A happy 4th to you. If you were planning to indulge in French bashing as part of your celebration, remember this: Expédition Particuliére was the codename given to the French expeditionary army sent to help the American Revolution during 1780 to 1782. Its contribution was essential to the American-French allied victory at Yorktown in September [...]
or, Life before and after the End of History Ken MacLeod puts the 1066 and All That spin on recent history. The outcome of this was the Restoration of Capitalism, which was a Good Thing. Francis Fukayama wrote that it meant the End of History. The whole world would become like Switzerland, because people no [...]
NOVA had an interesting documentary on Rosalind Franklin, the scientist whose x-ray imaging of the DNA molecule provided the unacknowledged evidence supporting Watson and Crick’s double-helix model of DNA.
[ via Davos Newbies ] In a article with the facinating title “Blood, Dirt, and Nomograms” you learn about the origin of graphs in science and engineering. From the abstract: L. J. Henderson, a Harvard physiologist and the first president of the History of Science Society, attempted to analyze mammalian blood solely as a physical-chemical [...]
Stanford hosts the US premier of a documentary film on the life of Ada Lovelace: To Dream Tomorrow. The film’s at Cubberley Auditorium, School of Education, Lausen Mall, on the Stanford campus at 7:00pm on Tuesday January 21, 2003.
[ via Monokrom ] From the Timebinders desk. In 1969, teacher and critic James Gunn interviewed several well known (Asimov, Anderson, etc.) and (and at the time) up-and-coming SF writers. The films have been restored and are available on a two DVD set. [ QuickTime ]
Paul Ford has an outline version of an Alternate History novel about the development of the digital computer in a world where Nazi Germany won WWII. The opening scene, and its implications, chilled me. The real Hitler bought tons of punch cards and readers from IBM.
I’m leading the discussion of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt at WisCon later this month, so this interview with him at Zone SF was useful: On that point [ alternate histories ] irritate me no end – you know, Mark Twain guiding a riverboat up the Black Sea because the Ottomans [...]
[ via Muslim Pundit and Charlie Stross ] A Suni scholar in Italy wrote a history of the founder of Wabbabism, the dominant form of Islam practiced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and associated with Osama bin Laden and the al Quida terrorist network. He (sall-Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) also said: “There will be [...]
[ via FoRK ] Charlie Stross has a fine Weblog using Rael Dornfest’s Blosxom. In one entry, he takes apart the latest line from the Weekly Standard: no, Europe is not anti-bourgeois. Like his fellow countryman Ken McLeod, he understands that history is the trade secret of SF. In another series of entries, he gives [...]
Over at What She Really Thinks, Ginger Stampley mentions a ‘re-revision’ of medieval history where the Crusades were a defensive war. Wow, the Conservatives are really cranking up the propaganda. I guess their solution to terrorism is forced conversion of the Islamic world at sword point. Someone get Ann Coulter a cuirass and a horse. [...]
[ via RRE ] Doesn’t anyone remember the Alien and Sedition Acts? McCullough and Kennedy fail to realize that there was a reason for earlier generations of leaders not turning the Adamses into monuments of democracy: earlier generations of leaders actually understood the Adamses. To be fair, the Congress voted that stinker into law. However, [...]
Okay, another perspective on Islam. Well, maybe not. The writer seems to more interested in attacking Jarred Diamond’s thesis than Islam. There’s a lot of screed here, but the thing you can take away from it is that the totalitarian governments of the Middle and Near East utilize anti-American sentiment to stay in power, and [...]
Random Walks mentioned Tariq Ali’s history of Islam a couple of weeks ago. I’m linking it now for reference, and in relation to KSR’s new book Years of Rice and Salt.
Kim Stanley Robinson (Antarctica, The Mars Trilogy) has a new novel, The Years of Rice and Salt. It follows 700 years of alternate history where Islam, China and India vie for world domination after the Black Death takes Europe and Christianity out of the game. Locus has an interview with him. I’m running over to [...]