Tag Archives: history

5 Old Timey Movie Prejudices

This is a funny article: 5 Old-Timey Prejudices That Show Up in Every Movie. They’re all funny, but the funniest one by far is #1 (on the second page): We Still Don’t Care About History That Doesn’t Involve White People.

Posted in history, media | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (Review)

bigWOWO Review: Non-Fiction Bronze

Niall Ferguson is a gifted writer. The way he writes history makes it come alive. He does his research well, and he tells a great story. He’s the kind of history professor I wish I’d had in school. (And if I had made Harvard, maybe I would have had him.)And for the most part, this book was good. But then it slowly started to fall apart after the first few chapters, before completely landing in the toilet in the second-to-last chapter.

Posted in books, history, Reviews | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

How to Control the Slaves from Willie Lynch

sam-doyle-slave-mastersummary

(pic from here)

Thanks, Lxy, for posting this vintage link on TMM’s board.  Beware of Willie Lynch.

“In my bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling Black Slaves. I guarantee everyone of you that if installed correctly, it will control the slaves for at least 300 years. My method is simple and members of your family and any Overseer can use it.

I have outlined a number of difference(s) among the slaves; and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes…”

Posted in history | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Depression 2009

(Greg Klee/Globe Staff Illustration, Boston Globe)

(Greg Klee/Globe Staff Illustration, Boston Globe)

Don’t know what the rest of you are experiencing, but the economy here is bad, and in my industry, it’s been very bad for a very long time. The horror stories that our grandparents told us about growing up poor are becoming a reality for many Americans, and I’ve met lots of people who are in basic survival mode–shopping at Walmart, eliminating vacations, avoiding restaurants, and holding on to whatever pennies they earn. The economy is bad, and it’s most likely going to be bad for a very long time.

Posted in Features, history, News | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Blacks and the White House

The NY Times printed a fascinating historical look at African Americans and the White House.

It starts off:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first child born at the White House was the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. The second child born there was his property — the African-American baby of Jefferson’s two slaves.

Fascinating.  The article then goes on to talk about African employees who have helped to run it.

As an aside, I’ve been interested in the lives of butlers ever since reading the Remains of the Day.

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Japanese American Internment

I found the above video of Oregon Poet Laureate Lawson Inada at another blog–Zuky.  Check it out.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Japanese American internment recently.  Not thinking as in forming theories and prescriptions, which is what I usually do, but thinking as in trying to get a mental picture of what happened and what it must have been like for the internees.  I’ve been “reading” the audio book version of Robert Asahina’s Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad.  I usually put audio books into my car stereo and listen whenever I drive.  Because I’ve been at home with the baby and haven’t spent much time in the car, I’ve been a slow “reader” for this particular book.  But so far, it’s very good, with lots of first person accounts and interviews.  I haven’t yet finished it, but I’d recommend checking it out.  Most of the reviews I’ve read have been positive.

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Tule Lake Yearbook

Found this interesting newsbit on AngryAsianMan, who got it from BoingBoing.

The University of California scanned and uploaded “Aquila,” which is the yearbook for Japanese Americans interned at Tule Lake.  See it here: Tule Lake Yearbook.  It’s an interesting bit of history.  You can see more interesting primary source historical documents at the Calisphere, and there’s a specific section dedicated to the Japanese American internment here: JARDA.  I plan to check out the whole site later.

Posted in history | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Making the Old Cool Again

This is one of the most popular posts on the NY Times site today: A Dead Language That’s Very Much Alive.  It’s about the study of Latin, which is making a resurgence.  According to the article, Latin was once rejected as outdated or irrelevant, but evidently it’s now exploding in popularity.  Teachers are in high demand, and kids are tying it in with history.

Enrollment in Latin classes here in this Westchester County suburb has increased by nearly one-third since 2006, to 187 of the district’s 10,500 students, and the two middle schools in town are starting an ancient-cultures club in which students will explore the lives of Romans, Greeks and others.

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