War On Our Minds

At the 2012 Academy Awards, the Oscar for best foreign film went to "A Separation." This category typically attracts some interest as it acknowledges geographic centers for filmmaking outside of Hollywood and brilliant filmmaking different from Hollywood. And because foreign films almost by definition contest the dominance of the American moviemaking machine, the category has a politics all its own. This year the winner was fraught with more politics than usual. Setting aside the controversy stirred up by the Iranian government when it trumpeted the award as a victory over Israel (film from Israel was also in the running) this moment allowed the film's director Asghar Farhadi to make a particular kind of plea.

Tim's Light Reading (3-1-2012): The Information Age, ISIH, Ron Paul, Religious Freedom, And The Minds Of Children

1 (of 5). The History of the Information Age

One could do worse for primary and secondary intellectual history sources on "the information age" (depending on how defines that age) than those listed in this "FiveBooks Interview" with Nicholas Carr. Three of the books Carr recommends are, in fact, histories of some sort. Standage's The Victorian Internet is number one on Carr's list.


2. The Mind of Ron Paul

The Book Review Editor's Desk: A Call For Reviewers

I was thinking about another long post today on Rick Santorum and his thought in relation Catholic intellectual history, but decided I'm tired of the topic. I don't think it's polemical to say that noting his inconsistencies, Catholic and otherwise, historical and presently, is akin to shooting ducks in a barrel.

So post number one for today comes from "Tim Lacy, USIH Book Review editor." [And now I put on my fedora with the long feather---think Steve Martin in *The Jerk* after he obtains his riches from the opti-grab.]

I want to build up the USIH book review editor's database. With that, if you're interested in contributing to our illustrious review page (and it's more distinguished than you might at first think), send me an e-mail with:

1. Your name;
2. Your institutional affiliation. If you are fortunate enough to have a link for a faculty page, send it;
3. Your USIH specialties (don't just say "intellectual and cultural history"). And, finally,
4. A copy of your most abbreviated CV.

That's it! Here's my address: timothy.n.lacy-AT-gmail.com. - TL

White moderates and the persistence of a Jim Crow world

When I read about white moderates (i.e. those who denounced lynching and racism, but did not actively do anything to fight them, and came particularly from the North or West) in the Jim Crow world, I often think about the connections and similarities to the way that some whites talk in today's world. I have an article I'm shopping around about Mabel Byrd's interactions with the New Deal cabinet. Part of my argument is that the way the white New Dealers discussed race was functional and programmatic and discriminatory in a similar way that some white politicians discuss race and black people today. Well, actually the argument is mostly about the New Deal era, but I wave a hand towards the present.

This came home to me again when I opened The Souls of Black Folk to read for the umpteenth time in preparation for class tomorrow. His first paragraph is about talking to white moderates. Think about it in terms not just of the pain in Du Bois' voice, but in the awkwardness of whites in trying to talk to a black person.

Allan Bloom, or Figment of Saul Bellow’s Imagination?

Reflections on the Neoconservative Persuasion

I finally got around to reading Saul Bellow’s novel Ravelstein, a memoir-style rendering of his friendship with Allan Bloom, the conservative University of Chicago philosopher who specialized in Plato and Rousseau. I’ve been meaning to read it for some time, since Bloom figures large in my research. Bloom, as you all know, was the author of the 1987 mega-hit, The Closing of the American Mind, which signified the culture wars unlike any other book, a surprising event given that the it’s no easy slog. A book with a 70-page chapter titled “From Socrates’ Apology to Heidegger’s Rektoratsrede” is hardly designed to be a bestseller.

One of the recurring themes I’ve come across during my Bloom research is his larger-than-life-ness. Although he was relatively obscure until Closing made him famous, and rich, Bloom’s students were apparently devoted to him with apostle-like fervor. In other words, building off of recent posts from Ben and L.D., he embodied ideas, much like his mentor Leo Strauss. Or, put another way: like pre-mechanically reproduced art, as Walter Benjamin had it, Bloom emitted aura.

On Describing Today's Historical Ecosphere

We historians conventionally distinguish scholarly historical writing from popular historical writing.  The former is what those of us who write for this blog do professionally; the latter is what tends to appear on bestseller lists.  The very existence of popular historical writing distinguishes our field from many others in the humanities. These days, at least, there's precious little popular literary criticism for example (though popular cultural criticism certainly exists). And though bookstores are brimming with popular philosophy books, they bear virtually no resemblance to the work of academic philosophers.  In contrast, not only are there innumerable works of popular history, most academic historians (or, at least, the Americanists among us) like to think that our work is potentially of interest to a broader, non-academic audience.  Occasionally a handful of scholarly works, usually in the areas of military or political history, find a large (or at least largish) audience outside the Ivory Tower.  I'm thinking, for example, of Jim McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom or Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm. Pulitzer Prizes in History often go to such works.

But more often, works of history that find their way to the best seller list are considerably less scholarly.  Take, for example, Hardball host Chris Matthews' Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, currently #33 on the New York Times Hardcover Non-Fiction Best Sellers List and the subject of a take-down by the historian David Greenberg in TNR [h/t Erik Loomis at LGM].  Vanity projects by pundits about presidents past seem to have emerged as a genre unto themselves.  At least as described by Greenberg, Matthews book seems little more than a projection of his own two-dimensional political personality onto JFK.*  

But what I found most interesting about Matthews' book was the list of people who have blurbed it.