Review: Pennsylvania Avenue

John Harwood and Gerald F. Seib, Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power, (New York, Random House, 2008).

Pennsylvania Avenue is the capital’s best address, the street of status, where the powerful work, and meet, and where the ambitious come to get things done….Over the span of American history, the powerful have come together here to accomplish great things—to free the oppressed, to win great battles, to launch great public works, to comfort the downtrodden. The people of Pennsylvania can be vain, greedy, downright nasty as well. Sometimes the Avenue is where they manage to stop things from getting done. Interspersed with the moments of great glory are those occasions when fear, mistrust, or simple disagreements run out of control to produce confrontation and gridlock on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Thus begins this compendium of Beltway Biographies compiled by Harwood and Seib. Various behind-the-scenes characters are profiled and one or two of their individual successes and failures in “getting things done” are highlighted.

Throughout, the authors try to illustrate—indeed, seem to yearn for—a time when relations between the parties were better. To be sure, while the politics of bygone eras saw their own tensions and fundamental differences, more often than not, most politicians of different stripes could at least agree on big picture issues such as the Cold War.

According to the authors, that changed—and they make their case in the sections on Ken Mehlman and a few, sprinkled allusions to Barack Obama—when the Baby Boom generation developed ideological fault lines during the Vietnam War. The differences that separated the factions born of that conflict exist to this day. In short, there is a basic distrust between the two main factions and both work to undermine the ideas of their opponent, no matter the cost.

To this basic explanation, they would also seem to add the significant role the modern mass media has played. This factor they highlight in their profile of Karl Rove, who also holds this view, and whose position is that a mass media explosion led to more outlets competing against each other. This provided incentive to produce compelling content. The subsequent emergence of the “talking head” format on television has only served to continually feed the partisan beasts. We talk past each other an awful lot these days.

There are also some good bits not related to the main thesis. The chapter on Elliot Abrams includes as fair and concise an explanation of the much maligned “neocons” as I've seen, for example. Abrams also explains that a Presidential speech is a major event because it “compels the administration to decide what it really believes.” Perhaps. Though I suspect more than one politician has delivered a major speech based more on what he thought the audience wanted to hear rather than what he really believes.

In summary, the authors are even-handed with their subjects, including fair and illuminating portrayals of some selected successes and failures enjoyed (or not) by these beltway insiders. It is a well-written and informative work that concisely describes how things get done. Yet, the authors' obvious desire for a kinder, gentler Washington sometimes seems overwrought. I don't believe I'm alone in being neither as optimistic, nor desirous, of a Washington, D.C. where everyone gets along and gets things done. Sometimes, the best thing that Washington can do is nothing, after all.

Is Feith's Book a Model for Future Scholarly Publishing?

Douglas Feith's War and Decision has been reviewed by National Review, The Wall Street Journal and NPR (h/t). Now, I know that--especially among academics--Feith is considered one of the neocon Sith Lords, but I think he's done something with his book that is, well, pretty neat. He's created a companion website to the book on which he provides links to the 600 documents he's cited in his work. How cool is that? Could this be a way for academics to publish serious and scholarly history and save money by putting their citations on the web? Don't know, but it seems to have potential to me.

Time Flies, and Baseball is Here

Wow, almost a month, huh? Well, since my beloved Sawx are back in action tonight against the Athletics, why not a shout out to the Library of Congress and their History of Baseball web site? It includes a section on baseball cards (before they became "investments"). Ahhh, that cardboard tasting gum. MMMM.

And "history of baseball" reminds me of Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot Indian from Maine (where I grew up) who was the first recognized American Indian to play in the big leagues and was the supposed "inspiration" for the Cleveland Indians mascot and logo. (More on Sockalexis' historical importance and the controversy surrounding the Indian's here).

"I don't remember ever seeing a quicker bat or a stronger arm. Among the moderns, possibly one player worthy of comparison is that young man Joe DiMaggio. He has a trace of Sockalexis's stuff, but I don't believe he can run or throw with the Indian." - Red Sox Manager Bill Carrigan
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Clinton's Shut Record Access Down

USA Today reports that "Archivists block release of Clinton papers":

Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.

That archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests.

Clinton's legal agent declined the option of reviewing and releasing the documents that were withheld, said the archivists, who work for the federal government, not the Clintons.

The Clinton team is spinning it as being the decision of the archivists, and USA Today is pretty much following that line. But there is this:

In 2002, Clinton sent a guidance letter to his library that urged quick release of most White House records, but retained the confidentiality prerogative covering advice from his staff. Still, he said the restriction should be interpreted "narrowly" and allowed that certain records detailing internal communications could be made public if reviewed and approved for release by his designated legal agent.

Emily Robison, the library's deputy director, said Clinton's agent, former deputy White House counsel Bruce Lindsey, chose not to review the withheld documents.

Lindsey "was given the opportunity to look at what we withheld under the (president's) guidelines, and he chose not to.... Only Mr. Lindsey and the president have the authority to open those," she said.

The William J. Clinton Foundation, which Lindsey helps oversee, said in a written statement that the National Archives is responsible for deciding which records are withheld under the Presidential Records Act. Archivists were exclusively responsible for "determinations with respect to these materials," the statement said.

Basically, the archivists are being characteristically conservative about their interpretation of what should be made accessible and deferring to the process of allowing the Clinton team to review and OK the release. But the Clinton's are taking advantage by essentially "pocket vetoing" the release by refusing to review them while trying to put the onus (blame?) back on the National Archives (and George Bush). I'll be interested to see how the AHA and NCH address this latest development.

UPDATE: The NCH has an even-handed story, though a bit broader in scope, and it also mentions the USA Today story referenced above. Kudos.

History Carnival 62

Welcome to the 62nd History Carnival. It only seems like yesterday that I hosted History Carnival #10 (the Aluminum and Tin anniversary) back in 2005. It was easier when there weren't so many of us! Anyway, since I've just missed the Diamond anniversary (#60), no "ice" will be handed out by way of celebration. Instead, I'll offer my gratitude that we're all just happy we're still together after all these iterations.

OK, I've blabbed enough: I'm an engineer by trade, so allow me to dispense with the ruffles and flourishes and exhibit the utilitarianism commensurate with my avocation. (Who am I kidding? I've already over-engineered this intro all to hell).

To the task at hand....

History and Theory and other Building Blocks

We begin with a cautionary note: Nathanael Robinson (with an assist from Jonathan Dresner) reminds us that blogs are sources too. So when you get something from them, please be kind and acknowledge. That goes for all of you blog-newbies / jurassic history profs out there. We're watching.

In Presentism in the Service of Diversity? Chris Green discusses the notion of "medieval Islamic psychology." Ah yes, Al-Sigmunda Freud and Carl bin Jung....

Are we still working in Gibbon's shadow? Manan Ahmed takes on the historiography of the Imperial Decline Scenario.

Thomas Carlyle introduces his Western Intellectual History Lecture Series podcasts, Mercurius Politicus wants us to read about the history and historiography of the book and Jeremy Burman examines the difference between good scholarship in the history of science and the best historical science writing.

Philippe Watrelot (en français) says Nikolas Sarkozy's proposal that each 10 year old in France should memorize the biography of one French child deported during the Holocaust is clouding pedagogy with emotion. Ce n'est pas bon.

Phil Paine thinks historians haven't cast their theoretical nets far enough and have missed the role that fishing has played in history. The hook is baited and floating in the water, you gonna bite?

War

David Gross takes a look at war tax resistance during World War I, where resisters risked vigilante mob violence in trying to resist what was, nominally, a volunteer fund-raising drive.

Martin Waligorski explains that the Bentley Priory mansion which housed Fighter Command HQ during the Battle of Britain--including Dowding's own cabinet--may soon be lost to future generations.

Andy Young looks at Khalkhin-Gol: The forgotten battle that shaped WW2.

History and Memory

Norman Geras explains that "there must be different modes, different episodes and details, of remembrance" when remembering Hitler and the Holocaust and other historical tragedies.

Terry Teachout (h/t D.B. Light) hopes Hiroaki Kuromiya's "straightforward" telling of Stalin's Great Terror--The Voices of the Dead: Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s--proves to be the rule rather than the exception. Moving along the timeline, Dmitri Minaev discusses the people whose lives were affected by the 1947 USSR decree "On prohibition of marriages between citizens of the USSR and foreigners".

Charles Crawford asks, "Nazism or Communism? Which was 'worse'? And why?"

Agnieszka Szmidel at Historia i Media uses Youtube to present documentaries, comics and short films about how the troubled history of Argentina and Chile affected regular people.

Dave Tabler mines the sources and discovers the worst industrial tragedy in West Virginia history.

Black History Month

Over at Sandusky History, George J. Reynolds, Carriage Maker and Underground Railroad Conductor is discussed. Meanwhile, J. L. Bell looks at how Oscar Marion has been remembered.

Tim Abbott looks at slave-owners in his own family tree in The Tally Sheet of Shame, part of a series of posts about race and memory in America.

Prompted by an email from Melissa Spore, Ralph Luker looks into whether Harriet Tubman really said, "I could have saved thousands-if only I'd been able to convince them they were slaves." If she didn't, well, who did?

Ancient and Medieval

Archaeozoo looks at Red Deer in Early Medieval Ireland. Mmmmm, venison.

Steve Muhlberger is Laughing Along with Cornelius Tacitus. Is a Comedy Central special imminent?

HairySwede discovers that recent archaeological evidence indicates that there were some big-breasted and Sexy Historical Swedes.

Carla Nayland prompts a discussion over whether or not the Picts may have been a matrilineal society.

Mark A. Rayner presents The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Caligula Edition), minus the slides.

Globalization is nothing new as JK's review of The Spicy History of Malabar shows.

Channeling James Burke, Martin Rundkvist explains the connections between amber beads in Jutland, CT scans and The Beatles.

Jonathan Jarrett presents a medieval Irish skeleton in a (possibly) compromising position. Hey, I like mutton as much as the next guy, but....

When good listervs (remember them?) go bad: Michael Drout is frustrated that his favorite Anglo-Saxon listserv has been taken over by people who hold "crackpot theories about the secret messages hidden in Beowulf and other poems through various means involving either scribal practice or numerology." Hey, maybe Grendel was really the original founder of the Illuminati? Is he a Merovingian (ed ~ Um, then they'd have been the Grendelingians....)

Pretty Pictures and the Like

Laurie Bluedorn gives us prose and pictures discussing the artistry of Edwin Landseer. That dog will hunt.

It is in the eye of the beholder, but you've got to at least open your eyes. Neatorama examines The Evolution of Tech Companies' Logos, so you can see for yourself how Nokia lost the fish and the Mozilla Phoenix got Foxy. Meanwhile, GrrlScientist presents a brief history of NY City subway platform tile mosaic artworks.

Nat Taylor looks at a sketch reminiscent of WWII era aircraft nose art and wonders if "The Scrubbed Goose" ever flew. (Avert thy eyes if you're wary of breastesses.)

The Cranky Professor thinks he's found the world's ugliest pulpit. Yech. He just may be right.

Victorian-ish

Over at The Victorian Peeper, Kristan Tetens takes a look at Britain's earliest surviving purpose-built mosque, the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, Surrey, which was built in 1889 by a Hungarian-born linguist. Oh, he was Jewish, too.

Does the Society of Creative Anachronism take time out for tea? Tea Party Girl explains that Jane Austen Lived Before the Inventor of the Tea Party.

Dangerous liaisons? Elizabeth Kerri Mahon remembers Evelyn Nesbit and the Murder of the Century while Romeo Vitelli investigates Constance Kent, who could have been a victim, a murderer or even Jack the Ripper.

Melissa Bellanta explains that the contemporary notion that ol' time magicians (like those in the recent movie The Prestige) put the dark back into the ritz and patter runs counter to the evidence that they were really trying to demystify and modernize the "dark arts."

Culture and Society

Tim Lacy says you can learn all you need to know about 19th century sailing by either reading Patrick O'Brian's twenty-book Aubrey/Maturin series or Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast, but the former is more fun.

Silveral delves into The History of Celebrity and finds that being "larger than life" is a common thread. And who's bigger than St. Valentine? Well, Mary Beard wonders if St. Valentine actually existed, while Jeff Sypeck says he did, which is why we celebrate both his holiday and "Valentimes...a parallel holiday observed by supermodels and the illiterate."

History and Politics

While historians often find studying the past to be intrinsically worthwhile, we also like to use it to try to explain just what the hell is going on now. Thus do history and politics meet (OK, maybe I'm being a bit too obvious with the self-referential plug...how's this...) Here's what's been going on over the last month at the intersection of history and politics (that better?).

Over at Progressive Historian, contributor "midtowng" believes that the S&L Crisis is repeating today and compares it to the S&L crisis of the 1980's .

Jon Swift exclaims Castro Resigns! Sanctions Work!

"It has now been forty years since May '68, and yet we still haven't gotten over it." Greg Afinogenov looks at why.

Jonah Goldberg has certainly generated a conversation with his latest book, Liberal Fascism. Now he explains (and revises) why Obama appears to some as the messiah of a new political religion, for good or ill.

Wretchard uses a Goldberg interview as a jumping off point to explain that liberal fascism and Islamic fundamentalism share common ground with Rousseau's philosophy in that they seek to create heaven on earth. Locke also gets a mention. As Linda Richman would say, "Discuss." And try not to get verklempt.

But back to Obamamania. (Schadenfreude alert!) Sean Wilentz has made a career out of using his curriculum vitae to lend credence to his preferred politics and is no stranger to stirring the pot. Now, Wilentz is being applauded by some (like Taylor Marsh) for his "Race Man" piece, which took on some of the campaign tactics of Barack Obama. But Wilentz may not have been prepared for the reaction he got from some of his heretofore ideological fellow travelers (and others) for taking on the Golden Child of the historo-blogosphere. KC Johnson, Kevin Murphy, Oliver Willis and DnA at Too Sense are just some of those who dragged Wilentz to the woodshed. The beatings continue.

Michael Meckler compares the upbringing of Barack Obama to that of Alexander Hamilton.

Congrats to history blogger / muckraker Josh Marshall, whose Talking Points Memo won the Polk Award for investigative journalism for looking into the Bush Administration's attorney firings last year.

Finally, American conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away and Michelle Malkin, Daniel Larison, Tim Noah and Rick Perlstein are just a few of those--both pundits and the public--who offered thoughts on his impact on American politics and history.

OK, that's a wrap. Hope I kept it interesting. Thanks to all for your contributions and to Sharon for keeping this thing alive. I excluded no submissions that made it to my "Inbox" (except for the spam--I didn't know that a History Carnival was fertile ground for so many investment strategies!). If you didn't get mentioned, well, submit something next time. Or, if you've got a hankering, host one yourself. It's fun!

History Carnival 62 on the way

History Carnival 62 will be up tomorrow. Stay tuned!

O'Sullivan Offers a Conservative Case for Obama

For my money, National Review's John O'Sullivan does a better job explaining the historical reasons for electing Obama than do the Historians for Obama. He does so by assuming that a more unified and stable nation is the bedrock on which American conservatism is built and that and Obama Presidency wouldn't be so bad for conservatives.

A political event is in the conservative interest if it strengthens and stabilizes the country. At times that greater strength may be to the disadvantage of the conservative party or come at some (temporary) cost in conservative principles. But when the smoke of battle clears, conservatives will see, sometimes with surprise, that the nation is better for the change from a conservative standpoint....

It is important not to be starry-eyed about the conservative interest. It is rooted in prudence rather than any more idealistic virtue. It is an amoral basis of calculation, sometime allied with justice, sometimes indifferent to it, but always seeking social stability, as my two American examples will demonstrate.

The first one is the abandonment of Reconstruction after the Civil War in order to reintegrate the south into the United States. That object was achieved but at the cost of the U.S. allowing the installation of Jim Crow laws throughout the south....So the rights of black America were sacrificed for 70 years to the object of reintegrating the south in the federal republic. And whatever we may now think of that bargain, its object was achieved....

My second example is the reversal of the first: namely, the civil-rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s. It was clear after the Second World War that the post-Reconstruction bargain was now itself unsustainable. Most Americans, including some in the south, recognized that the black Americans who had served alongside them in the Second World War were denied elementary rights in part of the country that they had fought to defend.... Jim Crow was reversed....

What does the conservative interest indicate on this occasion? It seems possible and even likely that a victory by Barack Obama would be the climax of this long policy of fully integrating black and minority America into the nation and putting the querulous politics of race behind us. As I have argued elsewhere, the mere fact of a President Obama would strengthen and stabilize America just as a Polish pope undermined Soviet rule in Eastern Europe. Black and minority America would be fully integrated into the nation.... Americans would feel better about themselves and the world would feel very differently about America. The conservative interest, as defined above, would therefore smile upon a vote for Obama.

O'Sullivan also explains that actual political work also needs to be done to elect Republican (and Democratic) legislators who will mitigate against some of the executive tendencies of a President Obama that conservatives will disagree with.

Free JSTOR

Manan Ahmed points to both Danah Boyd's decision to publish in only Open Access Journals and Harvard's decision to require that all scholars affiliated with it allow free publication of their work. Thus inspired, he has decided to instigate a "Free JSTOR" campaign. Why? As Manan writes:

One of my biggest complaint about our academic world is about the inaccessibility of research to anyone without institutional affiliation or a hefty bank account. The impact of which is that, academic work in the humanities remains largely confined to a handful of readers and commentators.

I couldn't agree more. As a non-affiliated, "independent" historian, I can't access JSTOR from home because I can't justify paying the single-user fee. Of course, I can do so from one of the many libraries around, but having to take a trip to the stacks sort of takes the spontaneity out of history blogging. Being able to access them online for free, or even a minimal charge, would certainly be better!

Dark Ages, Shmark Ages / Sidonuis, the first neocon?

That popular conceptions of history tend to lag scholarly thought by a couple decades is nothing new. Witness this article in The Independent, "New light on the Dark Ages: Who are you calling barbaric?". For scholars of the period (late antique/earl MA), the discussion is nothing new and the article mentions Gibbon and alludes to "other interpretations." The re-examination was prompted by a new exhibit at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy. Sounds like good stuff. Unfortunately, the author saw fit to characterize the revisionist vs. traditional historiography this way:

But what if the barbarians weren't all that barbaric after all? What if the black/white, good/bad, God's chosen versus axis of evil, neo-conservative type explanation for this historical event is just as much state propaganda as the claim that Saddam Hussein was an hour away from bombarding us all with nuclear missiles?

Pathetic, really. Believe it or not, everything doesn't come back to Bushitler. Does this mean that we can now peg Sidonius Apollinaris as the first neo-con?

Anyway, here's the meat:

... what the new exhibition lays finally to rest is the notion that the barbarians were barbaric. True, they were often blond, worshipped their own gods, lacked cities with sewerage systems, heated floors, bathhouses and aqueducts. Often they were nomads. But the idea that they were in some absolute sense less civilised was Roman state propaganda. Crueller than the Romans? Hardly possible. More violent, more militaristic than the most militaristic state in history? Hard to conceive.

Once one steps back from the paranoid them-and-us, self-and-other way of looking at it, one sees that rather than the cataclysmic end of a great civilisation and its replacement by the forces of darkness, something far more compelling and creative was under way: the creation (as the curators of this exhibition put it) of Europe as we know it, welded together by Christianity, and with deeply rooted memories of Roman heritage which make dramatic returns to our collective consciousness every few hundred years: during the Renaissance, for example.

"The Barbarian kingdoms," writes Jean-Jacques Aillagon in the catalogue, "gradually drew a new political map of Europe, dividing it between the Ostrogoths and the Lombards in Italy, the Franks in western Germany, Belgium and France, the Visigoths in Languedoc, Aquitaine and the Iberian peninsula."

He continues: "If Europe was born in Athens, Jerusalem and Rome, many of its roots also lie in the peoples of the north and east of the European continent." The aim of the exhibition, he writes: "Is to reveal the profound and subtle mix between Graeco-Roman and Germanic roots from which European culture stems."

Larson: "The Politics of History"

This column by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward Larson is pretty much in the Spinning Clio wheelhouse. In it, Larson attempts to answer the question, "Why do conservatives like history more than liberals?":

Liberal Democrats have always looked to the future with hope and embraced marginalized groups. When they look back, even to the deeds of their own former leaders, they see trails of tears like the one over which Andrew Jackson drove out the Cherokee. Blemishes on past presidents, even those who pointed the way toward future progress, tend to stain them wholly for at least some key elements within the Democratic coalition.

In contrast, conservative Republicans look to the past for inspiration but often to the future with trepidation. Originalists at heart, they tend to see only the shining city on a hill of earlier times and not its darker neighborhoods. George Washington's slaves are forgotten along with Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts. For some Republicans, both Lincoln and Robert E. Lee become models of Christian virtue as if they never ordered millions of men into battle against the other.

I'd say that, generally, that's about right. Conservatives believe in preserving the good things from the past and liberals believe in creating good things in the future. Then what happens is too many liberals throw the baby out with the bathwater in the name of "progress" while conservatives don't realize that changing the bath water every now and then is a healthy thing to do.

'Most Famous' Americans?

Ralph Luker points to a USA Today story about the 10 "most famous" Americans according to our high schoolers. According to the piece:

Get a pencil and paper and jot down the 10 most famous Americans in history. No presidents or first ladies allowed.

Who tops your list?

Ask teenagers, and they overwhelmingly choose African-Americans and women, a study shows. It suggests that the "cultural curriculum" that most kids — and by extension, their parents — experience in school increasingly emphasizes the stories of Americans who are not necessarily dead, white or male.

Researchers gave blank paper and pencils to a diverse group of 2,000 high school juniors and seniors in all 50 states and told them: "Starting from Columbus to the present day, jot down the names of the most famous Americans in history."

In comments to Ralph's post, Jonathan Dresner makes the point that there is a difference between "most famous" and "most important." Anyway, here's the list:

1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%
2. Rosa Parks: 60%
3. Harriet Tubman: 44%
4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%
5. Benjamin Franklin: 29%
6. Amelia Earhart: 25%
7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%
8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%
9. Thomas Edison: 18%
10. Albert Einstein: 16%

A few historian's were quoted, too:

Sam Wineburg, the Stanford University education and history professor who led the study along with Chauncey Monte-Sano of the University of Maryland, says the prominence of black Americans signals "a profound change" in how we see history.

"Over the course of about 44 years, we've had a revolution in the people who we come to think about to represent the American story," Wineburg says.

"There's a kind of shift going on, from the narrative of the founders, which is the national mythic narrative, to the narrative of expanding rights," he says.

Yes, but how does he explain No. 7: Oprah Winfrey?

She has "a kind of symbolic status similar to Benjamin Franklin," Wineburg says. "These are people who have a kind of popularity and recognition because they're distinguished in so many venues."

Joy Hakim, author of A History of US, says taking out the presidents "isn't quite fair" but concedes that the list isn't too shabby.

"I sometimes ask students to imagine themselves in a classroom 500 years from now. What will their teacher say about the 20th century? What were its lasting accomplishments? Of course, we don't know where future historians will focus, but I'm guessing that the civil rights movement and the incredible scientific achievements will be the big stories."

***

Dennis Denenberg, author of 50 American Heroes Every Kid Should Meet, says it's no surprise the civil rights era still resonates. "Since it so redefined America post-World War II, I think educators feel it's truly a story young people need to know about because we're still struggling with it," he says. "The Cold War is over and gone. The civil rights movement is ongoing."

Hakim's point about leaving out the President's is important. There are no deader, whiter men than they and taking them out of the survey doesn't really give us an an idea of how much of our history pedagogy still revolves around them (whether you view that as a positive or a negative).

Finally, one thing that struck me immediately was the timing of the survey. It is Black History Month (and Women's History Month is in March) and we just had MLK day, so I wonder what role the timing of the survey had in the answers given. My guess is current pedagogical practice is such that topics dealing with both "...History Months" are being emphasized about now. (Wow, I got to use "pedagogy" twice in one post!)

UPDATE: Nathanael makes a good point, too:

I would point out that the instruction, “no presidents or first ladies allowed,” undercuts the popularity of many “dead white men.” Indeed, isn’t political power what dead white men are known for? Aren’t social justice and celebrity for the rest?

However, what about Lewis and Clarke? Or Neil Armstrong? Or Mark Twain? There are a lot of white guys who are both famous and not politicians. I also just noticed that the three white guys who made the list were all men of science (Franklin, Edison, Einstein). Is there something to current pedagogy that emphasizes the role of invention and science in US History? Even over, say, exploration?

History Carnival

The 61st History Carnival is up at Historia i Media and covers a lot of fertile ground for history bloggers looking for something to read and blog about!

Also, the rumors are true ... Spinning Clio will be hosting the 62nd edition next month. Submissions welcome! And if you want to host, I'm sure Sharon would love to hear from you!

McCain as Modern Day TR

When he first ran for President in 2000, John McCain overtly compared himself to Teddy Roosevelt. And in that pre-9/11 world, at the "end of history," that comparison seemed to make a lot of sense. For instance, National Review's Rich Lowry wrote about how some believed that the 1990's and 1890's were comparable--particularly The Weekly Standard's David Brooks and William Kristol-- and that, like TR in the Gilded Age, the new millennium may be a fortuitous time for an iconoclast president with a desire to begin initiatives aimed at recapturing a sense of "national greatness". (Lowry believed there was no such need for that at the time. In short, it was time for an manager president--a la Harding--since there was no major event or crisis on hand. If only.)

This time around, McCain hasn't evoked the ghost of TR quite as much, but I think the comparison is still apt. Conservatives, liberals and libertarian's all seem to agree.

Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore in November 2005:

Throughout our chat he has referred to Theodore Roosevelt in almost reverential terms and glows when I ask about him. He calls TR "my hero . . . and one of our greatest presidents," and at one point he excitedly searches through his briefcase and pulls out a book that he is reading on the famously tumultuous election of 1912. That was when TR bolted from the Republican Party (which Mr. McCain concedes was "a mistake") and formed the Bull Moose Party to dethrone William Taft. When I mention TR's trust-busting (which was mostly counterproductive economically), Mr. McCain really comes to life, exultantly points his finger in the air, smiles and cries out: "He called the trusts 'the malefactors of wealth.' "

And in this very moment it becomes clear to me that John McCain aspires to be a modern-day TR. The similarities are unmistakable: Both were war heroes, mavericks within their own party, reformers and defenders of the little guy.

But here in a nutshell lies the danger of the McCain view of the world. Where some see the vast virtue of entrepreneurial wealth-generators and job-producers, he too often sees "robber barons." He seems forever in search of the next Joe Camel, Charles Keating, Ken Lay or Jose Canseco (Mr. McCain has been a prominent crusader against steroids in baseball).

Slate's Jacob Weisberg:

McCain was not always the moderate, tolerant character I'm describing. He was a conservative before he was a liberal before he became a conservative again. McCain began his political career in the 1980s as an untroubled Reagan Republican. His outlook changed drastically, however, after he nearly went down in the Keating Five scandal, for which he blamed both himself and the money-politics system. In the early 1990s, McCain caught the reform bug and became the Senate's foremost advocate of campaign finance reform, as well as an outspoken opponent of corporate welfare and pork-barrel spending. His reform zeal opened the door to other heresies and formed the basis for his presidential run. Part of what was compelling about McCain as a candidate in the 2000 primaries was that he was a politician in genuine flux. On the campaign trail, you could see him losing faith in conservative orthodoxy on issues like poverty, income inequality, health care, and global warming, spurred by encounters with humans in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

This political evolution continued through Bush's first term. McCain rejected the president's fiscal recklessness and tax cuts skewed to the wealthy. He allied himself with Democratic colleagues on a variety of social issues, including HMO reform, environmentalism, and gun control. Democrats implored him to switch teams, as a couple of his advisers, frozen out by the right, actually did. But instead of accepting John Kerry's offer to become his running mate in 2004, McCain embraced Bush's re-election effort, and his searching phase largely came to an end. Since the president's second term began, McCain has been uncharacteristically calculating, building bridges to Bush and the evangelicals and choosing his battles far more selectively. But if you watch closely, you still catch plenty of signals that the old new McCain isn't dead, just hiding out. He continues to take on the president and his own party where it matters to him, on the use of torture in the war on terrorism and on immigration, where he sponsored a bill with Ted Kennedy to allow millions of illegal immigrants become citizens.

I'm not arguing that McCain is a liberal Trojan horse running in the wrong party. If you need to label him, he's a Teddy Roosevelt progressive—militant, crusading, reformist, and hostile to concentrated power. The Bull Moose has temporarily turned into a performing elephant. But the Moose will be back—around March 2008, if everything goes according to plan.

And Reason's Matt Welch:

McCain regards Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln as political idols; like them, he never hesitates in asserting that government power should be used to rekindle American (and Republican) pride in government. Unlike most neoconservative intellectuals, however, McCain is intimately familiar with the bluntest edge of state-sponsored force. A McCain presidency would put legislative flesh on David Brooks’ fuzzy pre-9/11 notions of “grand aspiration,” deploying a virtuous federal bureaucracy to purify unclean private transactions from the boardroom to the bedroom. And it would prosecute the nation’s post-9/11 wars with a militaristic zeal this country hasn’t seen in generations.

And some think we have an "imperial president" now? What will a McCain (or Clinton, part deux) bring?

Cult of Personality

I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality
Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality

"Cult of Personality" ~ Living Colour {video}

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Faith doesn't just influence me, it really defines me. I don't have to wake up every day wondering, "What do I need to believe."

Let us never sacrifice our principles for any body's politics. Not now. Not ever ... We believe in some things. We stand by those things. We live or die by those things. ~ Mike Huckabee campaign commercial "Believe"

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I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours. ~ Barack Obama Campaign Website

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[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards. ~ Mike Huckabee

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Stopping by a packed Barack Obama rally last night in Rochester, New Hampshire, God-o-Meter noticed that fans standing behind the candidate on stage waved homemade poster board signs proclaiming “In Obama We Trust” and “Believe.” The local activist who introduced Obama said, “What I really like is his ability to uplift people.” And Obama opened his stump speech this way: “Over the next 20 minutes or so, you’re going to see a light shine down the from the ceiling… you’re going to have an epiphany.”

By the end of the evening, many of the rally’s estimated 1,000 attendees did, according to an informal God-o-Meter’s survey. “He’s incredibly exciting and charismatic,” said Elizabeth Brooks, 57. “I believe in what he’s saying.

“We heard Hillary yesterday, and she has the same message,” said Anton Becker, 67, leaving the event with his wife. “But Obama is much more inspirational.”

~ God-o-Meter blog, 1/8/2008~

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Like Job after losing his camels and acquiring boils, the conservative movement is in distress. Mike Huckabee shreds the compact that has held the movement's two tendencies in sometimes uneasy equipoise. Social conservatives, many of whom share Huckabee's desire to "take back this nation for Christ," have collaborated with limited-government, market-oriented, capitalism-defending conservatives who want to take back the nation for James Madison. Under the doctrine that conservatives call "fusion," each faction has respected the other's agenda. Huckabee aggressively repudiates the Madisonians. ~ George Will

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Obama's victory seemed almost otherworldly -- as if the laws of space and time had been suspended, and a quality as evanescent and fragile as hope had suddenly become real. I am not a religious person, but it was hard not to feel that his triumph vindicated the essence of what I think of as the secular essence of religion, something even nonbelievers can believe in: the possibility of inner transformation. A transformation at once personal and national. ~ Gary Kamiya, Salon

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I think that a better approach ... would be to show more clearly the parallels between the quasi-religious views that lie behind today's progressive agenda and the thinking behind past mistakes. In my view, they are linked by faith in unproven scientific fads, faith in technocratic elites, and faith that those who share progressive ideology have superior wisdom and moral standing that justifies ruling over others. I believe that the best way to insulate oneself against romanticizing the state is to recognize these faiths and their dangers.

Arnold Kling critiques Jonah Goldberg's approach in Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

Britain's Atlantis

I can't help it, I'm a sucker for "lost cities". I'd never heard of Dunwich or that it was once considered a rival to London. Anyway (link updated~thanks Loren)...

Visit Dunwich today and you will encounter a quiet Suffolk coastal village with steeply sloping shingle beaches. From time to time the waves move the pebbles to expose the great black sea defences which lie amid the stones like great beached whales, designed to slow the longshore drift of the beach into the oblivion to which the once great city has been consigned. Today the real Dunwich lies out there beneath the cold grey waters, 50 feet down and perhaps a mile out.

This British Atlantis – with its eight churches, five houses of religious orders, three chapels and two hospitals – is now about to be exposed to human gaze for the first time since the first of a series of great storms and sea surges hit the East Anglian coast in 1286 and began the process of coastal erosion which led to the city's disappearance. For the past 30 years one man, Stuart Bacon, a marine archaeologist and director of the Suffolk Underwater Studies, has dedicated himself to discovering what lies beneath the waves. He has made more than 1,000 dives on the medieval site since 1971 but with limited success. High silt levels in the water mean that visibility is limited to just a few centimetres.

"You can't see," he says. "The water is black because of the sediment in suspension. On very rare occasions visibility can be one to two metres but more usually it is one or two centimetres. You can't read your watch with a lamp on some occasions."

He has explored by touch, with the aid of a map drawn in 1587, which has proved remarkably accurate. But, from May, Mr Bacon will be teaming up with Professor David Sear, of the University of Southampton, and they will bring to bear the latest underwater acoustic imaging technology to reveal the secrets of the past.

Review: Microtrends

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne

“Many of the biggest movements in America today are small—generally hidden from all but the most careful observe.

Microtrends is based on the idea that the most powerful forces in our society are the emerging, counterintuitive trends that are shaping tomorrow right before us.”

It is this philosophy that Mark Penn is currently putting to use as he consults Senator Hillary Clinton during her current presidential campaign. Overall, the trends he spots—and the way he frames them—are interesting, if sometimes to be taken with a grain of salt.

Penn focuses on a variety of groups—single women, “working retired”, lefthanders, vegan children—that run the gamut. Throughout, he explains what he believes businesses (current and potential) and politicians can do with the data he has provided so that they can serve these near invisible, or underserved, populations.

One is tempted to take the trends he writes about and extrapolate (or infer) potential Clinton political tactics during the ongoing Presidential campaign. And Penn’s penchant for referring to President and Senator Clinton throughout the book only adds to this temptation (not to mention the endorsement by the former President).

He also can’t help but let his partisanship show every now and then. In his chapter on “Ardent Amazons”—women who are working in “traditionally” male occupations (firefighters, construction, etc.)—Penn cites a study that shows that women police officers are “substantially less likely than their male counterparts to use, or to be accused of using, excessive force.” In essence, he believes women make these professions kinder and gentler and that is a net “good.” But then he can’t help himself:

Of course, I wouldn’t generalize women’s strengths any more than I would their weaknesses. Sure, it was under America’s first female attorney general, Janet Reno, that the nation’s police forces became focused on “community policing” and preventing crime before it started. On the other hand, the first female national security adviser (and later secretary of state), Condoleeza Rice, helped pave our path to war in Iraq. And first female prime minister Margaret Thatcher deployed the British military more aggressively than any predecessor had in years.

That Penn uses a Democratic Attorney General (Janet Reno) as an example of the “good” and a Republican and a Conservative as the “bad” is one example of his partisanship. For instance, the same point could have been made—and perhaps more concisely--by showing the good and bad in one individual: Janet Reno. After all, wasn’t it she who showed (arguably) excessive force when she ordered the storming of the Branch Davidian compound?

But Penn isn’t always so partisan and there is a lot of data (he provides many of his sources, too) that is useful to anyone of every political or commercial persuasion. In fact, here is a partial list of some of Penn's more compelling points:

- Most parents think they are more strict than other parents. According to Penn, “they have at minimum redefined what strict is, and turned it from a belt on the behind to a swift chat on the chin.”

- “America’s elite—the wealthiest and best educated of our society—have become less interested in America’s economic and strategic challenges than they are in candidate’s personalities….today’s elites are so far removed from the mainstream concerns like health care, college affordability, job loss, and child care that most Americans face….While today’s elites are reading Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat, the rest of America is living it. Just as college students have always had views that change when they get out and have life experiences, so today’s elites are like perpetual college students, far removed from the experiences and struggles shaping everyday American life. And so it is a lot easier to spin America’s elites than it is to spin the voters.”

- “While learning disabled kids span the spectrum of family incomes, it is practically a fad in the upper middle class. (Who else, after all, would spend serious time and money to find out why their kids are merely average?)…While regular folks may still see a stigma in kids’ disabilities related in any way to the brain, the affluent wear them like a badge of honor, aggressively explaining why their children undercompete.”

- “Unlike Mr. Cleaver of Leave It to Beaver, who got great respect, today’s Dad gets none. It is almost as though marketers see today’s society as an Amazon tribe, where women make all the decisions and men just go along for the ride….Men are spending more time with the kids, but neither Madison Avenue nor the media has picked up on it, and the potential of Daddy-and-me relationships remains untapped.”

- Grown ups are playing more video games and watching more cartoons.

- While the stereotype is that most home-schoolers are fundamentalist Christians, that is changing.

- More people are attending college—and more are dropping out, which is a waste of both current financial resources and potential earnings.

There is a lot more about which Penn has interesting and important things to say. Whether you ultimately agree with him or not, he gets the conversation started. Just remember, he's currently flacking for Senator Hillary Clinton, so have your salt shaker with you.

One reason why I left the AHA

Michael Bowen:

As a national organization and the most powerful entity in the historical job market, the AHA has done surprisingly little to help the newest members of their profession. On the whole, historians pride themselves on their concern for social justice. In 2005, for example, the Organization of American Historians uprooted its annual conference and moved it to another city in a show of solidarity with hotel workers. When it comes to the plight of the discipline’s own working class, the unemployed job seeker, this compassion and concern is absent. In its place is an annual report from the AHA talking about how good it is for some. For others, there isn’t much the AHA can do. I find this lack of action, especially when compared to what is normally shown for the less fortunate, disheartening.

Or they waste time passing meaningless and ideologically driven resolutions about the Iraq war and such. Anyway, if you're a job-seeking historian, read the rest.

Review: A Slave No More

A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation by David W. Blight

A Slave No More is many books in one. The heart and soul of the work are the never-before-published emancipation narratives written by Wallace Turnage and John Washington. Blight provides historical context by matching their individual stories to the Civil War time line an compares them to other emancipation narratives. In essence, Blight provides the historical body for the Turnage and Washington stories.

In the first two chapters, he provides the historical context and his analysis of Washington and Turnage narratives, respectively. His discussion of the different nature, tone and goals of antebellum and post-bellum emancipation narratives is important.

Antebellum slave narratives tended to conform to certain structures and conventions. Given the depth of racism in the era, rooted in assumptions of black illiteracy and deviance, pre-1860 ex-slave autobiographers had to demonstrate their humanity and veracity. They had to prove their identity and their reliability as first-person witnesses among a people so often defined outside the human family of letters….Most narratives were cast as contests between good and evil, moving through countless examples of cruelty toward slaves and ending in a story of escape. Many are essentially spiritual autobiographies, journeys from sinfulness and ignorance to righteousness and knowledge. On one level, antebellum slave narratives were effective abolitionist propaganda, condemnations of slavery in story form.

Post-emancipation slave narratives, however, changed in content and form. They still tend to be spiritual autobiographies, often by former bondsmen turned clergymen, and they were written in the mode of “from slave cabin to the pulpit.” But postslavery narratives are more practical and less romantic, more about a rise to success for the individual and progress for the race as a whole….It is not so much the memory of slavery that matters in the bulk of the postwar genre, but how slavery was overcome by a narrator who competed and won his place in an ever-evolving and more hopeful present. Slavery is now a useable past in the age of Progress and Capital….Antebellum narratives are saturated with the oppressive nature of slavery and a world shadowed by the past. Postbellum narratives reflect backward only enough to cast off the past, exalt the present and forge a future.

According to Blight, the Washington and Turnage narratives are unique because they exhibit qualities of both ante- and postbellum types.

In the third chapter, Blight describes how used various resources rediscover Washington and Turnage’s past. It is a good object lesson to future historians as to the twists and turns—some frustrating, some unexpected--that research can take. In chapter four, Blight tackles the larger historiographical question of emancipation and whether it was bottom-up or top-down. It was both:

Emancipation in America was a revolution from the bottom up that required power and authority from the top down to give it public gravity and make it secure. Freedom, as Lincoln said, was something given and preserved, but it also, as he himself well understood had to be taken and endured. And it ultimately was fostered by war and engineered by armies.

In this chapter, he also charts the origin of the “faithful slave” myth and the important part it played in the “Lost Cause” narrative that arose in the postbellum south.

The final two chapters are the emancipation narratives themselves. Both writers apologized for their poor writing skills, yet, while they did write simply, they also wrote engaging and sometimes eloquent prose. In addition for having a talent for description, both were skilled at using humor (sometimes dry) and irony to make their point. For instance, Turnage, in explaining--upon overhearing that he was due a whipping from an overseer--decided not to wait around, so he “got over the fence to see what would be the result.” That’s one way of explaining that he ran away!

In sum, whereas Blight--as he describes--may believe that he was simply in the right place at the right time to have had these works fall into his lap, he has done a magnificent job of presenting the Turnage and Washington stories within their proper historical context. This is a valuable work of history.

Mmmmm, Nothing Better Than Medieval Sugar Chicken

File under *yech*:

What is most striking about Medieval cooking instructions is the often massive use of sugar in what seems to be otherwise savory dishes. An example from Le Ménagier de Paris, French recipes from the 14th century reads, “Take capons or chickens killed the appropriate length of time before…cook them in pork fat with water and wine. When they are through cooking take them out. Take almonds, peel and pound them and add some of the cooking stock from the chicken…Strain the almond stock mixture. Then take pared or peeled white ginger and grains of paradise moistened as above, and put the mixture through a fine strainer. Mix with the almond milk. And if it is not thick enough, add starch or boiled rice. Add a little verjuice and put in a great deal of white sugar…”

While a modern-day cook might easily accept almond as a typical Medieval means of thickening sauces, the “great deal of sugar” might cause some hesitation. In Libro di Cucina from the 14th century Italy, a recipe that uses four chickens calls for a pound and a half of sugar, and in Viandier de Guillaume Tirel from the 15th century France, a dish with one suckling pig requires a pound of sugar. Sugar was used not only as an ingredient to be melted within a dish—it was often also sprinkled on top of the finished dish. A 16th century French court physician remarked that they use at least as much sugar as salt. Plantina in late 15th century Italy declared that sugar could spoil no dish.

Persians learned about sugar cane and sugar-making technology from Indians in the sixth century. Using sugar in dishes was considered a great sign of wealth and prestige. Arabs, who conquered Persia in the seventh century, spread sugar cane as they conquered Northern Africa, Sicily, and Spain. Western Europeans were introduced to sugar through the Venetian sugar trade. It was used to coat bitter medicine in order to make swallowing easier. Indeed, sugar was considered medicinal in its own right, as well.

Physicians followed the teachings of Galienus (2nd century CE), who thought of one’s health in terms of the balance of the four humors: hot, cold, dry, and wet. Food was one means to achieve the balance, and different foods were thought to have some of these four qualities. Sugar was considered to encourage warmth and moisture in the body, the ideal Gallenic state, and was therefore highly regarded. On a more practical level, a sweet taste was necessary to counter the strong acidity of verjus (juice of unripe grapes), another common ingredient of the Medieval period.

While the amount of sugar in Medieval dishes surely strikes a modern cook (or diner) as excessive, it may be worth noting that at this time in early history (and well into the 17th century), the distinctions between “savory” and “sweet”, and that between “main course” and “dessert”, were non-existent.

OK, so I understand why they did it...but this just about kills the "authenticity" of the food at the local "Renaissance Fair" or the Medieval Times banquet, doesn't it?

2007 Cliopatria Awards for History Blogging

The 2007 Cliopatria Award winners have been announced:

Best Group Blog: In the Middle

Best Individual Blog: Civil War Memory

Best New Blog: Religion in American History

Best Post: Timothy Burke, "Knowledge is Inconvenient," Cliopatria, 27 September

Best Series of Posts: Errol Morris, "Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?" Zoom, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three, 25 September, 4 October, and 23 October.

Best Writer: Caleb Crain, Steamboats are Ruining Everything

Congrats!!!