“Bringing Kutler to the library was going to be like Nixon going to China.” The Nixon library in Yorba Linda — the only presidential library under private management — incurs the wrath of the historical community by spiking a conference on the Vietnam War that would undoubtedly have been critical of Tricky Dick. Whatsmore, “historians still did not have access to about 800 hours of tapes and 50,000 documents withheld by the Nixon estate on the grounds that they deal with personal or political, rather than presidential, matters.” That represents a significantly larger gap in the historical record than 18 and a half minutes.
Tag: Archives
Abe Lincoln and the World of Tomorrow.
“Bob Rogers, BRC’s founder and chairman…draws two circles, labeled ‘scholarship’ and ‘showmanship,’ on a sheet of yellow paper. The circles overlap, but only slightly. That tiny slice of shared space, he says, is where the museum needs to be.” By way of Dangerous Meta, the Washington Post examines the mild controversy surrounding high-tech exhibits at the Abe Lincoln library. If BRC is consulting a sizable number of outside historians on the scholarship, as they seem to be doing, then what’s the problem? Gimmicks like Tim Russert introducing 1860 campaign ads are a bit facile, sure, but if they help get more laypeople intrigued in Lincoln’s life and times (and don’t unduly misrepresent the history), I’m all for it. Besides, my feeling is, if historians don’t get behind such efforts, they’re going to happen anyway, and with much less historical rigor to them.
The Battles Rage On(line).
“My dear McClellan: If you don’t want to use the Army I should like to borrow it for a while.” Good news for Civil War reenactors and military history enthusiasts: The Library of Congress, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia are posting over 2240 CW-era maps and charts online. (AP Story here.)
Distance Learning.
By way of Cliopatria, Google announces an agreement to digitize the holdings of many of the world’s great libraries, including those of Harvard, Oxford, Michigan, Stanford, and the NYPL. My, that should be enormously useful for researchers the world over once they get it up and running. That noise you heard in the background was millions of historians’ frequent flier miles suddenly crying out in terror and then suddenly silenced.
Flattering 42.
“‘Bill Clinton could always see a better day ahead and Americans knew he was working hard to bring that day closer,’ Bush said. ‘Over eight years it was clear that Bill Clinton loved the job of the presidency. He filled this house with energy and joy. He’s a man of enthusiasm and warmth, who could make a compelling case and effectively advance the causes that drew him to public service.’” At the unveiling of the Clinton presidential portraits, Bush effusively praises his predecessor. Very nice of ya, Dubya, but you’re still not getting my Bud Light…or my vote. Nor do I expect such flattery to defang Clinton on his forthcoming book tour.
Revisionist History.
Once again, it seems, the Bush administration is falsifying records to cover up their shadiness. This time, the Pentagon deleted key remarks made by Rumsfeld to Bob Woodward on the certainty of the Iraq war. (Regarding an invasion of Iraq, Rummy told the Saudis in Jan. 2003, two months before operations commenced, that they could “take that to the bank.”) Given the other times the Bushies have been caught doing this, their withholding of Reagan and Bush Sr. papers, and the general moral turpitude of this administration, one has to wonder how snarled up the historical record is at this point.
The Recycle Bin of History.
Fred Kaplan wonders aloud about the perils of writing history in the e-mail era. I see what he’s getting at, but this argument cuts both ways. If in fact someone is saving administration e-mail correspondence (a big if, I know, but consider folks like Harold Ickes and Sidney Blumenthal in the Clinton White House), then there should be plenty of e-mails of conversations that would have been held on the phone throughout most of the twentieth century. Plus, so much more of government (at the highest levels, at least) is televised now, from subcommittee hearings on C-SPAN2 to Dubya’s 4pm photo-op with the Boy Scouts. Historians of the future should have their hands full.