Kelly in Kansas

I was hoping for a more focused discussion on the actual Gordon Wood review of Jill Lepore's book rather than the rhetoric-filled default to the Tea Party. But, I guess those are the limitations of Facebook.

First, it is important that Professor Lepore put the Tea Party in its historical context. In other words, it's nothing new. And similar phenomena have occurred on both sides of the aisles. It's not just the rightest of the right that utilize this historical reference. What is most important here is that she analyzes tea party identification throughout our nation's history. This is something we all need to better understand if we want to understand the world around us.

Based on his not-so-kind review asserting "non-historical approaches", it appears Dr. Wood is quite simply jealous of his colleague who regularly communicates with more public audiences, especially via The New Yorker. Even Sam Wineburg likes her work. In my world, that is certainly saying something.

On a random note, although more people have migrated to Facebook and even to Twitter than ever blogged themselves (although many more commented on blogs), it appears there is a blogging renaissance. Maybe scholars are finally getting the potential of blogs to put their work out there and think it through in more than 14-character bytes? Could it possibly be? Time will tell.

Hmmm, this is first blog post I've written in quite a while with more than a token hyperlink or two. Maybe I am experiencing my own blogging renaissance?

// posted by Kelly in Kansas @ 7:34:00 AM