Brown University and History

Here is the press release from Brown re: a review of its historical ties to slavery.

Northwest debate: Is hydropower 'clean'?

In William Yardley's article "Northwest debate: Is hydropower "clean?" in the New York Times, he writes about a new debate about the Columbia River over hydroelectric dams. According to Yardley, the fishing community in the Columbia want the damns removed because they harm fishing grounds. On the other hand, however, Pacificorp, the company that built hyroelectric dams, argue that even though they pollute the river, the dams are a clean source of energy that does not pollute the air and lead to climate change.

http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T4942034551&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T4942034592&cisb=22_T4942034589&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&selRCNodeID=31&nodeStateId=411en_US,1&docsInCategory=6&csi=8357&docNo=3

WWF Pandas in Paris!

So we were just talking about this in class today. I found an article about paper mache pandas set up in Trocadero (Army and Naval Museums in Paris) by WWF members.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,585206,00.html

More in Common with the Writer of Generation Kill

Evan Wright, the embedded reporter who went on to write Generation Kill, was actually a history major in college.

Here's a set of interviews with the some of the cast of Generation Kill, some of the actual soldiers, and Evan Wright himself.

Mad Men - Selling an AD

This video shows an adman of the 1960s selling his idea for the Kodak carousel.

Reel History

I found this website through Lehigh University which is the 'Reel American History Project' which was created by students at the school to 'study the history that movies make'...i thought it was fitting considering what we talked about last week:
the link is here

pretty extensive resource for looking at the film shapes history...

Sweetness and Power

Here is a video of Sidney Mintz discussing Sweetness and Power.

John Adams Review Part. 2

Here are the links to my last post which for some reason didn't work:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/arts/television/14adam.html?ref=television
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CNbQOrxQ-g

John Adams Review

"Blowhard, Patriot, President" is the title of this 2008 Review of the HBO miniseries John Adams written by Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times.



This is the full trailer from the miniseries on youtube:

Jack and Rose and History: TITANIC

This weekend, I had the pleasure of finding "Titanic" while channel surfing. I also stumbled across an article on the Titanic (I believe it was in Newsweek) that mentioned that new information has come out about how the ship sunk. Rather than breaking into two pieces, it broke into three, and did not rise out of the water nearly as high as James Cameron depicted it to have in the movie. The Titanic is definitely a stretch as a movie that depicts history because of its two lead fictional characters and all of their romantic drama, but the film also depicts many real people (like Molly Brown and Captain Smith). Ultimately, it conveys the experience and emotions of that night very well. The fear and desperation of the passengers in this clip therefore seem very true to the event, while the way the ship rose out of the water, split in two, and then sunk may not have been the case:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_-sRQRPgss

I couldn't hear the sound in the computer lab so hopefully its okay.

- Brandon Stinchfield

Michael Moore, Ali G and feminism..

So I found these two clips on youtube....the first is Michael Moore, Sandra Bernhardt and a few others on the Bill Maher show having a debate about feminism--its interesting to see the huge divide between the two men talking about feminism.



The second is from the Ali G Show...he's interviewing a female (women studies..?..) professor about feminism.



I thought these clips would tie in nicely since Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel "Herland" is a book about a feminist utopia yet the female author uses a male narrator and protagonist to advance her ideas. I like that these two clips include a male voice/opinion... (even though one is kind of ridiculous)

John Adams bringing back the historical miniseries?

A poster on Associated Content wrote an article on how he thinks John Adams just might usher in a new wave of popularity for the historical miniseries in this article: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1055656/the_success_of_john_adams_prompts_a.html?page=3&cat=47
The poster seems to think that John Adams wasn't as successful on HBO as it could have been on more major networks. Does anyone else think that there is still a mainstream audience for historical TV? I don't think television is the best medium for historically accurate work. Although HBO may be able to stay true to its source, major networks have to worry about pleasing advertisers and drawing more viewers to increase ratings, which often comes at a cost to the accuracy of the source material.

History and Film: The Counterfeiters

One of my favorite movies last year was The Counterfeiters, the true story of a group of Nazi prisoners who were recruited for unusual work: to counterfeit British currency. (Incidentally, the movie won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film.) Here is the New York Times review of The Counterfeiters. While the film is loosely based on Operation Bernhard (the actual plan to destabilize British currency in World War Two), it provides interesting insights into the real dilemmas of the Holocaust, and the difficulties in portraying the horrors of the Nazi camps in modern film.

Depicting History in films

So Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut of course) is probably one of my favorite movies of all time, I really don't know why but I love it. This movie is about a blacksmith (Orlando Bloom) who joins a Crusade. It is set during the height of Saladin's campeigns to regain Jerusalem.

Although this movie gives the audience a general idea of what was going during those times. I think that the tensions between Muslims and Christians in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas is pretty accurate. As for everything else, well Hollywood exaggerates as always. I believe it is nearly impossible for movies to be historically accurate because there is a need to generally please the audience through entertainment NOT educate them with facts.

I found this article that talks about the Kingdom of Heaven which is pretty good because the author is a historian whose expertise if Muslim history. Although Timothy Furnish does give the movie some credit for keeping to historical facts, he pretty much disapproves of the main message the hero (Bloom) is trying to put forth-religious tolerance.

http://hnn.us/articles/11933.html

Hanford and Presidential Politics?

I did not expect to find a connection between Richard White's "The Organic Machine" and campaign politics, but this article discusses a visit Barack Obama paid to Washington back in May, When asked about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (which White spends a substantial amount of time on), Obama admitted that he knew little of the situation but promised he would research it. What I found most striking was that the government spends $2 bil on cleanup in the Hanford area. Does that mean that taxpayers and their money are now a part of the "organic machine"?

http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2008/05/obama_stumped_by_question_abou.html

- Brandon Stinchfield

The New Yorker's take on HBO's John Adams

Jill Lepore reviewed HBO's "John Adams" mini-series... She had some issues with the bias toward Adams, especially the title the show gives him- "he United the States of America." But she praised the series for it's realistic depictions of 18th Century Boston and life during the war.

Here's the Guy

Leopold von Ranke
12 December 1795 - 23 May 1886

"But it is not for the past as a part of the present, but for the past as the past, that man is properly concerned" (Diaries, 1814)


Biography

In Defense of History

I provide you with two things to view, and the first is a webpage. This web page is about the book In Defense of History written by Richard Evans. It takes the major criticisms in the book and the defense provided by Evans to each question.

The second item is a youtube video


He used cited resources to talk about neutrality in history and uses many items that Evans himself uses such as how there is a checks and balances in the study that keeps inaccuracies from doing too much damage.

John Adams Review

According to the washington post John Adams wasn't that much of a hero

Sweetness and Power-Book Review

Hi,
So the book I chose to write about in the first paper was Sweetness and Power, here's a review from JSTOR. I found it pretty interesting, it's very clear and concise which is always makes for a good review. Mark Wilde does a great job summarizing the book for us, giving a brief but detailed outline of Mintz's main points.

http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-165X(198701)28%3A1%3C141%3ASAPTPO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J

Diaries of John Adams

I found this cool link from the Mass Historical Society that has a HUGE archive of John Adams' diaries. This is the link to the index of the site, which is sorted by date. If you click on one of the dates, it will direct you to a page which includes all the text. What's even more interesting is that this site includes pictures from his actual diary, and the pictures of the pages are next to their coordinating dates.

Starbucks Counterculture

Michael Hoover wrote an article for Monthly Review about Starbucks, advertising, and the link to counterculture. He brings up a lot of the same points Frank does regarding "hip" and co-optation. With a Starbucks on every corner, the company hardly represents the "authentic" coffee shop experience, prompting Hoover to ask why it is so popular. Just as Frank defended business culture's co-optation of the counterculture, Hoover has some defense for the thriving company... Starbucks is "capitalism with a "humane face" that leaves one "feeling groovy."

A Connection to the Conquest of Cool

This article in the Independent describes the evolution of British advertising from the 1960s through the 1980s, which mirrored the American advertising revolution of catering to a young, hip audience. It also mentions a reversal in the 1990s, moving away from creative advertising and more towards the modest, scientific approach used in the 1950s.

McCullough Cited for Selling "Himself to the Celebrity Culture"

No historical representation in media will be one hundred percent correct, but Alex Beam takes a vicious stab at McCullough's John Adams and the HBO series' representation. I especially like his implications for the series being used in the classroom. Click here for the article.

Women's Fantasies and Feminist Utopias

Women's Fantasies and Feminist Utopias
This JSTOR article explores the works of a handful of feminist authors during the 19th Cnetury and contemporary Women's Movements. In her analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland among others, author Carol Pearson finds that while these works may appear to be different they possess many similar characteristics. In each of the works, a feminist utopia exists in which women are free from the limits typically set by a patriarchal society; Pearson finds a striking consensus in each fantasy work involving such a utopia.

• Carol Pearson
  
• Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 50-61
• Published by: University of Nebraska Press
• http://www.jstor.org/stable/3346349?&Search=yes&term=herland&term=movement&term=women%27s&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dherland%2Band%2Bwomen%2527s%2Bmovement%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26wc%3Don&item=4&ttl=172&returnArticleService=showArticle

John Adams Review

A Review of the miniseries by the Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120544948247734833.html

Dams of the Columbia Basin

Pictures of dams and effects on Native Fishery

http://www.ccrh.org/comm/river/dams7.htm

Sugar Industry is Changing

In the last part of Mintz's book, Sweetness and Power, he focuses on how sugar has been extended in American culture, through increased sugar-intake, stranger eating habits, and obesity. This article in The Economist points out that sugar sales have decreased, while artificial sweetener sales have increased even though they may be potentially worse for you. More people seem to be more conscience of what they eat, and it is impacting the sugar industry.

The Conquest of Cool and the Pepsi Generation

For my first paper I wrote on The Conquest of Cool. What really bothered me about the book is that though Frank claimed to explain how advertising was in tune with the counterculture and social change that occurred in the sixties, he never once mentioned the Civil Rights Movement or the integration of minorities into advertising. Pepsi actually tried to be racially diverse with a lot of its late 60's and 70's Pepsi Generation ads. So here is an example of Pepsi trying to be young, multicultural, and fun with one of their You've Got a Lot to Live ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h56Qq2rlqo (Youtube says it ran from 1969-1972)

Another Link to the Organic Machine

Not only are salmon endangered, but their dwindling numbers have begun to endanger the orcas in the Columbia River basin. Click here for the article.

History and Film

I found this link on an article titled "Movies to Make Your High School Teacher Cry". Here is the link historically bad movies. As we see within the links provided from the webpage, we hit a lot of these movies in our discussion, with several of these being Mel Gibson flicks.

Sweetness and Power; Slate.com photo essay on sugar plantations

Here it is.