online archive
12:15PM
AUG 20 2007
Philosophy, classics and academia
From Philosophy Now, an interview with Christopher Phillips, author of Socrates in Love; more on Richard Rorty; if there’s one thing you should be able to rely upon to know who you are it should be your own name, but perhaps not; three questions, and in each case the answer is philosophically interesting. The interest turns on the further question: “What is a person?”; and there is not only a right way to live, but also a right way to figure out what that is; and a book called Mixing It Up With The Simpsons has been sent to youth advisors in every diocese in England.
A review of Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer by Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy and Irene S. Lemos. A review of Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece by Joan Breton Connelly. A review of Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas. The introduction to The State of Speech: Rhetoric and Political Thought in Ancient Rome by Joy Connolly. A review of Excess and Restraint: Propertius, Horace, & Ovid's Ars Amatoria. A review of Roman Pompeii: Space and Society by Ray Laurence. A review of Feeling History. Lucan, Stoicism, and the Poetics of Passion by Francesca D'Alessandro Behr. A review of Seeing Seneca Whole: Perspectives on Philosophy, Poetry and Politics by K. Volk by G.D. Williams.
Professors on the Battlefield: Where the warfare is more than just academic. Academics from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond have protested against the arrest of Berlin sociologist Andrej H. The researcher has been in jail for two weeks on suspicion of membership in a terrorist group. Your Virtual Ph.D.: No more pencils, no more books: With PopSci's guide to the best continuing-ed programs on the Web, you can lose the paper and still gain a grade-A education. Have Ph.D., will travel: Academia is increasingly dependent on flexible, part-time faculty. Sound and the Fury: When Gallaudet University hired a hearing football coach who knew no sign language, it was a clash of cultures. Two years later, the once-moribund program is making plenty of noise.
12:15PM
AUG 20 2007
Foreign affairs, climate change and political economy
From Foreign Affairs, John Edwards on Reengaging with the World. Rudy, the Anti-Statesman: Fred Kaplan on Giuliani's loopy foreign-policy essay. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring. The introduction to Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger by Bruce Kuklick. A review of Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power by Marcus Mabry.
The New Myth About Climate Change: Corrupt, tyrannical governments—not changes in the Earth’s climate—will be to blame for the coming resource wars. Water wars, myths and realities: To what degree are fears of geopolitical chaos over water scarcity justified? (and part 2). The new dirty energy: It's big, it's growing — and it's bad for the environment. Inside the other alternative-energy movement. Here's an article on biofuels—and all you need to know for a bar discussion. Sins of Omission: As the FAA seeks to expand air travel, is it giving concerns about aviation’s effects on climate change the attention they deserve?
Richard Delgado (Pittsburgh): You Are Living in a Gold Rush. Surviving the markets: The new financial order is undergoing its harshest test. It will not be pretty, but it is necessary. A review of Pandemonium: How Globalization and Trade Are Putting the World at Risk by Andrew Nikiforuk. The introduction to The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler. Given the tremendous run-up of debt in recent years, there's a good chance that today's credit crunch will turn out to be more than just a wisp of cloud in an otherwise blue sky. Debt again: The mortgage crisis has surprising roots that go back decades. Why we need to rethink how we buy our homes. You've heard about the home-loan bust, but do you know your derivatives from your tranches? Read Salon's easy guide to understanding the current market freakout (and a response: Andrew Leonard is "uncritically Heideggerian" and of "reiterating the strategic misunderstanding of the reformist left").
12:15PM
AUG 20 2007
Africa, Islam and Europe and Latin America
David A. Lake (UCSD): Building Legitimate States After Civil Wars: Order, Authority, and International Trusteeship. A review of Aid Effectiveness in Africa: Developing Trust between Donors and Governments by Phyllis R. Pomerantz. Nothing much works in Somalia, but three things function with amazing smoothness: the commerce of khat, an impressive system of cellphone networks, and the business of international money transfers. A review of The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur by Brian Steidle and Gretchen Steidle Wallace. A review of Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation by John Ruedy.
No middle way in the Middle East: A review of Summer Rain by Annette Levy Willard and The 33-Day War by Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski. Salman Rushdie, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof and Mansour al-Nogaidan are among the well-intentioned people who have called for an Islamic Reformation. They should be careful what they wish for. From City Journal, a review of Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism by Ibn Warraq; and Theodore Dalrymple on How Societies Commit Suicide: Scots and Italians surrender to Islam. The Warsaw pact: One is the president, the other is the prime minister. The Kaczynski twins run Poland with a single, seemingly xenophobic mind. Are the brothers turning the country into the laughing stock of Europe?
From Trinidad & Tobago Express, an article on the politics of plural identities. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl on Reading Arendt in Caracas: A student movement influenced by Hannah Arendt is emerging in Venezuela. What do they think of the Bolivarian Revolution? Glamorous Argentine first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner wants to become the country's next president. As wife of the current president, she has a lot in common with Hillary Clinton: Both rose to power in the provinces, both are attorneys and both are conscious of the power they possess.
12:15PM
AUG 20 2007
History book reviews
A review of The Plot Against Pepys by James Long and Ben Long. A review of Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence by John Ferling. Revolutionary Minds: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison participated in a small "revolution" against British weather-monitoring practices. A review of Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson. A review of Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans by Jean Pfaelzer. A review of The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Creation of the Modern World, 1776-1914 by Gavin Weightman.
A review of The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Modern Warfare by David A Bell. From The Moscow Times, a review of King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay. A review of World War One: A Short History by Norman Stone. A review of Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West by Scott Martelle. Sacco & Vanzetti Today: History sheds no new light on their guilt or innocence. But it does make clear that their trial and execution was an unjust and intolerable act of barbarism, and more and more on Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson.
Was Lenin as bad as Stalin and Hitler? A review of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe by Robert Gellately (and more). A review of Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Yes, a lot of people died, but ...: Stalin has undergone a number of transformations of his historical image in Russia. A review of Lenin's Private War: The Voyage of the Philosophy Steamer and the Exile of the Intelligentsia by Lesley Chamberlain. A review of The Himmler Brothers by Katrin Himmler. A review of Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State by Gotz Aly. A review of After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation by Giles MacDonogh. A review of Churchill's Cigar by Stephen McGinty.
