Noted Here and There ...
At Chapati Mystery, our colleague, Manan Ahmed recommends Francis D. Cogliano's"Was the American Revolution Inevitable?" an arcticle done for the BBC. Cogliano is a senior lecturer in American history at the University of Edinburgh.
Over on the HNN mainpage, don't miss Jason Emerson's interview with Oxford University's Richard J. Carwardine about Abraham Lincoln.
At NewsMax.com, Jeremy Bradshaw backgrounds provocative observations about the American political scene by Paul Johnson, the conservative British historian: "George Bush Is The Next Thatcher".
At Rebunk, Tom Bruscino has a good, even-handed assessment of post-presidencies in American history.
Kirk at American Amnesia continues to raise important questions about reconstruction in Iraq. He notes that only two percent of the $18.4 billion approved for the effort has been spent there and wonders why it was left to a 22 year old University of Richmond senior to launch an effort to educate Iraqi college students about democracy and a 24 year old American was employed to create an Iraqi stock exchange.
After the Isaiah Berlin flap, you'd think that I'd have enough sense to keep my nose out of Margaret Soltan's University Diary, but n-o-o-o .... Really, she's got a very interesting post up with the argument that professors ought not be declaring their prejudices up front as a way of forewarning their students."It's not that professors should not have beliefs," she argues."It is that the sanctity of the classroom consists in large part in concealing them." Routinely informing students of one's beliefs, Soltan argues, is"narcissistic" and"stifling".
Finally, Jessica Cutler, the former aid to Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, has grabbed the attention of every blogger from Abu Aardvark to Daniel Drezner and Wonkette by turning tricks and a blog into a $300,000 advance for a book. We don't do tricks, but Cliopatria is a blog. Does that mean that we get a $150,000 advance? Make us an offer we can't refuse!