Newmark's Door

Two on Lincoln

Christopher Hitchens reviews the new, nearly 2000 page biography by Michael Burlingame.

No review could do complete justice to the magnificent two-volume biography that has been so well-wrought by Michael Burlingame, but one way of paying tribute to it is to say that it introduces the elusive idea of destiny from the very start, and one means of illustrating this is to show how the earlier chapters continually prefigure, or body forth, the more momentous events that are to be dealt with in the later ones. 

Sean Wilentz reviews seven recent books on Lincoln. Wilentz's thesis is interesting; his biting comments on his fellow historians and on literary theorists even more so.

Exactly right

From David Klinghoffer's review of a forthcoming book, The Israel Test, by George Gilder:

As Gilder puts it, "The [Israel] test can be summarized by a few questions: What is your attitude toward people who excel you in the creation of wealth or in other accomplishments? Do you aspire to their excellence or do you seethe at it? Do you admire and celebrate exceptional achievement or do you impugn it and seek to tear it down?"

SOME PEOPLE see wealth-creation as a zero-sum game, where your enriching yourself means that you are taking something away from me. Others see wealth as almost miraculous. Material value is created from nothing - ex nihilo. That is, from nothing material - but from an idea, from creativity, from genius. In this view, your enrichment takes nothing from me. In fact, it creates opportunities for your neighbors to enrich themselves by doing business with you. Israel's Palestinian neighbors, with their pitiful economy, have failed spectacularly to perceive this.

Elementally, there are two different personality types here. Where you come down reveals a lot not just about your politics - though political views flow from it - but about the orientation of your soul.

Zero-sum personalities often resent the rich and the gifted and may succumb to a temptation to punish them. Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments are a frequent consequence. Ex-nihilo personalities have no reason to resent Jews or Israel.

Creativity and mental illness

Exceptionally creative people might be disproportionately mentally ill.

Creative minds in all kinds of areas, from science to poetry, and mathematics to humour, may have traits associated with psychosis. Such traits may allow the unusual and sometimes bizarre thought processes associated with mental illness to fuel creativity. The theory is based on the idea that there is no clear dividing line between the healthy and the mentally ill. Rather, there is a continuum, with some people having psychotic traits without having the debilitating symptoms. 

The Civil War animated

An amazing site, well worth some time if you're an American history buff or even if you're not.

Created by a "retired nerd" and his daughter, an "aspiring nerd". (Ya gotta love that!)

"6 Random Coincidences That Created The Modern World"

If you don't mind the hyperbole, it's interesting.

Historian vs. economist

Niall Ferguson throws down with Paul Krugman:

It is a brave or foolhardy man who picks a fight with Mr Krugman, the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics. Yet a cat may look at a king, and sometimes a historian can challenge an economist.

A month ago Mr Krugman and I sat on a panel convened in New York to discuss the financial crisis. I made the point that “the running of massive fiscal deficits in excess of 12 per cent of gross domestic product this year, and the issuance therefore of vast quantities of freshly-minted bonds” was likely to push long-term interest rates up, at a time when the Federal Reserve aims at keeping them down. I predicted a “painful tug-of-war between our monetary policy and our fiscal policy, as the markets realise just what a vast quantity of bonds are going to have to be absorbed by the financial system this year”.

"6 Historical Villains Who Were Actually OK Guys"

I'm not sure I agree, but it's interesting.

Hmmm . . . has the swine flu "pandemic" come and gone?

Kinda like 1976. (I was there!)

Link via Mark Steckbeck.

Ang Lee celebrates the 40th anniversary of Woodstock . . .

. . . with a new movie, opening June 5, Taking Woodstock. Could be good.

"The Global Village"

It seems like only yesterday any number of smart people were opining on how fragmented our society was becoming. What with a zillion pages on the Net, and hundreds of cable channels, and hours upon hours of video games . . . we were losing, it was claimed, the profoundly-felt common experiences the Baby Boomers had had, experiences from the high--Neil Armstrong, the US hockey team, the fall of the Wall--to the low--JFK and MLK and Bobby gunned down, the massacre of the Israeli athletes in Munich: "They're all gone"--and the in-between--"Heeeeere's Johnny!" "Capt'n, the engines canna' take any more!"--shared, in front of their TVs. by millions of Americans.

Well, as Roseanne Roseannadanna might have said, "Never mind!"

(Take that, Mr. Richard Feder of Fort Lee, NJ.)