Things Noted Here and There

XLII, an early modern edition of the festival, goes up at Early Modern Notes on 17 August. Send nominations of the best in early modern history blogging since 15 June to sharon*at*earlymodernweb*dot*org*dot*uk or use the form. Military History Carnival #16 goes up at Osprey Publishing Blog on 18 August. Send nominations of the best in military history blogging since 14 June to blog*at*ospreypublishing*dot*com or use the form.

Charlie Jane Anders,"Why Hacking History Is Harder Than You Think," io9.com, 9 August, reports on a Worldcon 08 panel in which John Scalzi, Eric Flint, John Hemry, and Paul Cornell discussed history's resistance to alt-history and why alt-histories tend to be about the American Civil War and World War II. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.

Mark Oppenheimer,"Spiritual Controller," NYT, 10 August, reviews Jane Fletcher Geniesse's American Priestess: The Extraordinary Story of Anna Spafford and the American Colony in Jerusalem.

Dalya Alberge,"Franz Kafka's porn brought out of the closet," London Times, 2 August, looks at a side of Kafka that's explored in James Hawes' new book, Excavating Kafka. Hat tip.

Maurice Isserman,"The Descent of Men," NYT, 9 August, contrasts the recent disaster on K2 with the mountain-climbing culture of a half-century ago. Isserman is co-author of the forthcoming Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering From the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes.

U. S. Intellectual History's first Roundtable features Tim Lacy's and Joe Petrulionis's responses to Andrew Hartman's Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School and a reply by Hartman.