The Death of Osama bin Laden: V-J Day or Glorious Victory Over the Forces of Eastasia?

The death (or is it "killing" or "execution" or "assassination"?) of Osama bin Laden seems like a significant enough event that those of us in the American historical profession ought to give some space to it today.  But I struggled a bit whether or not to do so...and if so, how to touch on whatever intellectual history content one might find in yesterday's events.*

Ultimately, I decided to put together this rather post in part because I was so struck by the public memory conversation that began even before President Obama spoke last night.   I found out about bin Laden's death in a perfectly 21st-century fashion: a push notification from the New York Times on my iPad at around 10:15 pm CDT alerted me to the upcoming White House announcement, so I turned on MSNBC (which had the regular NBC news team's coverage) and waited.  As crowds gathered outside the White House, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and chanting "USA! USA!," one of the network talkingheads opined that this was going to one of those moments about which you'll always remember what you were doing when you heard the news.

If bin Laden's death is going to one of those moments (and with the media's declaring it to be one, it may be well on the way there), how will we remember it? Will this be the end of a period in our history that began on 9/11/01?  Or will this be just another great triumph in the neverending Global War on Terror (or Whatever We're Calling It This Week)?

Much like the immediate aftermath of 9/11, this great moment of national unity is (perhaps predictably) featuring a number of important political actors jockeying to attach their particular spin to what has happened.  The most obvious source of controversy so far seems to involve claims that bin Laden's death vindicates George W. Bush's foreign policy. At least in a narrow sense (that Bush, as opposed to Obama, somehow deserves credit), this argument seems doomed to fail. But I expect the broader idea that yesterday's killing of bin Laden vindicates the broad, bipartisan consensus around the War on Terror (or Whatever) will go largely unchallenged in mainstream American public discourse.

But there really are questions to be asked here:  could another approach have captured bin Laden more quickly?  was an (apparent) assassination (as opposed to actually bringing bin Laden, alive, to justice) the right goal?  how much was this success the result of the broad, new powers that the national security and surveillance state accumulated for itself in the aftermath of 9/11? will the rest of the world be as giddy about what this operation's success says about the United States as our pundits think they will be (Donny Deutsch, for example, was crowing about how good this will be for America's "brand" overseas)? and what, ultimately, is the relationship of Osama bin Laden (and the now-concluded hunt for him) to the larger post-9/11 role of the US in the world?

Watching the crowds in New York and Washington, DC on tv late last night, I was filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, there was a certain America, F**k Yeah! quality about the celebration that seemed to reduce the whole thing to a kind of sporting event.  Given the direction that it took, I have no nostalgia for our immediate post-9/11 bout of national unity and have no desire to relive it.  I remain suspicious of a civil religion built around the notion that (in the words of a fellow Normanite) "we'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way."

On the other hand, the American people have been through a decade in which our nation has fought two wars (and numerous side conflicts) that have cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives (including thousands of American ones).  The toll on military families, in particular, has been severe (and in very military states like Oklahoma, you can really feel the strain on those around you).    And though we'd spent twice the length of World War II doing so, before last night, we had yet to achieve our most clearly articulated goal: getting bin Laden, in the words of our last President, dead or alive.   This is one of the few moments in this long conflict in which Americans might tell ourselves, "finally, it's over."  Of course, that's absolutely not the message that our leaders are conveying this morning (even as they are congratulating themselves on the operation). But I find some hope in the desire of our nation for this to be the V-J Day of the Global War on Terror. 

_____________________________
* At times this task feels like being a Daily Worker reporter and having to find a class angle on, say, a high school basketball game.

The Death of Osama bin Laden: V-J Day or Glorious Victory Over the Forces of Eastasia?

The death (or is it "killing" or "execution" or "assassination"?) of Osama bin Laden seems like a significant enough event that those of us in the American historical profession ought to give some space to it today.  But I struggled a bit whether or not to do so...and if so, how to touch on whatever intellectual history content one might find in yesterday's events.*

Ultimately, I decided to put together this rather post in part because I was so struck by the public memory conversation that began even before President Obama spoke last night.   I found out about bin Laden's death in a perfectly 21st-century fashion: a push notification from the New York Times on my iPad at around 10:15 pm CDT alerted me to the upcoming White House announcement, so I turned on MSNBC (which had the regular NBC news team's coverage) and waited.  As crowds gathered outside the White House, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and chanting "USA! USA!," one of the network talkingheads opined that this was going to one of those moments about which you'll always remember what you were doing when you heard the news.

If bin Laden's death is going to one of those moments (and with the media's declaring it to be one, it may be well on the way there), how will we remember it? Will this be the end of a period in our history that began on 9/11/01?  Or will this be just another great triumph in the neverending Global War on Terror (or Whatever We're Calling It This Week)?

Much like the immediate aftermath of 9/11, this great moment of national unity is (perhaps predictably) featuring a number of important political actors jockeying to attach their particular spin to what has happened.  The most obvious source of controversy so far seems to involve claims that bin Laden's death vindicates George W. Bush's foreign policy. At least in a narrow sense (that Bush, as opposed to Obama, somehow deserves credit), this argument seems doomed to fail. But I expect the broader idea that yesterday's killing of bin Laden vindicates the broad, bipartisan consensus around the War on Terror (or Whatever) will go largely unchallenged in mainstream American public discourse.

But there really are questions to be asked here:  could another approach have captured bin Laden more quickly?  was an (apparent) assassination (as opposed to actually bringing bin Laden, alive, to justice) the right goal?  how much was this success the result of the broad, new powers that the national security and surveillance state accumulated for itself in the aftermath of 9/11? will the rest of the world be as giddy about what this operation's success says about the United States as our pundits think they will be (Donny Deutsch, for example, was crowing about how good this will be for America's "brand" overseas)? and what, ultimately, is the relationship of Osama bin Laden (and the now-concluded hunt for him) to the larger post-9/11 role of the US in the world?

Watching the crowds in New York and Washington, DC on tv late last night, I was filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, there was a certain America, F**k Yeah! quality about the celebration that seemed to reduce the whole thing to a kind of sporting event.  Given the direction that it took, I have no nostalgia for our immediate post-9/11 bout of national unity and have no desire to relive it.  I remain suspicious of a civil religion built around the notion that (in the words of a fellow Normanite) "we'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way."

On the other hand, the American people have been through a decade in which our nation has fought two wars (and numerous side conflicts) that have cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives (including thousands of American ones).  The toll on military families, in particular, has been severe (and in very military states like Oklahoma, you can really feel the strain on those around you).    And though we'd spent twice the length of World War II doing so, before last night, we had yet to achieve our most clearly articulated goal: getting bin Laden, in the words of our last President, dead or alive.   This is one of the few moments in this long conflict in which Americans might tell ourselves, "finally, it's over."  Of course, that's absolutely not the message that our leaders are conveying this morning (even as they are congratulating themselves on the operation). But I find some hope in the desire of our nation for this to be the V-J Day of the Global War on Terror. 

_____________________________
* At times this task feels like being a Daily Worker reporter and having to find a class angle on, say, a high school basketball game.

Jacques Barzun On Writing

Two months ago Jacques Barzun---former Columbia University professor, historian of culture and ideas, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 2003, with Julia Child among others)---sat for an interview to discuss the art of writing.*

I offer this for your consumption because I profited much, in theory at least, from Barzun's challenging 1975 book on the craft of writing titled Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers.** I say "in theory" because he held forth ideals with which I still struggle. As a bonus, at the 45:00 minute mark in the interview Barzun also discusses why he chose cultural and intellectual history at the start of his career. Here's the interview via Vimeo:



* The conversation was led by Jack Jackson at the SoL (Source of Light) Center, University Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, TX.
** Surprisingly, two paperback versions of Simple and Direct seem to be in print with two publishing houses: (1) One with University of Chicago Press, revised in 1985, and (2) another in print with Harper Collins's Harper Perennial imprint. Here's the TOC from the Chicago Press version: ...
---------------------------------------------------
- Preface to the Revised Edition
- Preface
- Introduction

I. Diction, or Which Words to Use
Time Out for Good Reading I
"Working and Thinking on the Waterfront"

II. Linking, or What to Put Next
Time Out for Good Reading II
"Aristotle on Detective Fiction"

III. Tone and Tune, or What Impression Will It Make?
Time Out for Good Reading III
"Language Defined"

IV. Meaning, or What Do I Want to Say?
Time Out for Good Reading IV
"Hints for Sawing"

V. Composition, or How Does It Hang Together?
Time Out for Good Reading V
"The Law as Guarantee of Free Speech"

VI. Revision, or What Have I Actually Said?
Time Out for Good Reading VI
"Two Gifted Amateurs"

VII. To Use or Not to Use
Time Out for Good Reading VII
"How to Be Respected at an Inn, Hotel or Pub"

VIII. Take a Little Thought
Time Out for Good Reading VIII
"Writing Less—and Better?"

- Exercises
- Hints Toward Improving Sentences Quoted
- Index of Words, Topics, and Authors
---------------------------------------------------

PS: I suppose this post could be considered a sort of addenda to Scott McLemee's useful reflections yesterday at InsideHigherEd on the 2003 book, Critical Intellectuals on Writing (SUNY Press). - TL

Jacques Barzun On Writing

Two months ago Jacques Barzun---former Columbia University professor, historian of culture and ideas, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (in 2003, with Julia Child among others)---sat for an interview to discuss the art of writing.*

I offer this for your consumption because I profited much, in theory at least, from Barzun's challenging 1975 book on the craft of writing titled Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers.** I say "in theory" because he held forth ideals with which I still struggle. As a bonus, at the 45:00 minute mark in the interview Barzun also discusses why he chose cultural and intellectual history at the start of his career. Here's the interview via Vimeo:



* The conversation was led by Jack Jackson at the SoL (Source of Light) Center, University Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, TX.
** Surprisingly, two paperback versions of Simple and Direct seem to be in print with two publishing houses: (1) One with University of Chicago Press, revised in 1985, and (2) another in print with Harper Collins's Harper Perennial imprint. Here's the TOC from the Chicago Press version: ...
---------------------------------------------------
- Preface to the Revised Edition
- Preface
- Introduction

I. Diction, or Which Words to Use
Time Out for Good Reading I
"Working and Thinking on the Waterfront"

II. Linking, or What to Put Next
Time Out for Good Reading II
"Aristotle on Detective Fiction"

III. Tone and Tune, or What Impression Will It Make?
Time Out for Good Reading III
"Language Defined"

IV. Meaning, or What Do I Want to Say?
Time Out for Good Reading IV
"Hints for Sawing"

V. Composition, or How Does It Hang Together?
Time Out for Good Reading V
"The Law as Guarantee of Free Speech"

VI. Revision, or What Have I Actually Said?
Time Out for Good Reading VI
"Two Gifted Amateurs"

VII. To Use or Not to Use
Time Out for Good Reading VII
"How to Be Respected at an Inn, Hotel or Pub"

VIII. Take a Little Thought
Time Out for Good Reading VIII
"Writing Less—and Better?"

- Exercises
- Hints Toward Improving Sentences Quoted
- Index of Words, Topics, and Authors
---------------------------------------------------

PS: I suppose this post could be considered a sort of addenda to Scott McLemee's useful reflections yesterday at InsideHigherEd on the 2003 book, Critical Intellectuals on Writing (SUNY Press). - TL

Newspapers As Sources For Intellectual Historians: Or, Jack Shafer Doesn't Understand How Historians Work

At Slate, Jack Shafer engages in one of my favorite exercises: investigating the source of a quote. Normally journalists love fishing for a quote from the living, but in this instance Shafer was having fun doing what we historians love: running down a quote from the dead.

And in this case there is a degree of irony. Shafer wants to know who came up with the notion that journalism is "the first rough draft of history." Like Shafer, I too have admired that phrase and what it expresses about the possibilities of journalism. As such I enjoyed his historical exploration of that particular idea about the reporting profession.

But I draw your attention to the piece not for that quote. Rather, I was struck by Shafer's reflection on how historians use newspapers. He wrote:

What makes "first rough draft of history" so tuneful, at least to the ears of journalists? Well, it flatters them. Journalists hope that one day a historian will uncover their dusty work and celebrate their genius. But that almost never happens. Historians tend to view journalism as unreliable and tend to be dismissive of our work. They'd rather work from primary sources—official documents, photographs, interviews, and the like—rather than from our clips.

Is this true for you? When you work on intellectual history, or in any other historical subfield, do you devalue newspaper reports? Do historians really find newspapers "unreliable"?

From my perch, Shafer has no idea what he is talking about. I have found newspaper reports to be valuable---if not invaluable---tools for thinking about a historical period. The value of newspapers is, of course, relative to the strength of other sources---the ones he mentions. But sometimes newspapers are the only source for some kinds of information.

In my own work on Adler and his community of discourse, I spent hours exploring book reviews as media for the exchange of ideas. It was, and is, an imperfect source with variable internal structures. But the reviews nonetheless conveyed sufficient information to allow me place Adler's books in a certain matrix of discussion. Those reviews, as well as other books, archival sources, and oral histories, allowed me to build an intellectual history of the great books idea. Indeed, when oral histories are not available for the actors of a certain period, newspapers are invaluable sources of quotes about people, events, ideas, books, etc.

I know I am not the only practicing historian who values newspapers and other journalistic outlets as a source. There was an entire conference (half day) at Columbia University in April 2010 that covered the specific role of opinion journalism in U.S. intellectual history. [I would love, by the way, to see a report on that conference.]

In sum, while Shafer exhibited investigative traits that an intellectual historian would admire in running down the source of his quote, and while he obviously hopes that future historians will admire his own reporting, he clearly does not understand how historians work. Without newspapers as sources, the work of historians would be severely diminished. Frankly, I am astounded that some journalists like Shafer would believe that historians do not use newspapers as sources.- TL

Newspapers As Sources For Intellectual Historians: Or, Jack Shafer Doesn't Understand How Historians Work

At Slate, Jack Shafer engages in one of my favorite exercises: investigating the source of a quote. Normally journalists love fishing for a quote from the living, but in this instance Shafer was having fun doing what we historians love: running down a quote from the dead.

And in this case there is a degree of irony. Shafer wants to know who came up with the notion that journalism is "the first rough draft of history." Like Shafer, I too have admired that phrase and what it expresses about the possibilities of journalism. As such I enjoyed his historical exploration of that particular idea about the reporting profession.

But I draw your attention to the piece not for that quote. Rather, I was struck by Shafer's reflection on how historians use newspapers. He wrote:

What makes "first rough draft of history" so tuneful, at least to the ears of journalists? Well, it flatters them. Journalists hope that one day a historian will uncover their dusty work and celebrate their genius. But that almost never happens. Historians tend to view journalism as unreliable and tend to be dismissive of our work. They'd rather work from primary sources—official documents, photographs, interviews, and the like—rather than from our clips.

Is this true for you? When you work on intellectual history, or in any other historical subfield, do you devalue newspaper reports? Do historians really find newspapers "unreliable"?

From my perch, Shafer has no idea what he is talking about. I have found newspaper reports to be valuable---if not invaluable---tools for thinking about a historical period. The value of newspapers is, of course, relative to the strength of other sources---the ones he mentions. But sometimes newspapers are the only source for some kinds of information.

In my own work on Adler and his community of discourse, I spent hours exploring book reviews as media for the exchange of ideas. It was, and is, an imperfect source with variable internal structures. But the reviews nonetheless conveyed sufficient information to allow me place Adler's books in a certain matrix of discussion. Those reviews, as well as other books, archival sources, and oral histories, allowed me to build an intellectual history of the great books idea. Indeed, when oral histories are not available for the actors of a certain period, newspapers are invaluable sources of quotes about people, events, ideas, books, etc.

I know I am not the only practicing historian who values newspapers and other journalistic outlets as a source. There was an entire conference (half day) at Columbia University in April 2010 that covered the specific role of opinion journalism in U.S. intellectual history. [I would love, by the way, to see a report on that conference.]

In sum, while Shafer exhibited investigative traits that an intellectual historian would admire in running down the source of his quote, and while he obviously hopes that future historians will admire his own reporting, he clearly does not understand how historians work. Without newspapers as sources, the work of historians would be severely diminished. Frankly, I am astounded that some journalists like Shafer would believe that historians do not use newspapers as sources.- TL

A (Non-USIH) Intellectual Historian On The History Of Blogging

In a NYR Blog piece titled "Blogging, Now and Then" and posted today, Robert Darnton explores precedents for the means and content of knowledge passed along in non-standard forms. Here are a few salient passages (bolds mine):

- Blogging brings out the hit-and-run element in communication. Bloggers tend to be punchy. They often hit below the belt; and when they land a blow, they dash off to another target. Pow! The idea is to provoke, to score points, to vent opinions, and frequently to gossip.
- The most gossipy blogs take aim at public figures, combining two basic ingredients, scurrility and celebrity, and they deal in short jabs, usually nothing longer than a paragraph. They often appeal to particular constituencies such as Hollywood buffs (Perez Hilton), political junkies (Wonkette), college kids (Ivy Gate), and lawyers (Underneath Their Robes). Politically they may lean to the right (Michelle Malkin) or to the left (Daily Kos). But all of them conform to a formula derived from old-fashioned tabloid journalism: names make news.
- This subject deserves more study, because for all of their explosiveness, the blog-like elements in earlier eras of communication tend to be ignored by sociologists, political scientists, and historians who concentrate on full-scale texts and formal discourse.
- [Look at a] newspaper from eighteenth-century London. It will have no headlines, no bylines, no clear distinction between news and ads, and no spatial articulation in the dense columns of type, aside from one crucial ingredient: the paragraph. Paragraphs were self-sufficient units of news. They had no connection with one another, because writers and readers had no concept of a news “story” as a narrative that would run for more than a few dozen words. News came in bite-sized bits...
- Two to three hundred years ago, the term anecdote meant nearly the opposite of what it means today. Instead of representing a trivial incident or unreliable hearsay, as in the expression “anecdotal evidence,” it conveyed the notion of “secret history”—episodes concerning the private lives of important personages that had actually taken place but could not be published openly. According to contemporary dictionaries and Diderot’s Encyclopédie, the concept derived from Procopius, the Byzantine historian of the sixth century B.C.E.
- Whether exchanged orally in a café, scribbled on a scrap of paper, or combined as paragraphs in a newssheet, anecdotes operated as the primary unit in a system of communication. Many of them found their way into print. They were picked up by famous writers like Voltaire, but more often they appeared in anonymous tracts known as “libelles.”
- The anecdotes constituted the early-modern equivalent of a blogosphere, one laced with explosives; for on the eve of the Revolution, French readers were consuming as much smut about the private lives of the great as they were reading treatises about the abuse of power. In fact, the anecdotes and the political discourse reinforced each other.

So, is Darnton right in that "names make news" in the blog world? Or is that simply a reflection of the fact that we seek specificity and do not prefer philosophical musing via blogs?

Does Darnton have a real sense of the breadth of knowledge conveyed by blogs today? I mean, there seems to be a lot of narrative in blogs. And many, like USIH, are not based on conveying secret knowledge but rather looking at knowledge from other directions. Blogs "today" seem more about diversity and perspective than any ancient definitions of anecdote or the inability, or lack of desire, to read narrative.

Finally, what of Darnton's ominous warning? Are today's libelles pushing political systems to the brink of revolution? If so, I would offer that USIH is not a part of that movement. I would say that we are trying rather to reform knowledge than revolutionize academia. And the diversity of the blogosphere today, apart from USIH, would seem to make historical comparisons to pre-Revolutionary France tentative at best. - TL

A (Non-USIH) Intellectual Historian On The History Of Blogging

In a NYR Blog piece titled "Blogging, Now and Then" and posted today, Robert Darnton explores precedents for the means and content of knowledge passed along in non-standard forms. Here are a few salient passages (bolds mine):

- Blogging brings out the hit-and-run element in communication. Bloggers tend to be punchy. They often hit below the belt; and when they land a blow, they dash off to another target. Pow! The idea is to provoke, to score points, to vent opinions, and frequently to gossip.
- The most gossipy blogs take aim at public figures, combining two basic ingredients, scurrility and celebrity, and they deal in short jabs, usually nothing longer than a paragraph. They often appeal to particular constituencies such as Hollywood buffs (Perez Hilton), political junkies (Wonkette), college kids (Ivy Gate), and lawyers (Underneath Their Robes). Politically they may lean to the right (Michelle Malkin) or to the left (Daily Kos). But all of them conform to a formula derived from old-fashioned tabloid journalism: names make news.
- This subject deserves more study, because for all of their explosiveness, the blog-like elements in earlier eras of communication tend to be ignored by sociologists, political scientists, and historians who concentrate on full-scale texts and formal discourse.
- [Look at a] newspaper from eighteenth-century London. It will have no headlines, no bylines, no clear distinction between news and ads, and no spatial articulation in the dense columns of type, aside from one crucial ingredient: the paragraph. Paragraphs were self-sufficient units of news. They had no connection with one another, because writers and readers had no concept of a news “story” as a narrative that would run for more than a few dozen words. News came in bite-sized bits...
- Two to three hundred years ago, the term anecdote meant nearly the opposite of what it means today. Instead of representing a trivial incident or unreliable hearsay, as in the expression “anecdotal evidence,” it conveyed the notion of “secret history”—episodes concerning the private lives of important personages that had actually taken place but could not be published openly. According to contemporary dictionaries and Diderot’s Encyclopédie, the concept derived from Procopius, the Byzantine historian of the sixth century B.C.E.
- Whether exchanged orally in a café, scribbled on a scrap of paper, or combined as paragraphs in a newssheet, anecdotes operated as the primary unit in a system of communication. Many of them found their way into print. They were picked up by famous writers like Voltaire, but more often they appeared in anonymous tracts known as “libelles.”
- The anecdotes constituted the early-modern equivalent of a blogosphere, one laced with explosives; for on the eve of the Revolution, French readers were consuming as much smut about the private lives of the great as they were reading treatises about the abuse of power. In fact, the anecdotes and the political discourse reinforced each other.

So, is Darnton right in that "names make news" in the blog world? Or is that simply a reflection of the fact that we seek specificity and do not prefer philosophical musing via blogs?

Does Darnton have a real sense of the breadth of knowledge conveyed by blogs today? I mean, there seems to be a lot of narrative in blogs. And many, like USIH, are not based on conveying secret knowledge but rather looking at knowledge from other directions. Blogs "today" seem more about diversity and perspective than any ancient definitions of anecdote or the inability, or lack of desire, to read narrative.

Finally, what of Darnton's ominous warning? Are today's libelles pushing political systems to the brink of revolution? If so, I would offer that USIH is not a part of that movement. I would say that we are trying rather to reform knowledge than revolutionize academia. And the diversity of the blogosphere today, apart from USIH, would seem to make historical comparisons to pre-Revolutionary France tentative at best. - TL