Tim's Light Reading (6/16/2011)

1. The Educational Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois: An Intellectual History

This is the title of a short (189 page) new book by Derrick P. Alridge. Here's a review by Jon N. Hale, assistant education professor at Muskingum University. The review is quite informative, and here is Hale's conclusion (bolds mine):

Alridge provides a very important analysis and delineation of W.E.B. Du Bois’ educational thought. This book is critical for foundations of education scholars who present the traditional dichotomous Du Bois-Washington relationship that is too often used to represent black education ideologies during the Jim Crow era. This book is also important for historians interested in continuing to explore the tenets and nature of the Long Civil Rights Movement, especially the centrality of education as a critical site of racial, cultural, and ideological contestation. Beyond these specific academic circles, Alridge is an articulate author who engages primary sources and the socio-political context of his subject in a way that is meaningful, accessible, and informative to all readers. The Educational Thought of W.E.B. Du Bois is a well-written and supported text that makes important contributions to the field of education and history.

2. When It's Good to be Decanonized and Desacralized

Marshall Berman argues, in Dissent, that the fall of communism was the best thing to happen to Marx and Engels. I agree. [Note: The essay is actually "the introduction to [a new] Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of the Communist Manifesto published [this past] March."]

3. Science as Cultural Integrative Force in U.S. History

Check out David A. Hollinger's take on this: "The Unity of Knowledge and the Diversity of Knowers: Science as an Agent of Cultural Integration in the United States between the Two World Wars," Pacific Historical Review, 80 (May 2011), 211-30.

4. The Faulty Mind of An Historian

Ta-Nehisi Coates is reading Shelby Foote's trilogy on the Civil War. Having learned more, however, about Foote's philosophy of history regarding the Civil War, Coates (properly) faults Foote's "white romanticism." Here's the conclusion of Coates' post on the subject:

[Foote] gave twenty years of his life, and three volumes of important and significant words to the Civil War, but he he could never see himself in the slave. He could not get that the promise of free bread can not cope with the promise of free hands. Shelby Foote wrote The Civil War, but he never understood it. Understanding the Civil War was a luxury his whiteness could ill-afford.

5. FYI: TOC for the Forthcoming American Studies (50 3/4, June 2011)

- “One Nation Over Coals: Cold War Nationalism and the Barbecue” - Kristin Matthews
- “When Modernism Was Still Radical: The Design Laboratory and the Cultural Politics of Depression-Era America” - Shannan Clark
- “What Almost Was: The Politics of the Contemporary Alternate History Novel” - Matthew Schneider-Mayerson
- “Howard Fast’s American Revolution” - Neil York
- "Black Presidents, Gay Marriages, and Hawaiian Sovereignty: Reimagining Citizenship in the Age of Obama" - Judy Rohrer

From here.

6. A New Journal and Society

There is now an "International Society for the Study of Skepticism." Its first journal, appropriately titled International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, came out last month. Here is the society's "about us" page.

7. Deweyan Playground Rhymes

Here's a little Thursday humor for you.