Monday, November 24, 2008

Class Divisions In Information Gathering Among Historians Acting As Public Intellectuals

I've noticed that some professional historians who write regularly as public intellectuals cite subscription print sources (i.e. CHE, New Yorker, The Atlantic) more often than non-subscription online sources. I can't back this up with specific historians, writings, or weblog posts right now, but it's a sense that's been building in me over the past two years. I suppose it might also just be the

USIH Crosspost: The Transnational Turn

I just posted a piece on "The Transnational Turn" and its consequences for U.S. intellectual history at the USIH weblog. I think this post, however, has implications for other subfields. - TL

Friday, November 21, 2008

Quotes From History

I know the campaign season is over, but the following resonated with me sometime around mid-October:"I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." - Justice Oliver Wendell HolmesApparently this derives from a conversation between Holmes and a younger secretary. The quote is from Felix Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court, 2nd Ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Those Kids In Idaho: Red Counties, Bus Drivers, Bloggers, And Local Paideias

Have you seen or heard about this? Absolutely horrifying.Is this an Idaho public school problem or, in Lawrence Cremin's terms, an eastern Idaho "paideia" problem? What are they teaching those kids in Rexburg, Idaho? Or, who are they allowing to be bus drivers in that community? The article notes that Rexburg is in Madison County, and that county voted at an 85 percent clip for McCain. It has

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Election Coverage And Chicago History

This Time magazine piece by Amy Sullivan does a nice job of mixing the past with the present in terms of Chicago's political history. Sullivan makes some intriguing and telling observations:1. [Rahm] Emanuel, a Chicago native, is a typically colorful figure, known for once mailing a rotting fish to a political opponent and for a post-election dinner in 1992 at which he repeatedly stabbed a

Monday, November 3, 2008

The Confusion Of "Federalism"

Kevin Levin, at his fantastic weblog Civil War Memory, posted a reflection on Thomas DiLorenzo's new book on Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton's Curse: How Jefferson's Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today. I agree with Levin's analysis of the book but added the following in comments to Kevin's post (slight revised for H&E):------------------------------My