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Mostrando entradas de noviembre 2, 2014

Book Review: Burris on Staley, Computers, Visualization, and History

David J. Staley. Computers, Visualization, and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past. Second Edition. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2013. 174 pp. $69.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7656-3386-6; $28.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7656-3387-3. Reviewed by Greg Burris (Florida State University) Published on H-War (October, 2014) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey We can put away the pitchforks and torches; David J. Staley is not a history heretic trying to convert us to cliometricians. This book, an address to his fellow historians, proposes a reexamination of visual methodologies. As Staley notes on several occasions, he sees the computer more like the telescope than the printing press, an instrument of visual inquiry more than a word processor. Staley is careful to be clear that he is not saying that visual history is better. It is simply another tool that historians can put into their repertoire. He calls on historians not to let past mistakes of particular histo

Book Review: Ivy on Frederickson, Cold War Dixie

Kari A. Frederickson. Cold War Dixie: Militarization and Modernization in the American South. Athens: University of Georgia Press , 2013. xii + 226 pp. $69.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8203-4519-2; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8203-4520-8. Reviewed by James Ivy Published on H-SAWH (November, 2014) Commissioned by Lisa A. Francavilla Atoms for Change Kari A. Frederickson’s Cold War Dixie is a good book on an important topic: the social, cultural, geographic, and political impact of the Savannah River Plant (SRP), which produced primarily tritium and plutonium-239 for the American nuclear arsenal. Built and managed by Du Pont Corporation beginning in 1951, the SRP was situated on over three hundred square miles of mostly rural South Carolina at the Georgia border. Frederickson chronicles the transformation of the area in and adjacent to the site, arguing that the military necessities of arms production and the corporate culture of Du Pont elided a traditional southern culture

Book Review: Harper on Kennedy, The Last Blank Spaces

Dane Kennedy. The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa and Australia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013. Illustrations. 368 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-04847-8. Reviewed by Toby Harper (Providence College) Published on H-Empire (November, 2014) Commissioned by Charles V. Reed Rough Terrain All too often, academic history in general and imperial history in particular take a subject that sounds like it should be a fascinating study of past societies and individuals and render it into a bland (even if worthy) paste of overanalyzed detail. This has not been the case with Dane Kennedy’s work, however. His previous book on Richard Burton ( The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the Victorian World  [2006]) combined entertaining narratives, historiographical sophistication, and a core innovative idea about the relationship between Burton’s life, imperial ideologies, and our understanding of late Victorian British culture. Can Kennedy deliver a similar co

Call for Bloggers: Interested in writing for Nursing Clio?

Have you always wanted to write for a public audience? Nursing Clio is looking for new guest and regular contributors who focus on history of medicine, women, gender, and race outside of the U.S. If interested send an email, along with your CV/resume, to nursingclio@gmail.com Please read our missing statement at:  http://nursingclio.org/

CFP Extended Deadline (21 December 2014): Special Issue on Science, Technology and the Nation, "Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism" (SEN) Journal

CFP Extended Deadline: Special Issue on Science, Technology and the Nation, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (SEN) Journal Science and technology have become closely interwoven within the larger processes of national development, nation-building and citizenship. Scientific and technological innovation is often seen as the benchmark through which nation states enact claims of modernisation and progress, by asserting their competitive status in larger geopolitical hierarchies differentiating ‘developed’ from ‘developing’ states. Nuclear power is one such example, which provides both an advantage in warfare as well as in the ready availability of clean energy. Similarly, large hydroelectric power plants are able to sustain an extensive irrigated agriculture system, in addition to providing a strategic geopolitical advantage to the country in which they are located. Biomedical innovation and the development of new medical technologies in recent decades have come to constit