The History Carnival XLII

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry for the delay. My lame excuse: in Soviet Russia Internet connection has you! ;-)

And now welcome to the The History Carnival XLII!

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THE SCROLL OF TIME

Some postings that line up chronologically:

Sharon Howard presents mirrim's analysis of Magna Charta posted at Progressive Historians:

Now that we’ve seen what led to the Charter being written and signed, it’s time to look at the thing itself. [...] First, a bit about our copies of the Charter.

Natalie Bennett presents Heo Cwaeth's October 25th, A Medieval Date Which Will Live in Infamy posted at Heo Cwaeth:

If I can trust the post-structuralists to give me a break on this construction, I give you -- in chronological order -- the stuff we're commemorating today...

Joe Kissell presents Guédelon Castle / History in the making posted at Interesting Thing of the Day:

Of course, restoration is not limited to famous paintings; ancient buildings also often undergo painstaking restorations. One such example is the castle of Saint-Fargeau in Burgundy, France. Built in 1453 on the foundations of a fortress dating from the 10th century, the castle now draws in large numbers of visitors who view epic historical reenactments on its grounds.

Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs of Leiden American Pilgrim Museum presents the excerpts from the book he's writing:

From time to time, especially towards the Thanksgiving season, I am asked to comment on drafts of books or articles about the Pilgrims. Usually, when alerted to problems of fact or interpretation, authors or editors modify passages, but not always. Some interpretive habits must be well-loved even without any historical basis. One example is the nineteenth-century romantic novelist's myth of Dorothy Bradford's supposed suicide. That continues to reappear because some people think nowadays that being depressed about arriving at Cape Cod in 1620 is an expectable and understandable reaction.

Natalie Bennett presents a review of Diane Purkiss’s English Civil War posted at My London Your London:

In her “people’s history”, the war is messy and confused; decisions are made not by careful calculation and planning but by emotional impulse and irrational passion. It is not as comfortable and convenient to handle as the traditional histories, but I’ve no doubt it is far more true to the reality.

Jeremy Boggs presents Roy Booth's A Demonological Urine Test, Glasgow, 1693 posted at Early Modern Whale:

I’ve been reading a minor and belated Scottish demonologist, John Bell, who produced two brief pamphlets, in 1697 and 1700. Opinions may have moved on elsewhere, but Bell sounded the old notes of alarm.

His ‘evident and probable tokens, whereby a Witch, or such as have made express League and Compact with the Devil, may be decerned from all others’ starts conventionally enough.

J. L. Bell presents John Adams Takes the Case posted at Boston 1775:

This is an inspiring picture of a lawyer speaking up for both the right of counsel and the power of a trial to determine the truth—in spite of both popular resentment and the insinuations of political enemies. It's become the standard U.S. illustration of both how important the right of counsel is, and how admirable Adams was. But is it accurate?

Nene Adams presents #13 in the Historic Homicide Series - Hang Him High posted at The Year Round:

In Georgetown, California, in January 1851, an Englishman was shown the roughest justice that America could provide–a rough hempen noose around his neck, put there by an outraged lynch mob.

Penny Richards presents October 31: Juliette Gordon Low (1860-1927) posted at Disability Studies, Temple U.:

Who's the most famous deaf woman born in the 19th-century US South? Hm, probably Helen Keller (1880-1968). But if you've ever been a Girl Scout, the second-most famous would surely be Juliette Gordon Low (1860-1927, shown at right), founder of the Girl Scouts of America.

Tim Abbott presents With the "Free Love" of a Suffragist: Esther Gracie Ogden and Votes for Women posted at Walking the Berkshires:

Aunt Het was a suffragette. This is how our family remembers her, although suffragist was the term preferred in America by those working to enfranchise women. Esther Gracie Ogden was my great-great aunt and died long before I was born, but her story has always fascinated me. Women's history is usually not self-evident and is harder to tease out from ancestral files - even those as extensive as those in my care - but there have been many formidable women in our clan and Aunt Het is an exemplary example.

Sharon Howard presents Nathanael D. Robinson's G-d, Government and Butter posted at Cliopatria:

But Sullivan’s outlook on conservatism is broader than American politics, including European luminaries, and it is here that the example of Germany’s Catholic party, the Zentrum, reveals the problems of a conservatism that is a straight line from Burke to Sullivan’s 1980s heroes.

Gavin Robinson presents Grand Narratives of Global War posted at Investigations of a Dog:

The discussions at Airminded and elsewhere are a reminder that a single metanarrative of the Second World War is inadequate and probably unattainable. Different states have different dates for the start of the war. In effect, each state has its own metanarrative. Each of those metanarratives privileges the state which created it, and none of them covers every aspect of the war satisfactorily.

Natalie Bennett presents Laura James' Toni Jo Henry’s Date With Death posted at Clews The Historic True Crime Blog:

Historically, women have always had to do something particularly awful to be convicted of a serious crime, and to sentence a woman to death – oh! That didn’t happen all that often. Especially when the female in question was good looking. The law has always made an ass of itself when there’s a beautiful woman in the dock.

And don’t argue with me about it. I’ve been trying to prove it to you, see.

One of the most beautiful, indeed absolutely stunning women ever convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the United States of America was a gal by the name of Toni Jo Henry.

Jeremy Boggs presents Bill DeRouchey's The Leisure for women in 1956 posted at History of the Button:

Get dinner ready, cook four things at once AND roast a cornish game hen in the portable roaster, in the kitchen. Sit back, relax, enjoy your cup of coffee, or tea, or Sanka, in the kitchen. Look up! Enjoy your favorite programs on television, Milton Berle or Ernie Kovacs, in the kitchen. Why? Because it’s as easy as pushing buttons.

As long as the leisure happens in the same place as work!

MUSEUMS

Natalie Bennett presents Exhibition Review: Power & Taboo at the British Museum posted at My London Your London:

So what we have here are apparently terrifying, nightmare gods, high-maintenance gods who demanded a lot of work of their adherents. Why might these societies, living in what we might think of as an idyllic world of swaying palm trees and soft sea breezes, have chosen to create such deities? Some thoughts occur. ...

Sharon Howard and Jeremy Boggs present Sheila Brennan's Chicago History Museum and Computer History Museum posted at Relaxing on the Trail:

I’m beginning with the Chicago History Museum, because the ECHO project held a digital history workshop there this weekend, and because it just reopened its doors to the public after a renovation and the website seems to have been re-vamped as well.

Orac presents An anti-Semite demands: Why a Holocaust museum but no slavery museum? posted at Respectful Insolence:

The other day, in the midst of a discussion about one of my posts about Holocaust denial, an anti-Semite posting as "bernarda" demanded:

Then I read books like Norman Finkelstein's Holocaust Industry and understood that it [the Holocaust] has just become a propaganda tool to create a permanent guilt complex, even on Americans who had nothing to do with it. Why are there several holocaust museums in the U.S. but no slavery museum?

The answer is pretty simple: Because the U.S. did not perpetrate the Holocaust. It helped to end the Holocaust. In contrast, the U.S. did perpetrate slavery. That's probably why, and it's just that simple.

MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS

Joerg Wolf presents Historical Comparisons: Fritz Stern Publishes "Five Germanys I Have Known" posted at Atlantic Review:

Hitler comparisions are still very popular: Secretary Rumsfeld has German roots, used to visit his relatives in Germany in the 80s, and should know German history. Still he compared Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez with Adolf Hitler in a speech at the National Press Club [...] Chavez called President Bush "the devil" at the UN General Assemply in September 2006. Is that better or worse than his previous Hitler comparison?

Alan presents K. M. Lawson's The History of Sino-Japanese Relations as seen in Japan's Most Popular Travel Guide posted at Frog in a Well / China:

Among those who travel abroad, I think it is reasonable to suggest that travel guidebooks are one of the most important sources of historical information about the world that we are likely to read after the completion of our formal education along with popular fiction and media such as movies and TV. Given that fact, I think that historians might do well to consider the importance of travel guidebooks (and I mean those of our own time, since the travel guides of past ages have gotten the ample and well deserved attention of scholars).

Orac presents Cinema science posted at Respectful Insolence:

As a movie overall, Something the Lord Made is solid, but fails to achieve greatness. Nonetheless, it does achieve something admirable in its accurate period description of the surgical research of one of the true giants of 20th century surgery, plus its depiction of the unlikely friendship that developed between a young black carpenter who helped develop an operation that prolonged the lives of thousands of babies with congenital heart defects, as well as helping to train generations of Johns Hopkins surgical residents in operative techniques in the animal lab.

Finally, your humble host presents a sad story: On the demise of deathcamps.org: how fakes and arrogance killed a great undertaking.

HALLOWEEN

In conclusion, Jeremy Boggs presents a collection of links to the Histories of Halloween (with thanks to Tom Scheinfeldt):

A Snarky Halloween History by Nick Dilmore at OmniNerd

Halloween History! by darkfairy99 at MyCoke

Halloween - its history and lots more by Neil Williams at The Respect Supporters Blog

Halloween: A Redemptive History by Jamie Arpin-Ricci at (e)mergent Voyageurs

That's all for today!

The next History Carnival will be held on November 15 at Axis of Evel Knievel. You can submit postings to jfdhn (at) uas (dot) alaska (dot) edu or here.

Update: please, check out Cliopatria Awards!