Welcome to Osprey’s History Carnival. You will always find history-related postings at the Osprey Blog. As the official blog of military history publisher Osprey Publishing, the topics are mostly military-related in some way, but reflect our contributors' wide interests. From “Women of the Military History Fanclub Unite” through to “What’s your Top 3 worst war films?”, there will always be something you can relate to.
Being both employees and history enthusiasts ourselves, we leapt at the chance to host the History Carnival. Reading about all kinds of approaches, views and news on history as part of our working week? What could be better? So take a seat, grab a coffee and a doughnut, and enjoy the plethora of wonder that is the 57th History Carnival’s selection of best blogging for September 2007.
Militaria
Richard from our own blog began the hotly contested debate Why study military history?, and addresses whether those who choose to, do this purely because they appreciate "we need to understand the past to avoid making mistakes in the future", or whether there are perhaps other reasons, such as “a more primeval, visceral or subconscious appeal.”
Relating to this discussion, Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica, asks another fascinating question, "Who Writes History?" on the Britannica blog and wonders aloud whether it's really the winners, and not the losers, who write it.
There are of course myriad questions concerning history, its winners and its losers, and Gavin Robinson reviews the new book Liberation or Catastrophe? by Michael Howard, founder of the War Studies department at King’s College, London, UK on his blog Investigations of a Dog. This “interesting and engaging” collection of essays are taken from lectures given by Howard which cover war and diplomacy from the First World War through to the War on Terror.
Another approach to covering the lessons of history is of course visually. Jeremy presents Ken Burns “doing history” with Jon Stewart on his blog Advances in the History of Psychology. Ken Burns was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his new history of World War II: The War. By digging through the archives, over a period of six years, Burns found footage that had never been seen before. And it had been shot in colour. He speaks, in other words, about the value of archival work. “We went and found that footage and brought it alive, so all of a sudden this is an unmediated war. It’s no longer something that’s safe.”
Lastly, and something a little lighter for those buccaneers amongst you, Mark A. Rayner presents the clever and amusing The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Buccaneer Edition) posted at the skwib.
Resistance
Resistance has always been a part of history, and has led the way to political and social change throughout the world.
Midtowng at Progressive Historians takes an informed look at The Great Strike of 1877, America’s first nationwide strike, when the working class revolted against the establishment. It is the only strike in American history not to be led by union workers.
Following the end of the General Motors strike, strikes were also on the mind of Jennie W from American Presidents Blog, and she looks at President Theodore Roosevelt’s unprecedented involvement in the 1902 coal strike - when he summoned the leaders to office, and asked his Commissioner of Labor to investigate the strike personally.
In line with this, The Picket Line recounts public protest on the other side of the pond and reviews the large-scale tax resistance campaign by British non-conformists (Non-Anglicans) against government subsidies to religious schools over a century ago; a campaign which led to many other tax-resistance related protests and social debates down the line.
Following on from The Picket Line’s coverage of economic resistance, The Agonist comments on Alan Greenspan’s new book The Age of Turbulence and indeed reviews the whole Greenspan backtrack debate.
Meanwhile, AHistoricality covers an on-going resistance movement; the ongoing fight against society’s outmoded perception of disability, and provides both an informative and necessary post on the history and evolution of this perception, sparked by “the grossly-outmoded public displays of self-indulgent do-gooding” of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon."
Evolution
Greg Laden’s blog focuses on evolution, and this month covers “one of the most important events in Western History” – the discovery of ocean currents and what it meant to maritime evolution.
Another evolution-related post is Karen’s History Project’s blog post on the link between scientific teachings of right-brained learning and her current project on Peter the Great. Was he a right-brained learner? Find out more on this and right-brained learning as a whole here.
In terms of social evolution, Everyone Needs Therapy addresses the case of the Jena 6, and the wider issue of racism, particularly in the south of America.
In a new take on scientific evolution, Eric Michael Johnston at Primate Diaries presents The Grassroots of Evolution and the idea that “the rejection of authority and working-class values inspired the scientific method”.
On the subject of medical evolution, Romeo Vitelli’s post Killing President Garfield on his blog Providentia explores both the behaviour of his assassin Charles Guiteau, and indeed the part that medical practice of the time played in killing U.S. President Garfield, rather than his wounds: “the sixteen doctors who were called in to tend the president had no notion that their own unsterilized hands and instruments were a danger to their patient (this was years before sterilization became common practice in medicine).”
Study
For all those students amongst us, Larry Ferlazzo draws our attention to the newly-revised American site, HippoCampus, an online source of information for help with homework and study for a number of subjects, including U.S. history and the American Government.
On the subject of the study of slavery, Tim Burke presents his view of Michael Medved’s column on six inconvenient truths about the U.S. and slavery posted at Cliopatria – “Where is it that these discussions about the Atlantic system are being kept as a deep, dark, concealed secret from the tender minds of America's youth? Not in the university classrooms that I know. Certainly not in the monographs and articles of scholars studying the Atlantic system. That's where Medved is drawing (and caricaturing and misunderstanding and misrepresenting) the knowledge that goes into his "six inconvenient truths".”
Marcella Chester brings to light on her blog abyss2hope how studying old US Jail records from over a century ago illustrate a very different set of bad behaviour criteria to current legislation. “I also wonder how many people would be shocked to learn that their ancestors married to get out of jail.”
Remembrance
Tim Abbott from Walking the Berkshires, last month’s Carnival host, looks back on both his attendance at the Constitution convention twenty years ago, and provides an intriguing look at his ancestor, Jonathon Dayton. Dayton was one of the American Constitution’s signatories, and indeed the youngest delegate to attend the original convention.
Will Sexton’s series of posts on his blog Chatham Rabbit cover Chatham’s Confederate Memorial, and both the history of the memorial’s development, and Chatham’s Civil War heritage. This thread of posts concluded in September.
Strange but true
First up in the surely nots, Undercover Black Man reveals that an old-time country music tune yields surprising information about the history of slavery in the American South. David Mills presents a new insight into old folk song Run, Nigger, Run - that it was actually an old slave song.
Another ironic surprise is presented by Susan on her blog Random Madness in Torrance. She looks at the history and variation of the font Blackletter and its lesser-known links to Adolf Hitler in post Achtung!.
And finally, something which I am going to do the minute I next travel to Washington D.C., The DC Traveler highlights the chance to ride in an original WWII DUKW (Duck) amphibious vehicle on tourist tours around D.C.
AOB
Lastly, Nathaniel Robinson presents a thought-provoking piece, Letter to a Future Historian on his blog Europe Endless. He looks at how the current war in Iraq might be categorised and judged by future historians: “You will receive accolades and harangues. Please, though, be kind to us. You are one generation looking back on another.”
And that, my friends, is it. Thanks to all those who submitted posts, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to include them all this time. The next edition will be hosted by Martin Rundkvist at Aardvarchaeology.
It will be slightly later than usual, on 6th November (rather than the 1st). To submit your best history-related posts from October, please use the handy submission form.