maslin, "Vonnegut in All His Complexity," NYT, 2 November, reviews Charles J. Shields's And So It Goes. Kurt Vonnegut: A Life.

  

• Nov 5, 2011
  

  Weak Endnotes

  by Cliopatria

  Anthony Grafton, "Our Universities: Why Are They Failing?" NYRB, 24 November, reviews eight books on the subject.

  Michael Prodger, "Lend us your Leonardo: how to make a blockbuster show," Guardian, 4 November, reports on the organizing of "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan," an exhibit at London's National Gallery.

  Donald Rayfield, "Border Patrol," Literary Review, November, reviews Norman Davies's Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe.

  

• Nov 4, 2011
  

  Notes Ancient & Modern

  by Cliopatria

  Theodore Ziolkowski, "Gilgamesh: An Epic Obsession," berfrois, 1 November, draws on the author's book, Gilgamesh Among Us: Modern Encounters With the Ancient Epic. Christopher Carroll, "The Vanished City," The Book, 2 November, reviews Richard Miles's Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization. Simon Schama, "Robert Hughes Reimagines a Glorious Rome in New Book," Daily Beast, 30 October, reviews Hughes's Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History. Schama avoids the controversy.

  

• Nov 3, 2011
  

  Modern History Notes

  by Cliopatria

  Brenda Wineapple, "John Brown's Folly: The mythology of a madman," American Scholar, Autumn, reviews Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War. Beverly Gage, "Lessons for Occupy Wall Street," Slate, 2 November, draws on her book, The Day Wall Street Exploded, to urge the relevance of the great railroad strike of 1877.

  István Deák, "The Hater," The Book, 3 November, reviews Robert Gerwarth's Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich.

  

• Nov 2, 2011
  

  Awards & Carnivals

  by Cliopatria
• Nominations are open for the Cliopatria Awards, 20ll. Until 30 November, you can nominate candidates for Best Group Blog, Best Individual Blog, Best New Blog, Best Post, Best Series of Posts, and Best Writer. This year, for the first time, there will be Awards for Best Twitter Feed and Best Podcast Episode.
• History Carnival CIV, "The All Saints Eclectic Edition," is up at The Renaissance Mathematicus. Thony has done a splendid job on it!