Self-promotion alert! (But if I don't tell you, who will?) I'm happy to say that a piece I wrote on two seventeenth-century scientific projectors, Gabriel Plattes (c.1600-44) and William Petty (1623-87), has at long last come out as a chapter in the large volume shown at left. My contribution looks at how Plattes and Petty … Continue reading New publication: Alchemical transmutation and economic value in the seventeenth century
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Truth, Freedom, and Productivity: When PR usurps scholarship
No one wants ill-advised assessment regimes imported into higher education. No one wants to see a single-minded, narrow emphasis on quantifying value. No one desires deeply flawed metrics being used to compare institutions and individuals. Nevertheless...[1] Quoting the above out of context is a little unfair -- the authors are talking about the need for … Continue reading Truth, Freedom, and Productivity: When PR usurps scholarship
Is Our Historians Learning? Popular, Academic, and Political History
Last Thursday, PhD student and amateur historian Rebecca Rideal published a book about London in the very busy year of 1666.[1] Written for "the general reader", it's entitled 1666: Plague, War, and Hellfire. As is not unusual for authors of trade books to do -- when the chance presents itself -- she gave an interview in … Continue reading Is Our Historians Learning? Popular, Academic, and Political History
Back to School: Teaching, Research, and Regret
Our academic year begins in a couple of weeks, which means that this is the time for finishing, revising or at the very least updating course syllabi with the relevant dates. My teaching load is on the light side: two courses per semester, plus a moderate number of graduate and honours supervisions. (For the sake of comparison, a large, … Continue reading Back to School: Teaching, Research, and Regret
If Historians Ran the World
Historians are all atwitter over the "Applied History Project", the brainchild of Harvard scholar Graham Allison and globetrotting virtual historian Niall Ferguson. With what would seem like hubris in lesser mortals, the two projectors call on the next US President to create a "Council of Historical Advisers": a body of historians to help with policy much as the current Council … Continue reading If Historians Ran the World
Trump and the Myth of Independence, Part 2
As noted in my last, I'd like to say a little more about a specific thread of Trumpism that seems to have gained traction among people who might not otherwise choose to identify publicly with a bigot. This is the idea that as a super-rich bigot, Trump is exempt from the kinds of corruption that infect politicians … Continue reading Trump and the Myth of Independence, Part 2
Trump and the Myth of Independence, Part 1
It's a cliché that Americans are particularly prone to idolize the wealthy. This is sometimes interpreted as a result of the once-revolutionary belief in meritocracy, an elevation of personal achievement and discipline over the sources of status prized by the ancien régime: land and lineage, culture and manners -- in short, to pick an overloaded word, … Continue reading Trump and the Myth of Independence, Part 1
Historians vs Trump, part 2: Questions for Stanley Fish
Among the books I'm reading is a work of fairly recondite early modern intellectual history. Bucking a once prevalent tendency, the author of this work is at pains to disavow any political context for the intellectual debates s/he traces. For roughly half a century, political motivations have been detected behind ideas about not only politics but also economy, religion, history, and … Continue reading Historians vs Trump, part 2: Questions for Stanley Fish
Stanley Fish, Stop Opining about History
I would have no problem with individuals, who also happened to be historians, disseminating their political conclusions in an op-ed or letter to the editor; but I do have a problem when a bunch of individuals claim for themselves a corporate identity and more than imply that they speak for the profession of history. So … Continue reading Stanley Fish, Stop Opining about History
Hobgoblins: fear and politics in the 17th and 21st centuries
Like our own, the political culture of seventeenth-century England was shaped in no small part by its constituents' fears; it was defined, as academics might say, by its Others, its excluded, resented, suspected, oppressed. In fact, it has been argued at least since Winthrop Jordan's massive and still worthwhile study White over Black that the very same racist … Continue reading Hobgoblins: fear and politics in the 17th and 21st centuries
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