HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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Date:         Mon, 6 Apr 1992 13:31:42 -0700
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From:         Arther Ferrill <ferrill@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject:      Re: historically accurate TV
Comments: To: History <HISTORY%RUTVM1.BITNET@uwavm.u.washington.edu>

On Mon, 6 Apr 1992 16:23:59 EDT, Lenny wrote:

> I cannot prove it, but I think Roots was biased in that it did not
> portray the portion of the white population which did not participate in
> slavery.
>
My own opinion is that "Roots" exaggerated and romanticzed the African origins
of Black Americans. But that is a highly debateable and controversial point
that is more likely to be argued in a polemical rather than a reasoned way. In
any event, I do not regard that telvision play as good history, though it was
terrific entertainment.
Art Ferrill
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Date:         Fri, 17 Apr 1992 11:39:39 EDT
From:         Lenny Abbey <LABBEY@GTRI01.BITNET>
Subject:      Clinton's Platform is . . .?

I know that this is not the proper forum for this question, but I do
trust HISTORY members to give me an honest opinion.

I have two nagging questions in my mind about the current US election
campaign:

      1.  Does anyone know what Clinton's platform is?
      2.  Does anyone else have the feeling that the press is
          deliberately ignoring his reluctance to discuss his
          platform.  Or are they for some reason refusing to
          report on his platform in spite of the fact that he
          has revealed it?

Am I paranoid?



Lenny
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Date:         Sun, 5 Apr 1992 14:33:56 EST
From:         Tom <RICKS@VILLVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: HELP GRANT'S TOMB!!!
              3 Apr 1992 08:39:06 EST from <JACOCK01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>

Jim-
Alas, you who thrive on myths! No one is asking New Yorkers to love Grant; only
 to respect the grave the Union's leading general. Remembering Grant is remembe
ring the hundred of thousands (Union and Confederate) who are a part of our his
tory. Shame on you, if you call yourself an historian!

Tom
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Date:         Fri, 10 Apr 1992 10:38:44 -0700
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From:         Arther Ferrill <ferrill@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
Subject:      re: Roman Battle Tactics
Comments: To: History <HISTORY%RUTVM1.BITNET@uwavm.u.washington.edu>

On Fri, 10 Apr 1992 09:03:00 GMT, Avatar wrote:

> 	Could someone please inform me as to the tactics used by the Romans in
> battle.  I am especially interested in the various formations they used,
such
> as the phalanx.  Thank you very much.

A good book on Roman battle tactics is L. Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army
(Barnes & Noble, 1984). There is an excellent article by Everett S. Wheeler,
"The Legion as Phalanx," Chiron, 9 (19790, 303-318.
Art Ferrill
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Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 08:02:17 PDT
From:         "Joe T. Coohill" <GD03JTC@UCSBVM.BITNET>
Subject: Great American History Machine. Sherri?

A couple of days ago, someone wrote me asking about the Great American
History Machine and the History and Macintosh Society.  Unfortunately,
I deleted the message and couldn't mail the package.

I remember the person's first name, I think, - Sherri.

If you're out there, please send me your name and address again.

Sorry,

-Joe Coohill
UC Santa Barbara
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Date:         Mon, 6 Apr 1992 14:14:54 MST
From:         Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Historical Accuracy

Some of the comments on the list about historical films or books
surprise me.  It is specious to castigate an author for not being
historically accurate -- unless that author explicitly states that the
work is historically correct.  The historical fiction with which I'm
familiar is clearly and unabashedly fiction (that includes old Will).
If the audience mistakenly carries away the belief that they just been
taught rather than entertained, then the audience is at fault, not the
author.

It's just make-believe, folks!

Ellis "Skip" Knox       dusknox@idbsu.idbsu.edu
PC Coordinator & Faculty Computer Lab Supervisor
Professor of History
Boise State University  Boise, Idaho
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Date:         Fri, 17 Apr 1992 11:05:53 EDT
From:         "James W. Brodman" <JIMB@VM1.UCA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Clinton's Platform is . . .?
Comments: To: History <HISTORY@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu>
              17 Apr 1992 11:39:39 EDT from
              <LABBEY%GTRI01.BITNET@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu>

Lenny, you are paranoid. As any of us in Arkansas know, Bill Clinton has never
been reluctant to issue a policy paper on anything. In New Hampshire, he even p
ut these in booklet form on reserve in each of the public libraries.  TIME, bef
ore it went negative on him in its current issue, devoted considerable space to
 Clinton's positions on a whole host of issues. I am sure he would love to retu
rn the campaign to a debate over his platform -- for obvious reasons.  But the
public or at least the press seems to find all this tabloid stuff far more inte
resting. Clinton may have a lot of weaknesses, but lack of a platform is not on
e of them.
                                          Jim Brodman
                                          Department of History
                                          University of Central Arkansas
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Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 12:35:00 CST
From:         SHIRLEY@RHODES.BITNET
Subject:      Re: the social history list

Please add me to your social history list.

Michael Shirley
Dept. of History
Rhodes College
Memphis, Tn.
(Shirley@Rhodes.Bitnet)
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Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 09:50:00 EDT
From:         DGPAZ@CLEMSON.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Historical Accuracy

On Mon, 6 Apr 1992 14:14:54 MST Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU.BITNET> said:

> It is specious to castigate an author for not being
> historically accurate -- unless that author explicitly states that the
> work is historically correct.
>
> It's just make-believe, folks!

Do not historical novels and costume dramas fall somewhere between
"make-believe" and historical scholarship, along a spectrum?
As an example, the C.S. Forester _Hornblower_ series is fiction,
but it is rooted in the historical reality of the French Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars. Farther along the spectrum towards make-believe
there are E.L. Doctrow's and Gore Vidal's books (neither of which I
have read), which are make-believe yet somehow still historical.
Then, between those two sets of examples, come Mary Renault and Gore
Vidal's _Julian_.

Then let us take a novel that is not an historical novel, but which
is fiction by a present-day writer, Margaret Drabble's _The Ice
Age_. This work of fiction is solidly set in the mid-1970s, and I
use it in class to teach that decade. Another work of fiction, George
Orwell's _A Clergyman's Daughter_, is make-believe, yet I use it
to teach the 1930s because it tells much about religion, both C of E
and Nonconformist.

My questions are these: Is it really just make-believe? Is historical
fiction less make-believe than other sorts of fiction? Is any fiction
just make-believe?

Denis Paz
Department of History
Clemson University
South Carolina, U.S.A.
dgpaz@clemson.bitnet
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Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 07:25:27 PDT
From:         bob pasker <halfdome!bob@APPLE.COM>
Subject:      re: films & history
Comments: To: HISTORY%rutvm1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu

>>I could not agree with you more. The trick is to read the novels
>>from a grounding in the history of the society that produced the
>>novels.
>Sounds like circular reasoning to me:  you read history in order to be able
>to read a novel in order to understand history in order to. . . .

the circular is not reasoning: there are a multitude of sources and
the trick is to read them all and try and make some sense out of them.
none of the sources live in isolation to any of the others.  should we
ignore beowulf?  surely you have to admit that beowulf tells us about
the values of warrior-band society: the relationship between the
leader and his retainers, the symbolism of grendel as a kin killer (a
no-no in that society), etc.

>Actually,
>I don't think you gain as much from this process as you'd like to think.
>Jane Austen is a perfect example:  read all her works, written in the first
>decade and a half of the 19th century.  You will find exactly 1 oblique
>reference to the Napoleonic wars.  Surely the times were more concerned with
>them than THAT.

this is precisely the reasoning that lead to new social history:
not everybody cares about the napoleanic wars, per se.  i have not
read jane austin, so i will not try and comment about its relevancy.
madame bovary, which i have read, was also written *in france* towards
the middle of the 19thC.  mme.b. is imbued with the *results* of the
napoleanic wars: the emergence of a bourgeois society.  does that not
tell you something about that society?  do you only care who won or
lost?

--
-- bob pasker: {bob@halfdome.UUCP | rbp@well.sf.ca.us | rbp@sutro.sfsu.edu}
--        San Francisco State University -- Department of History
--
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Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 13:39:00 EDT
From:         DGPAZ@CLEMSON.BITNET
Subject:      Re: historically accurate TV

On Mon, 6 Apr 1992 16:23:59 EDT Lenny <LABBEY@GTRI01.BITNET> said:

> I cannot prove it, but I think Roots was biased in that it did not
> portray the portion of the white population which did not participate in
> slavery.
> I suspected that there were very many, perhaps even a majority, of whites who
> knew that slavery was wrong, and did not support their government in that
> issue.
>
Some scholars recently have looked at desertion rates in the
Confederate army (high) and at the messages sent by women at home to
their loved ones at the front lines (desponding), and use this
evidence to argue that morale in the army declined as defeat grew
more likely (a common-sense view, certainly), and that lots of
yeoman farmers were pretty unenthusiastic about the cause.

That is a pretty controversial tack to take, because it challenges
some very tightly held views in the South, views that, at least in
South Carolina, are very much a part of the dominant political and
social culture, and that affect the image of Southern womanhood.

Some scholars go further, and argue that to some extent the
war was a planters' war.

Denis Paz
Clemson University
South Carolina, U.S.A.
dgpaz@clemson.bitnet
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Date:         Mon, 6 Apr 1992 08:05:57 MST
From:         Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Historically Inaccurate Film/tv

Historically accurate or not, I've always loved Peter Ustinov's Nero
in Quo Vadis?  Fleshy, fussy, vain, and murderously fickle.

Ellis "Skip" Knox       dusknox@idbsu.idbsu.edu
PC Coordinator & Faculty Computer Lab Supervisor
Professor of History
Boise State University  Boise, Idaho
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Date:         Sun, 5 Apr 1992 19:47:00 EDT
From:         PETER KERSTETTER <STUACTPK@UNCWIL.BITNET>
Subject:      History through Films

What are some people's view on the film _The Seventh Seal_?  Besides Ingmar
Bergman playing with Death, is this film a good picture of how Medieval
life probably was?  I enjoyed the film, and thought it to be one of the
best films I have ever seen.  It seems to me that life back then is not
too different from life today.  Then, they worried about catching the
Black Death, today, we worry about diseases just as deadly, with people
telling us that it is a curse from God.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
From: "Stephen C. Miller" <stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: History through Films
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 14:20:24 -0500

In article <755DCF294BBFE09334@VXC.UNCWIL.EDU> STUACTPK@UNCWIL.BITNET (PETER KERSTETTER) writes:
>What are some people's view on the film _The Seventh Seal_?  Besides Ingmar
>Bergman playing with Death, is this film a good picture of how Medieval
>life probably was?

This movie had a big effect on me when I was a kid - for stuff with a
similar tone there's a wonderful movie by Eisenstein named after its
hero that I'm blanking on right now - incredible Russian revolutionary
socialist cinema with a very famous and awesome cavalry vs. footsoldier
battle on ice at the end - Rubelov??  Anyway,t his is another one that
captures something of this view of the middle ages.  Definitely not
anything like Errol Flynn back in merry ye olde England!

But the best take on The Seventh Seal is Woody Allen's satirical
badmitten game with death.  The second best is Bill and Ted's Battleship
game with death.


-- 
--------------------
=Steve Miller	(oracular priest)      stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
		(Former rock star turned grad student)
  Happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy happyhappy joyjoy
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Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 21:07:00 CST
From:         TBMEGA@STTHOMAS.EDU
Subject:      List History
Comments: To: HISTORY%RUTVM1.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU

DELETE TBMEGA from LIST HISTORY
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Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 13:01:00 GMT
From:         ARHN6001@IRUCCVAX.UCC.IE
Subject:      Re: Visiting Ireland

Glenn,
        Visit Elizabeth fort and St Fin Barres Cathedral, drink a pint a
 -of Beamish in the Abbey Tavern, check out Fota House and Gardens. The
University is worth a ten minute walkabout as well. When you get to
Killarney, make sure you get to the Folk museum in Muckross House. If you
find a local phone book we are listed under my sisters name - that Una Cosgrave
so you could give me a call and we can show you a few good Cork pubs.

Michael B. Cosgrave
ARHN6001@irvaxucc.ucc.ie
Unviersity College. Cork, Ireland.
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Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 07:28:32 MST
From:         Skip Knox <DUSKNOX@IDBSU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: films & history

I agree with Ken Koester that the reasoning is circular:  Study the
book to learn about the times; study the times to understand the book.
But I disagree with one half of that formula.  Studying a work of art
in order to understand more about the times is very tricky stuff, to
be done only with care and caution.

A work of art is produced by an individual, or at least under the
direction of an individual or small group.  The work is a reflection
of those unique individuals.  Going from that to the whole is a large
leap.  Making the leap successfully requires a great deal of prior
knowledge about the historical era in which the individuals lived.

I have never agreed with those who see the Iliad, for example as a
timeless piece that just anyone can pick up and understand.  Just
anyone can pick it up and _enjoy_ it, certainly; but to understand
the work requires a knowledge of ancient Greece.  We don't need that
background to read modern literature because we are part of the
living culture, but older works are better understood when the
reader better understands the times that produced them.

Ellis "Skip" Knox       dusknox@idbsu.idbsu.edu
PC Coordinator & Faculty Computer Lab Supervisor
Professor of History
Boise State University  Boise, Idaho
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Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 09:29:51 EDT
From:         Michael Cammer <cammer@AECOM.YU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: films & history
Comments: To: HISTORY@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu
              Apr 6, 92 8:13 am

bob pasker writes:
>
> contemporary novels are wonderful ways to understand a time period or
> an issue.  madame bovary, for example, never existed, but flaubert
> gives a powerful image of 19th C france and gives his acount of the
> problems associated with the then-emerging bourgeouis lifestyle.  you


A number of people (myself included) have mentioned Camelot.
When I was in tenth grade (a million years ago) we read _The
Once And Future King_, a book intentionally (dare I speak of an
author's intention?) loaded with anachronisms.  The teacher led
us to discussions of such topics (besides the lit type stuff, this
was an English class) as morality (whether might makes right) and,
history (including literary history-- we also read some Malory).

Also, I would think that _Brave New World_ (maybe along with
_Erehwon_ or _1984_ or _Walden II_) could be read/assigned as social
critique and as history of conceptions of Utopia/anti-Utopia-- history,
criticism, and literature.

Michael Cammer


--
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Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 00:22:00 EDT
From:         RATH@BRANDEIS.BITNET
Subject:      Re: the social history list

Bob Pasker,

please add my name to your social history list. Thanks.

Rich Rath
Dpt of History
Brandeis University
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Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 08:18:00 PST
From:         SUNDSTROMR@AXE.HUMBOLDT.EDU
Subject:      Zwingli

Sherri-I have faxed material re Zwingli to you. It came from De Lamar
Jensen's Reformation Europe. It was published in 1981 by D.C. Heath. Roy Sundstr
   om
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Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 08:57:00 EST
From:         ekfriedm@THAMA1.APGEA.ARMY.MIL
Subject:      Grant's Tomb Environs
Comments: To: history%ubvm.bitnet@thama1.apgea.army.mil

cammer writes:

>Riverside Park is not a secluded part of a marginal neighborhood.  From
>the West 70s up to 125th Street-- the whole way up-- the park borders one
>side of an extremely populated and often popular place to live:  The
>Upper West Side.  As a graduate student with a studio on the corner of
>125th and B'way I must say that the neighborhood is not unsafe at night,
>at least not more so that much of the city south of 130th St. (on the
>West Side).

    I was not saying that Riverside Park is marginal, secluded, or unsafe.
    Daytimes, it's a great place, although I challenge you to jog its'
    length at night.

    I maintain that the area around Grant's Tomb IS marginal and isolated.
    As for nightime safety, try parking your car by Grant's Tomb overnight.
    Don't expect to find your radio or battery the next morning, though.

    In spite of it all, if I could move back there, I would in a minute.

    Eliot, Trapped in Baltimore
    ekfriedman@thama1.apgea.army.mil
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Date:         Fri, 17 Apr 1992 15:04:09 EDT
From:         Lenny <LABBEY@GTRI01.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Clinton's Platform is . . .?
              17 Apr 1992 14:16:00 EDT from <DGPAZ@CLEMSON.BITNET>

Denis, you must understand that you are very intelligent, whereas I
am stupid.  That is why you can find Clinton's platform, and I cannot.

Lenny
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Date:         Fri, 10 Apr 1992 08:30:48 EDT
From:         Ken Koester <MAINT2@ERS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: social history

On Thu, 9 Apr 1992 21:55:00 EST <BROWNH@CTSTATEU> said:
>. . . .  I cannot point to any
>world history that adequately meets our modern requirements. Spengler
>and Toynbee are arguably products of 19th century thinking, and I have
>serious reservations about a McNeill or Braudel. I don't believe a mo-
>dern world history adequate to our times exists. Incidentally, the
>word "universal" in the 20th century simply means the total environ-
>ment, and has not for a long time had metaphysical implications.
>
>Haines Brown  (brownh@ccsu.ctstateu.edu)

What do you think of Barraclough's =Towards a Contemporary History= (apologies
if author's name and title aren't quite right; haven't got them with me right
now to check), then?  As I recall, he does not assert a new world history, but
merely the questions, points of view, and approach that might someday yield a
new world history.  Probably the most interesting book about history (and the
modern/"contemporary" world) that I have ever read; made the most profound im-
pression on me as a grad student in the mid-70's.  (Spengler, too, made a pro-
found impression on me, but that was at least partly because he was the founda-
tion for one of my earliest triumphs as a grad student.)
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Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 14:54:53 EDT
From:         Michael Cammer <cammer@AECOM.YU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Facts about Grant's Tomb
Comments: To: HISTORY@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu
              "ekfriedm@THAMA1.APGEA.ARMY.MIL" at Apr 6, 92 2:47 pm

>
>     As a former Columbia undergrad, I lived for several years in the
>     vicinity of Grant's Tomb.  It's adjacent to Riverside Park, and
>     overlooks the Hudson River.  It's a secluded part of a marginal
>     neighborhood, and unsafe at night, although it gets a lot of
>     jogger/bicyclist traffic daytimes.  Few tourists go there, except as an
>     afterthought to visting the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is
>     nearby, and on the tour bus "must see" list.
>
If you're in NY and you visit Grant's Tomb, you should also go to the
top of Riverside Cathedral which is directly across the street; the view
is spectacular.

Riverside Park is not a secluded part of a marginal neighborhood.  From
the West 70s up to 125th Street-- the whole way up-- the park borders one
side of an extremely populated and often popular place to live:  The
Upper West Side.  As a graduate student with a studio on the corner of
125th and B'way I must say that the neighborhood is not unsafe at night,
at least not more so that much of the city south of 130th St. (on the
West Side).


--
From: tola@jyu.fi (Teemu Olavi Lahteenmaki)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Subject: Re: Roman Battle Tactics
Date: 12 Apr 92 14:25:26 GMT
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland

In article <1992Apr10.080400.13728@acsu.buffalo.edu> v064lnev@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Avatar) writes:
>Hello Historians,
>
>	Could someone please inform me as to the tactics used by the Romans in
>battle.  I am especially interested in the various formations they used, such
>as the phalanx.  Thank you very much.

Well.. romans used phalanx at first, it was greek invention for infantry 
formation, but it was useless in rough terrain. So romans inventend legions
which were much better. Legions differ phalanx that phalanx is a big mass 
of mans. Legions are formed smaller units ,like centurions, that made 
legions more flexible... ;-)

 
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