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It is my opinion that most of the problems with academia today including the discussion of bias and objectivity inevitably lead back to the post-modern movement that began in the 1940's but really exploded in the 60's. The arts and humanities have been particularly affected by this because they are “soft” to begin with. With “Global Warming” >:( even the so called “hard” sciences are now being affected, or I should say INFECTED, with the postmodern viewpoint.
I think Petraeus is going to go down in history as one of the great generals. We'll see.
I think we are too close to events in both time and space to have any idea what the verdict of history will be about either Petraeus or the Iraq War. Of course they are not armed, that is one of the beauties about authoritarian regimes. I do not think the evidence supports the notion that Iran is ripe for revolt. I would guess the people want change, but from what I have read they want to achieve change at the ballot box. Revolutionary change will only come when the majority in Iran are so fed up with the regime that any alternative seems preferable. I think they are about as far from revolution in Iran as we in the United States. The status quo is simply not intolerable enough yet.
So how long have you been working on Obama's staff? ;D ;D 😀Thank you very much, next show will be at 8:00
Wild horses could not get me to vote for Obama, he is a disaster waiting to happen. I dont think we should pull out of Iraq but you have to admit the region is even more unsettled now than it was six years ago. However, I think the worst is past and if we(the US) remain committed and finish what we started, then the Middle East has a very real chance to start enjoying some of what we have in the west as far as freedom and standard of living goes.If there is a big enough majority in Iran to start a revolt, why don't they?
Here are some good ones I have run across.1. The Avalon Project This is an excellent collection of primary documents. They mainly relate to law but there are some gems here.2. Dissertations This is a site where Master's and Doctoral candidates can publish their Thesis' and Dissertations. It is a pay site though.3. Perry-Casta?eda Library Map Collection This is an excellent collection of Historical maps from ancient times to the present4. There are also the various internet sourcebooks atThe Classics Archive The Medieval History SourcebookThe Ancient History SourcebookThe Modern History SourcebookThese are just a few of the general reference sites I have found, if you are looking for something specific let me know. I have something like two hundred sites bookmarked as history sites.
I have been using 2007 for almost a year now and love it. The only bad part is that you have to save it as a 2003 or earlier file when you turn it in at school. Sometimes that causes minor formatting changes but nothing hard to fix, at least so far for me.
I also do not have any schoolwork to do as I am taking a break during the move. I just finished a class and am waiting for my grade and my next class doesn't start until September. It will give me something to do instead of twiddling my thumbs and keep me thinking historically.How about I will write up something about tips for researching on the net. There are plenty of bogus sites out there that put out bad info or are generally unreliable. Wikipedia tops the list as being unreliable. I once made Charlemagne a black man and it stayed up for almost two weeks.
Also, if you are running Office 2007 it will automatically create a Bibliography in the correct format although it only does in-text citations and does not format footnotes.
I will try to work something up. I will be off the net from 3 July until around the middle of August on vacation and then getting a new house set up once I arrive in Germany. I will definitely be back on the site when I get set up. this is bar none the best forum I have found so far, both for the quality of the comments and the friendliness of the regular posters.
I would argue that Global Warming and its adherents attempts at controlling society are a fusion of Marxism and Fascism. It is just another way for our betters to control us. The worst of it is that they are trying to claim they are only doing it in our best interests, much like sin taxes on liquor and tobacco. To me it boils down to elites looking down on all of us peons as stupid, the same attitude the Europeans had toward colonial peoples.
Ski, exactly how much progress and stability have we brought to the region? Seems to me that the Middle East is in even more turmoil now than it was prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.Just playing Devil's advocate here ;D
I think my signature says it all about my historical philosophy.
“History is what happened, not what we wanted to have happen.”
You can argue points of fact, I take particular offense to historians moralizing in their narratives though.Phid, thanks for the tip on hyperlinks. ;D
I am not talking about an entire Muslim country. But if their leadership leads them down the path of ruin then the country is committing suicide. Don't believe, ask the Nazi's what happened when they followed an idiotic leader. Germany effectively committed suicide by following Hitler's lead even after it was clear that they would lose the war and go down in flames while losing it.You are trying to cherry pick my answer. I did not say that they would all commit suicide. I pointed out that suicidal actions have a long history within the Muslim faith, even suicide in the pursuit of political objectives can justified by faith under Islam.
As I have alluded to before, I consider myself a Rankean historian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Ranke By the way, how do I make a title show in place of the link so that I can make it read Leopold von Ranke instead of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Ranke?I like to present history "wie es eigentlich gewesen" or as it actually happened. That does not mean endorsing the actions of any side but instead, presenting what happened happened and trying to explain why ,in the authors opinion, the actors did what they did. I would like to emphasize that it is not the responsibility of the historian to justify past acts, the historian simply tells a narrative account of what happened. The interpretation of history is the historians educated guess as to why things happened not whether they were right or wrong.A simple judgment call is not warranted by the historian, is that not the purview of the reader to make an individual judgment call as to the rightness or wrongness of the things that happened in the past? Right and wrong are the domain of philosophy, not history. That is the problem with much of modern historical scholarship, historians are so busy inflicting their moral wisdom on us that the average reader is left wondering what really happened. The story of the past is lost in a welter of moralizing and lecturing about how right or wrong Hitler etc. was.History is no more or less than a story. It is the art of telling the story of the past in a factual compelling manner that invites the reader to learn more about what happened so that they can form their own opinion. I don't know about everybody else, but I don't need some guy telling telling me the difference between right and wrong, I learned that from parents as a child.All the debate about bias in history confuses the issue. The issue is not bias, it is what are we doing in schools today that makes the average person incapable of making an independent moral judgment?
