Carnivalesque LXXVI, an early modern edition of the festival, is up at Madame Guillotine!

Liel Leibovitz, "No Harm," Tablet, 22 July, makes the case against the prosecution of Aaron Swartz. You can join Scott McLemee, Rick Perlstein, me and 45,000 others by signing this petition in opposition to prosecuting Swartz.

Ilana Kowarski reviews Carmela Ciuraru's Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms for the Christian Science Monitor, 21 July.

Robert Pinsky, "How Not To Write a Book Review," Slate, 21 July, argues for the three "golden rules" of book reviewing.

Edmund White, "Verlaine, Rimbaud - and John Ashbery," TLS, 20 July, reviews Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations, transl. by John Ashbery, and Paul Verlaine's Poems Under Saturn, transl. by Karl Kirchwey.

Michael Kazin, "Newt Gingrich, America's Worst Historian,"* TNR, 22 July, argues that Newtie's claims to being a historian are ludicrous. His most recent book, says Kazin, "may be the most inaccurate, least intellectual book about our nation's past I have ever read."
*crossposted at Dissent's arguing the world as "Newt Gingrich's Bad History," 22 July.

From stiff competition, our colleague, Chris Bray, nominates Eric Posner and Adrien Vermueile, "Obama Should Raise the Debt Ceiling on His Own," NYT, 22 July, as the dumbest historical argument in the current debate about the debt ceiling.