Here is a little levity to end the work week. This little exchange from the Southern Heritage Preservation FB Group is worth a good laugh, but it’s also a reminder that many people simply do not understand the first thing about what is involved in historical research. The scholarship that historians produce is not the [...]
James McPherson
I was hoping that yesterday’s post would not turn into another round of the same old back and forth over the cause of the war, but that is exactly what happened. Unfortunately, most of what is usually offered in such discussions lacks any serious analysis and/or context. I was hoping to encourage readers to share [...]
I’ve caught bits and pieces of the Museum of the Confederacy’s “Person of the Year: 1862″ symposium on CSPAN-3. It’s an entertaining event for the children of the Civil War Centennial. The historians in charge of nominating this year include Robert K. Krick, David Blight, James McPherson, Jack Mountcastle, and Emory Thomas. The historians selected [...]
Check out the programs for two upcoming conferences that will focus heavily on the Civil War, the South, and Virginia history. The first is the Second Annual Virginia Forum which is scheduled for April 13-14 at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. This conference brings together scholars who focus on all areas of Virginia history. [...]
I was browsing the History News Network and noticed that James McPherson is set to release a new edited collection in January titled, This Mighty Scourge of War: The American Illiad, 1861-1865. Like his other collections, this one is published by Oxford University Press. Here is a description from their website: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author [...]
I was wondering when we would see another McPherson rant from Dimitri Rotov over at Civil War Bookshelf. This installment does not disappoint as it is filled with what has become the routine incoherent references to a so-called “centennial school” and now a pseudo-analysis of McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom as some kind of sufficient [...]
While I appreciate that Dimitri mentions me in the same post as James McPherson and Ed Ayers it is not at all clear as to exactly how I fit in. More importantly, this supposed dichotomy between Ayers’s contingency and McPherson’s Whiggism is way off the mark. Dimitri would have us believe that McPherson assumes a [...]
