October 07, 2004

Quick Link of the Day

I'm leaving town for the weekend tomorrow, and I'm rushing to get as much done as I can before I go, but here's an interesting link: this article in the Columbia Journalism Review argues that "The boundaries between historians and journalists are crashing" and that "It’s getting harder and harder these days to tell the difference between books of history and books of journalism."

I'm not sure I completely buy the article's argument: there have always been plenty of journalists writing about history, and there always will be. (Perhaps the article would have been more historically informed if it had been written by a historian and not a journalist...) Moreover, as Arthur Schlesinger could tell you, plenty of historians in the past wrote about events before passions had cooled. But there are still some interesting issues here--both in the publishing field and in the writing of history. Maybe I'll write a longer reaction to this article when I've had the chance to give it more than a quick skim.

Update: And while I'm at it, here's another link: to a nice New Republic article by Jonathan Chait attacking the idea that John Kerry flip-flops more than other politicians do.

Posted by Ed at October 7, 2004 12:07 PM
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