HistoryTalk

CNBC Needs a Historian

Dennis Kneale and CNBC need a historian. (Well, both Mr. Kneale and CNBC need a lot more than than a historian, but I'll stick to my knitting.) 

First, it's Pax Romana not Pax Roma, and what Pax Romana has to do with your construct, Pax Americana, I am at a loss to understand. If you are going to make such comparisons, you really should get the analogies straight. The Pax Romana was notable for its military restraint, and I'm quite certain that our nation is not identified with military restraint at the moment.

Second, while you could make an argument that de Toqueville may have hinted at American exceptionalism, I would argue that it was Frederick Jackson Turner who made the most comprehensive, persuasive argument for American exceptionalism, thereby challenging the "germ theory" of national development. And no historian is really persuaded by Turner anymore, anyway.

Finally, historians are adept at leading discussions and debate in which there is no yelling at, interrupting of, or disparaging of one's fellows. If you need some help in this regard, there would be any number folks who would be delighted to give you a few pointers. You and your network advertise your program is a financial news venue, but I'm beginning to think that the Dennis Kneale's "Real Deal" is really television journalism's version of mud wrestling.

History Abuse

Now that no one really knows what might help the economy, the economists and others are looking for analogies from history. Commentators have moved from looking to the Great Depression for insights to rummaging around in the history of the Panic of 1873 (Paul Krugman). The Panic of 1873! What! Last time I looked, we didn't really know much about the Panic of 1873. Recently, the "best historic economic analogy" has been a valorization of the Gilded Age (WSJ). As a historian of the Gilded Age, I think that the Panic of 1893 can furnish some insight but not for reasons that appeal to the commentators. 

Something that might help is for these folks to know something about history, especially the economic history, of the Gilded Age. (What commentators and bloggers currently offer by way of history is truly astonishing rubbish.) The other would be to understand that NBER is more than likely incorrect on its analysis of depressions and their durability. With few exceptions, this data derives from secondary sources, compilations of data that are, I think, highly suspect from a historian's perspective. No one seems to question the basis of this data.

    

Evidence-Free Argument: Cuban Missiles vs Iraqi WMDs

What has always astonished me about the Iraq War is the utter lack of evidence, especially visual evidence, provided by the Bush administration (or anyone for that matter). In contrast, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as I remembered it, was chock a block with visual evidence. Detailed, annotated photographs of ships en route to Cuba carrying tarp-covered missiles filled the front pages of major dailies. Aerial photographs of the missile build-up in Cuba with explanatory arrows and callouts were part of the evening news. But I wondered if my memory of the past had acquired too much of a golden glow. As historians are well aware, memory plays tricks and can rewrite the past. How could I test these historical memories—one fairly recent and one considerably older? That cyber-Swiss-army-knife Google, of course.

Using the search terms “cuban missile crisis” and “Iraq weapons of mass destruction,” I did a crude frequency distribution of the first 100 images associated with each search array. Both sets of images shared similar categories: visual evidence (photographs or documentary images that provided evidence for either missiles or WMD), maps (providing geographical location or other visual evidence), people apparently discussing or talking about missiles or WMD, illustrations (a range of persons, places, or things associated with incident to wholly misplaced, idiotic visual filler), cartoons, and bad web art. Although the images illustrating Iraq and WMDs contain the greatest number of images wholly unrelated to the topic, they are not the most compelling. The difference between the visual evidence and maps categories is, however, striking. (To be sure, this is a crude experiment, but this is a blog, so I'm not going to do a methodology section.)

The number of visual evidence images and maps associated with the Cuban Missile Crisis (hereafter Cuba) was thirty-five (35); in contrast, the number of images and maps that could be remotely (and I mean remotely) construed as evidence for WMDs in Iraq (hereafter Iraq) was nineteen (19). While the majority of Cuba aerial photographs were annotated, only three of the Iraq images possessed any annotation. The Iraq images made little attempt to explain the photograph to the reader either via captioning or associated text. (What, for example, is the significance of a chlorine plant and phenol plant in close proximity?) In contrast, the Cuba images taught a mini-course in aerial photo interpretation via their annotations, captions and accompanying text. The maps are interesting also in that the Cuba maps often provided some geographical context, highlighted specific locations, and showed the possible effect of an Cuba-based attack on the US mainland. The Iraq maps seldom showed Iraq's geographical relationship to any other nation state and rarely located specific WMD sites. Iraq was usually depicted as floating in geographic space. The single map illustrating the range of an Iraqi WMD attack showed that Iraq had little in the way of effective delivery systems. Finally, what was most interesting is the number of images in which Bush administrators ostensibly discussed, talked about, argued for the evidence of Iraqi WMDs instead of furnishing it—a kind of argument-free, faith-based foreign policy.

Interesting Things: The History Boys

Although the play won a host of awards, I had not heard about it. So, when I pulled The History Boys off the shelf at Blockbuster, it was because it had history in the title and because the case copy mentioned the BBC. (You can see that I make my Blockbuster choices based on firm criteria.) Anyway, I'm a sucker for teacher films, and The History Boys is a terrific teacher film. If you need to take a break from grading, go round to your local video store and burn a couple of hours feeling good.

There is No Millennium Generation

Recently, a New York Times technology article devoted to venture capitalists use of the younger generation for their market research remarked:

And people now in junior high and high school have spent their lives with technology. “This is the first generation for whom the computer is a native language,” said Jim Gauer, managing director of Palomar Ventures, a Los Angeles firm. “We’re all going to have to get re-educated and learn that language.”

In a similar vein, a recent video on teachertube.com, “Pay Attention,” hyped the same message with a barrage of statistics. Students will have logged x (where x is a very large integer) hours playing video games, read x number of emails, and IMed x number of messages. The message was simple: contemporary students were the digital generation, and teachers better get with program and plan a lesson around a cellphone.

Where are these students? Who has them in class? The digital generation strikes me as the most unexamined assumption in contemporary business and education culture. I teach at a metro university in a relatively affluent area of the US. One would expect that my students would be representative of the “raised-by-computers” generation. They are not. I'd estimate that over the past five years, only 15 percent, at most, of any of my classes has been computer/information literate. True, most can do word processing, manage email, download music and images, and IM—but not very well. Beyond these basics, their skill set is pretty minimal. The digital generation, with few exceptions, does not exist.

No one is born digital and only a few are raised digital. And absolutely one has “the computer as a native language.” And who do these marketers think is teaching the rest how to become digital? I'm reminded of the fundamental scientific and computing advances made during the Cold War. It was not the Sputnik generation who made them—those raised on science enriched high school programs—but the previous generation.

The Unbearable Uselessness of Timelines

Timelines or chronologies are textbook staples. No major publishing house produces an American history survey text bereft of a timeline or some similar date/event display. And no publishing house can resist bemoaning how there are never enough pages for all the material that the authors wish to include.

Here's an idea: get rid of the timelines. Timelines take up valuable textbook real estate—usually one-half to a full page. Not only are timelines a waste of time (in more ways than one), but they are also a waste of space. They also violate practically every visual display princple, particularly Edward Tufte’s guidelines. What is the evidence that the timeline presents? Only that in any particular year there was a particular event or events. What is this evidence of? Time marching on? One damn thing after another? Where are the comparisons? Where is the multivariate data? What about the integration of words, numbers, and images? Does a timeline thoroughly describe the source of the evidence? And finally, what is the quality or relevance of timeline evidence?

A timeline is simply a list of years and events without any discernible relationship. What is more, nobody uses them. Can you imagine an instructor announcing, “OK, let's open our books to the timeline.” (Well, maybe some do, but I hope not.) The review questions, recommended reading, and web references fall into the same category. Here are textbook elements that are crying out to be put online. Would not web references be happier on—uh—the Web? And wouldn't a nice printable PDF be a more congenial format for the review questions? Do not, however, make an interactive timeline unless you've got a relationship(s) figured out. Do not.

And here's the payoff, textbook publishers: moving these things to Web on average frees up 30 pages of texbook space in a combined brief edition. That's 30 pages for more text, maps, images and, perhaps, additional coverage of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Imagine what might happen to a full edition.

First Podcast

For those who don't want to read the narrative, the podcast, “Writing History: Titles-Episode 1”, can be accessed from my main website.

I've thinking for sometime about experimenting with podcasts or screeen casts. So, as I put off marking student blogs, I worked on a first podcast. For the experiment, I used Keynote, Garageband, Profcast, and a template from KeynotePro. Keynote is the Mac version of PowerPoint and, for my money, much superior. Garageband is a part of Apple’s iLife suite that concentrates on sound editing. And Profcast is an inexpensive application that allows an instructor to add voice-over to PowerPoint or Keynote presentations.

First, it seemed to me that podcasting could be applied to repetitive tasks. How many times do we repeat bits of information in class? Or answer the same question—sometimes asked within minutes? It seems that I am repeating advice or information on a fairly regular basis. Second, I don't want to get in the long format podcasting business. I don’t have the time, and I wanted the podcasts to come in bite-sized pieces to appeal to my students. Third, I wanted the presentation to combine both sound and image. Fourth, I wanted to build around a practical topic, a topic that others might find useful.

So, I set off to put together some advice and suggestions for writing a history essay. How long did it take me to put together the screencast? About a day. Anything new always takes longer, so I think that an evening will suffice in the future. Did I learn anything? Yes but nothing that a good podcasting text wouldn't advise. (Lynda.com also has a good training video for podcasting with Garageband.) First, unless you are professional radio announcer, write a script. It does help, however, to talk through the presentation as you would in class while you're recording as a dry run. Warms up your voice and furnishes a sense of timing. (I was astonished at my “ums.”) Second, use a good microphone. I used my Parrot headset from iListen. It's optimized for voice recognition and seemed to work well. Problems? Always. I've always had difficulty with sound/in and sound/out. Setting up my sound/in and sound/out for the various applications has always vexed me. I do get it right in the end, but it takes time.

I needed to put the podcast, “Writing History: Titles-Episode 1” on my main website to avoid bandwith issues—not that I'm worried about an overload of traffic at HistoryTalk—and to use some javascript and parameters that I can't seem to figure out for TypePad. Better not to be surprised by a larger bill from our TypePad friends.

Photoshop CS3: Easy Zoomable Maps

Downloaded the new Photoshop CS3 beta. In addition to some wonderful new tools, one of the more interesting things for historians is the integration of Zoomify. Zoomify was dandy for large format media, such as maps, but using the stand-alone application was a bit of a hassle. Adobe has made the process much simpler and integrating large-format materials much easier.

Unfortunately, mounting the example on TypePad is not feasible. First, Typepad does not like .xml files, and Adobe's Zoom generates one. Second, TypePad does not allow FTPing files or folders, and Adobe's Zoom creates a large number of image files; loading them one by one is too tedious for words. So, you will have to go my main website to view the Hygeia Map. Finally, Adobe Zoom writes wretched code. It's easiest to open the page in your editor of choice and tidy up.

To experiment with the PS CS3 beta, you must have a current PS CS2 serial number. While I found a demonstration of Adobe's Zoom function at Macworld Video Blog, the folks at lynda.com have a comprehensive introduction to the new features of the program. The overview is free. By the by, lynda.com has some of the best tutorials for those who want to learn all sorts of applications. Unlike the Photoshop preview, the other tutorials are not free. But they are reasonably priced and highly recommended.

The "I've Had It" Department

Flying used be kind of fun. Today, it's an enterprise on the order of Teddy Roosevelt organizing his expedition to the Amazon. I now have all the shoe rules memorized for all major US airports, airport friendly shoes, plastic jewelry, jackets with non-metallic zippers and buttons, and am working on the gels, aerosols, and sprays. But these are least of an air traveler's problems and vexations. Let's take airport and aircraft announcements. These are way, way out of hand.

On a recent flight from Detroit to Dulles, a flight of 56 minutes, there were fourteen announcements. That's roughly one announcement every three minutes. First, there was the obligatory announcement that the flight is a non-smoking flight. Right. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 25 years, you know this. (I believe there are some flights in Russia that still permit smoking; placing chickens in the overhead bins is also permitted.) Second, there was the announcement that there is no smoking in the restrooms. Again, if you have not been under a rock, this rule has been in force for the past 20 years. Third, there is the announcement about the price of drinks and necessity for correct change. What is new about this? On and on. It's virtually impossible to read, listen to an iPod, look out the window—do anything but listen to inane chatter. (Yes, I'm well aware that the FAA does mandate certain announcements, but I don't think that annoucing the price of drinks or the incipient beverage service is mandated.)

Airports are worse than airplanes as far as noise goes. Again, there is the smoking announcement: "Blah International Airport is a non-smoking facility. Smoking is permitted in designated areas only." Again, the federal non-smoking policy has been in force for over two decades. Then there is the terrorism threat reminder. Last week it was orange. What does this mean? Bazookas in the valet parking lots? What if the terrorism threat level were red? No flight departures? The airport is under seige? No one knows what these colors mean. Homeland Security doesn't even know what they mean. And tow those people who are illegally parked in front of Door 2 and be quiet about it. As for those unattended bags, it is only common sense to keep your eye on your luggage and notify someone if bags are lying around. Zipper the lips on this one. For those people who have failed to master the rudiments of organization and, in consequence, failed to meet their parties, provide a "lost souls" corral where they can gather. No need to broadcast the names. Besides, no one can ever find the "white courtesy phones" anyway.

Here's what we want to hear over the PA system in the airport and in the air: information about our flight, information from the pilot relevant to the flight, and information about safety. That's it. The rest can be put on a card in several different languages with a series of tick boxes for the terrorism threat level. While I wait for this to happen, I'm getting noise-cancelling earphones.

Scholarship, (X)HTML, and CSS: The Problems

The Problem: The <blockquote> Element

Block quotations have normally been reserved for directly quoted material that exceeded roughly fifty words. In the past, researchers singlespaced and indented a block quotation and referenced the source with a superscripted note. The current World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML 4.01 specification for a block quotation (blockquote) specifies that the blockquote element enclose a block-level element, usually a paragraph element (p). When a blockquote envelopes a block-level p, however, the block quotation inherits the p style. Since standard digital paragraphs usually employ leading (line-height) to increase legibility and readability, the enclosed p often ends up with inappropriate leading, perhaps a first line indent, and no indentation. From a humanities scholar’s perspective, the problem lies in a misunderstanding of the semantics of a block quotation. A block quotation is different from a standard paragraph terms of its content; it is not an instance of a paragraph but a different structure entirely. A block quotation signals to the reader that the material is a long passage from another work, and the reader is advised, thereby, to read carefully because the passage documents an assertion or a constituent part of the argument. Its visual presentation underscores its special status. A block quotation is simply not an indented paragraph of textual argument. And then there's XHTML Strict. The XHTML Strict specification does not allow the use of the cite or sup elements within a blockquote element. A blockquote in humanities requires a citation. To include a superscripted reference mark or a cite element will invalidate the markup; to exclude a citation mark or citation risks censure.

The Problem: The <q> Element

The q element (quotation) might be very useful to humanities scholars for two reasons: elimination of special character insertion and cataloging by bots or specialized engines. According to the W3C specification, user agents should insert “curly” quotation marks appropriate to the language around the text enclosed by the q element, obviating the need to manually insert the quotation marks or worry about unicode entities. Unfortunately, the q element is not supported by all browsers or well-implemented in others. While modern browsers, such as Firefox 1.5 fully support the q element in its proper form, Safari 2.0 and Opera 8.5 substitute foot marks for “curly” quotes. Similarly, Mac IE 5.x supports the q element after a fashion; if the the text is not left-aligned, the quotation marks have minds of their own and appear willy-nilly. Finally, the Win IE family does not support the q element at all. Since a majority of user agents are members of the Win IE group, most handbooks advise against using the q element and recommend manually inserting the proper punctuation to ensure consistent presentation across user agents. So much for the q element. Scholars could use the :before and :after CSS pseudo-elements to insert quotation marks before and after a quotation but, again, the Win IE family does not support :before and :after pseudo-elements. Finally, the XHTML 2.0 draft specification outlines a scheme that substitutes the quote element for the q element. In this scenario, scholars will have to insert the correct “curly” quotes and avoid using the sup element (superscript).

The Problem: The <cite> Element

In a similar vein, the cite element (citation) has apparent utility. After all, scholarly works are chock a block with cites of one kind or another. And, again, having cite elements correctly marked semantically would allow several kinds of analysis, and having cite display correctly would also be a boon. The cite element is not up to the task, however. User agents generally display the cite element in italics. Although it may not always be the case, citations include more structures than the cite element can accommodate: an author’s name, a book title, an article title, and a page number or a URL—many of which are not proper candidates for italics. As Tantek Çelik points out, XHTML lacks the building blocks to capture a citation’s complexity. (Well, I can't find the citation from his presentation.)

The Problem: The <hr> Element

Finally, there is the poor <hr> element or rule. The rule has a structural role, functioning in much the same way as its smaller cousin the em dash. It marks off sections or signals a break in the narrative or argument. A rule's most common use is separating the body text from the endnotes or footnotes. Alas, the <hr> element has been deprecated, and writers are advised to use stylesheets. Employing stylesheets mean using borders, and borders occupy the entire width of a container. A designer can either use a border and run the rule the entire width of the containing div and across the page or create a smaller, empty div and deal with the problems of empty divs.

Conclusions

These are but a few examples. Both the <sup> element and paged media properties, for example, deserve separate discussions. The fact remains that both HTML and XHTML define and describe a language, a language that circumscribes (or undermines) the correct presentation of online scholarship in the humanities. One of the most fundamental qualities of text is its dual nature. In some important instances, especially in the humanities, text is both structural and presentational. This nuance has, however, been lost in the over-zealous segregation of structure and presentation. Why is this the case? And what is to be done? (Part 2 of 3)