The 49th History Carnival

Welcome to History Is Elementary! I’m honored to be your hostess here deep in the heart of the south. Pull up a chair and I’ll go pour you a tall glass of sweet iced tea. Stay awhile and enjoy the history offerings for this 49th history carnival.

I've tried to arrange posts by category, however, categories are not listed in any particular order.

German-American Relations

The Atlantic Review site states it recommends commentaries, analyses and reports on the United States and transatlantic relations and is edited by three German Fulbright Alumni: Jörg Wolf (Berlin), Sonja Bonin (Shanghai) and Jörg Geier (Hamburg). They advise they founded this private, independent, project with Scott Brunstetter (Washington DC) in July 2003 out of a concern for the deterioration of the US-German relationship. We have sent this digest to a German and an international Fulbright mailing list twice a month ever since.

Jörg Wolf gives us a taste of the site with these offerings----
When German Universities Were the Models for American Universities,
Only in Germany--The Captain of Koepenick's Historic Coup, and Black History Month in Germany. This final entry leads us into the next category…

Black History Month

Penney over at the Disability Studies, Temple U. wanted us to know they noted the birthday of Barbara Jordan on February 21 with February 21: Barbara Jordon (1936-1996). I remember hearing her on television as child. Wow, what a voice and she was such a great speaker.

American History

Tim Abbott over at Walking the Berkshires gives us the lighter side of the American Revolution with "The Misplaced Bones of William Dawes": With Apologies to Longfellow. He also provides an excellent account of his own ancestor a member of the “300 minuteman”, whose company got a late start toward Concord, but was in the thick of the fight at Bunker Hill” in the post
Too Late for Lexington But Not for Bunker Hill: Nathaniel Abbott and the Andover Minutemen. Tim advised I should choose between the two, but they were both on one of my favorite subjects….who can choose? Enjoy!

I offer my own post Nathanael Greene: Adopted Southern Son. One of the things I love about history is how it can take you down a road of twists and turns of relations, links, and cross-links. Nathanel Greene’s relationship with the state of Georgia is proof of that.

The Tour Marm from The Educational Tour Marm offers a portrait of Charles Willson Peale: Renaissance Man. Hmmmm…..mastodon bones, an avid collector of other bits of natural history, clockmaking, and over 60 completed portraits of Georgia Washington? Truly this is one interesting man!

Religion

Religion has been in the news a little in the past few days with tales about the tomb of Jesus and of course, Ash Wednesday. So, what do you think about a giant “sinner” helmet complete with arrows and flashing lights? Jarod of Jarod's Forge offers The History of Ash Wednesday: Totally Goth Since 960.

Chinese History

Alan of Frog in a Well and its sister site, 井底之蛙 gives us When Is a Farmer Not a Farmer? When He's Chinese: Then He's a Peasant. It’s a good bit of historiography.

At his interesting site, Barista David Tiley gives us a very thorough look at
The Plunder of Taklamakan. The largest sand-only desert in Central Asia has had quite a history. Many thanks to Sharon for pointing us down this portion of the Silk Road.

Scholarship and Pedagogy

Sharon over at Early Modern Web also submitted In Defense of Timelines by Jeremy Boggs of ClioWeb fame. I agree with Jeremy that it’s time for us to think seriously about the role of timelines for scholarship and pedagogy.

Sharon also submitted an excellent overview of doctoral programs by Ralph Luker of Cliopatria titled Wherein I Name a Dozen or More Doctoral Programs in History that Ought to be Shut Down. Make sure you check out the comments and weigh-in yourself.

Sonja Cole of Bookwink explains teachers looking to incorporate historical fiction into their lessons may find this video booktalk useful. This is a wonderful resource for upper elementary and middle school teachers as well as parents of students in grades 3 through 8.

When Time Periods Collide

Powerpoint presentations have become a mainstay of the education and business worlds. Mark Rayner of The Skwib, shows us what would happen if Gutenberg had had a few Powerpoint slides to present his case instead of a page from a book in The Lost Powerpoint Slides (Gutenberg Edition). Simply put it is historical humor in bullet point form.

Alun Salt of HNN's Rise and Dissent is asking, “Can you prove anything with statistics?” Can a binomial distribution provide an intelligible way of finding statistical significance? The subject matter is The Orientation of Roman Camps. I’m wondering…did the Romans know about statistics?

Weighing in on Wikipedia

The information age has provide more than a wealth of flora and fauna for every topic under the Sun, however, Jon Swift at Jon Swift is reminding all of us we need to check our source and teach our children and students to continually check their sources. In his post titled Conservapedia he advises, “Finally, there is an alternative to Wikipedia, which doesn't have any controversial ideas at all: Conservapedia. Conservapedia is based on good Christian values, unlike Wikipedia, which I gather from the name, is based on Wiccan.”

Nonpartisan over at Progressive Historians submits a post by Eugene asking Whither-Or Whether-Wikipedia? This is an excellent post on Wikipedia’s place in the world of historical academia and deserves a close read by history bloggers of all stripes.

The Victorian Age

The Victorians had so many strict social and moral codes. I doubt I would have made it in their world. Through Kristan Tetens and her blog The Victorian Peeper we learn that some of their customs weren’t so strict and a Group Revives Victorian Custom of Post-Mortem Portraiture to Help Grieving Parents.

Laurie Bluedorn over at Trivium Pursuit has put together a wonderful post called Home-Spun Artists: Historical Sketches--Beatrix Potter. There are many wonderful tid-bits about Potter’s life to ponder over.

The Past Is Prologue

Tying in today’s events to past events and looking at those little twists and turns that can change history this way and that are some of the reasons history lovers stay stay involved in the discipline. Nonpartisan from Progressive Historians states David Kaiser of History Unfolding is one of his favorite history bloggers, and provides one of Kaiser’s best titled How We Might Have Stopped Communism where he takes a modern problem and applies past events with a smidgen of “what if”.

Hugh Graham is interested in the deep origins for the history in the news…the long forgotten backstory that becomes our causes and effects of today. Hugh provides the backstory for The Lebanon Crisis at his site History In The News.

Ahistoricality advises, "Mr. Jones and I have our differences, but when he gets one right……" Ahistoricality nominates Grant Jones of The Dougout fame and his post Slings, Stones, and Hand-Cuffs regarding fourth generation warfare.

Well, that glass of tea is probably empty by now. I appreciate you stopping by and spending some time. The next edition of the History Carnival will be posted March 15th. You can submit your best historical blog writing here for the 50th History Carnival.