Education: December 2008 Archives

Larry Schweikart on A Patriot's History of the United States on National Review Online

A friend recommended this to me as a highly readable history of our country, written to avoid the twin errors of "My Country, Right or Wrong" and "My Country, Always Wrong." This Amazon review says, "The author unflinchingly displays the good, the bad and the ugly of all political figures and parties, alternately offering up both praise and criticism for each where warranted."

Only Collect « a historian's craft

The work of a young historian: "And the work is: Only Collect; that is to say, collect everything, indiscriminately. You're five years old. Don't presume too much to know what's important and what isn't. Photocopy journal articles, photograph archives; create bibliographies, buy books; make notes on every article or book you read, even if it's just one line saying 'Never read this again'; collect newspaper clippings and email them to yourself; collect quotes; save your ideas for future papers, future projects, future conferences, even if they seem wildly implausible now. Hoarding must become instinctual, it must be an uncontrollable, primal urge. And the higher, civilizing impulse that kicks in after the fact is organization, or librarianship." Who knew there was a professional niche for hoarding evidently useless information? (Via Jollyblogger.)