Recent Entries

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A dearth of historians of science?

This preprint article about the nomenclature of astronomical objects, as far as I can tell, is about the history of uneasy coexistence between the taxonomy of astronomical bodies used by planetary scientists and that used by everyone else, and how they bleed into or gain prominence over each other. They cite cognitive scientists and philosophers of science abundantly, but not a single historian that I can see (nor is any of the authors a historian. Instead, they seem to rely a lot on primary sources. I'm not remotely familiar with methods in history, but this sounds bad to me. Am I missing something?

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linkspam

Birthplace of democracy?

Pope Francis, starting an official visit to Greece, called it the birthplace of democracy. I know Athens is often said to be that, but is it really? Are there any records of an earlier participative or representative democracy elsewhere? (Wikipedia says "mayyyybe", but I don't know to what extent if any that's owing to Wikipedia editors and historians both being emotionally invested in "Athens was first".)

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country: france

Signs you're about to suffer a crushing, major defeat in a war

- senior officer, arriving near the front, reports "don't know where my troops are".
- senior officer boasts "Who needs maps? Just grab a native and order them to take you to $place or you'll blow their brain out!"

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History of racial violence in the US and UK seen through the prism of word frequencies

( Discussion of 4 terms related to anti-Black violence in the US andUK from the 19th century onward )

(no subject)

I knew about the US putting Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during WW2, but this is the first time I heard Canada did the same to Italian-Canadians.

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(no subject)

https://twitter.com/greenleejw/status/1206606000456896512

And now I wonder: did gold and silver also start as in-kind currencies before getting formalized into coins and standard weights?

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(no subject)

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-hedgehogs-great-escape/

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Victorian builders and grave desecration.

https://twitter.com/JayHulmePoet/status/1085139728142348290

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linkspam

Rome and the ancient world

https://twitter.com/MadeleineSaint/status/1050216512575787008

(mods, can we have an "ancient Rome" tag or something along those lines?)

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Charles Stuart (the future Charles I) and George Villers visit Spain "incognito"

https://twitter.com/quicunquevult/status/980518324739231744

(Mods, can we have a "country: spain" tag?)

Current Mood: excited

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medieval history

#medievalisttattoos

Hi all-- Medievalists are horrible enablers, did you know that? Today, I was enabled into creating a tumblr blog:

medievalisttattoos.tumblr.com

Okay fine, I volunteered to do it, but the encouragement that came after was, shall we say, strong.

In any case, it's a brand new account, and I need to put stuff in the queue! If you are a medievalist with a tattoo* (or more than one!), please let me know! If you are not a medievalist, but you have a tattoo with a medieval subject, also let me know! I would like to post photos, so take some selfies (or get a friend to help)!

*If you are a medievalist but your ink is not medieval, that's A-OK, we'll still take you ;)

A couple things:

1) Anonymity/Identity: Let me know if it's okay to use your name, or if you'd prefer to use a pseudonym/your twitter handle/be anonymous. (If you are a medieval scholar I'd love to be able to use your name, but being safe on the internet is more important than anything else.)

2) Storytime: Please include any details about your tattoo! Any stories behind it, or your experience getting it. Anything you have to share would be great, and there's no better person to talk about your tattoo besides you.

That's it! I have a couple things in the queue, but I'm still working on getting stories from most people, so there isn't much there yet. But there will be! I've got some amazing ink in the works, you know you wanna see it!

Corner of the Between-Wars Period

Review and essay on the Spanish Civil War: Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 by Adam Hochschild. Basically a history of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which fought on the government (Republican a/k/a Loyalist) side (the Nationalist side was allied with the generals who'd engineered the coup that overthrew the government). The review is temporarily available to non-subscribers at the link.

The last survivor, Delmer Berg, died February 28.

Huh.

The end of World War I. Well, all I ever heard about was the Armistice. Centennials do bring out so much.

Looking for photographs

I'm looking for photographs of chemistry classrooms (and associated laboratories), preferrably college/university level although high school would be ok. I'm primarily interested in pre-1950 photos, especially pre-1925. I've found a fair number by searching Google images and the Library of Congress. Of course, the vast majority of those are photos of American classrooms. I'd love to find some UK and European classrooms but I'm kind of stumped as to where to search. Does anyone have suggestions? Thanks!

Current Location: l’antica grotta del Chiatamone a Napoli

Question: Italy, Naples, Via Chiatamone, circa 1940s

I'm aware that the ancient caves in the Via Chiatamone in Naples are now mostly used as small business units by shops, cafes, and garages, but can anyone tell me about supposedly scandalous behaviour, by local Neapolitans, that went on in the area circa the 1940-50s? I'm assuming some form of sexual behaviour, and I'm assuming specifically male homosexuality, but I'd be interested if anyone knows the local history. /longshot

friending meme

3 weeks for DW ✰
FRIENDING MEME

Make new DW friends and find like-minded people :)

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Two Dicks

The discovery of the skeleton of King Richard III under a parking lot almost threatened to wipe the Super Bowl results off the front page (I exaggerate). The BBC article mentions that Greyfriars church in Leicester, where he was buried, was "demolished" during the 1500s (the English Reformation), and I can't help wondering about that, as the Tudors seemed to be a little vindictive.

As it happened, last night I was reading about another Richard in high office. The New Yorker's Thomas Mallon reviews two books about Richard Nixon, and does a little speculative history. He focuses on the "Checkers" speech (I was a toddler at the time, unfortunately) as a sort of pivot in Nixon's political career. I will have to read at least one of the books reviewed.

Must be something about guys named "Richard."

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(no subject)

I may have to learn German.

Biographies of women

I just finished Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë (published 1857) and am wondering -- is this the first major biography of a woman in English?

I can't think of any earlier ones. Memoirs and autobiographies, yes (especially by religious women), but no biographies. Although surely there were hagiographies, and Elizabeth I must have been the subject of a biography before the mid-1900s...

Maybe it's the first biography of a woman by a woman -- although certainly not the first biography by a woman, since I think it was fairly common, at least by the 19th century, for a surviving wife to write up her husband's life and edit his letters for publication.

Am I missing something obvious?

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linkspam

Witold Pilecki at Auschwitz

http://www.futilitycloset.com/?p=28457

That took guts. And brains.