February 2013

Thomas Gray and Horace Walpole on Grand Tour, spread news of a papal election, 1739/1740

By Dr. Robert V. McNamee
On Sunday, 29 March 1739, two young men, aspiring authors and student friends from Eton College and Cambridge, departed Dover for the Continent. The twenty-two year old Horace Walpole, 4th earl of Orford (1717–1797), was setting out on his turn at the Grand Tour. Accompanying him on the journey, which would take them through France to Italy, was Thomas Gray (1716–1771), future author of the “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”.

Have conditions improved in Afghanistan since 2001?

CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen visited the Carnegie Council in New York City late last year to discuss “Talibanistan,” a collection he recently edited for Oxford University Press. Bergen, who produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, discussed the positive changes in Afghanistan over the past ten years: “Afghans have a sense that what is happening now is better than a lot of things they’ve lived through…”

Friday procrastination: Tumbled edition

By Alice Northover

Another week, another delayed Friday procrastination. Last week I was rumbled in the demands to tumble — that is, Oxford University Press’s academic division has a shiny new Tumblr. For those of you in publishing and not on Tumblr, the inordinately helpful Rachel Fershleiser gave a presentation on Tumblr tips earlier this week. So without further ado…

On the Battle of the Atlantic

Winston Churchill is surrounded by many popular and well-entrenched myths. Despite his long and close relationship with the Royal Navy, he is regarded by many as an inept strategist who interfered in naval operations and often overrode his professional advisers with inevitably disastrous results. In the video below, we chatted with author Christopher Bell, who shed some light on the misconceptions behind the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Franco-German connection and the future of Europe

By Ulrich Krotz and Joachim Schild
Ten years ago, at the Elysée Treaty’s 40th anniversary, Alain Juppé characterized France and Germany as the “privileged guardians of the European cohesion.” As the European Union’s key countries celebrated the 50th anniversary of their bilateral Treaty, Europe traverses a whole set of crises making the Franco-German “entente élémentaire” (Willy Brandt) appear as ever more important for providing or preserving European crisis management, decision-making, and, in whatever exact form: cohesion.

The Beatles and Northern Songs, 22 February 1963

By Gordon R. Thompson

Songwriting had gained the Beatles entry into EMI’s studios and songwriting would distinguish them from most other British performers in 1963. Sid Colman at publishers Ardmore and Beechwood had been the first to sense a latent talent, bringing them to the attention of George Martin at Parlophone. Martin in turn had recommended Dick James as a more ambitious exploiter of their potential catalogue.

North Korea and the bomb

By Joseph M. Siracusa
It is vital to begin any discussion of North Korea’s nuclear program with an understanding of the limits on available information regarding its development. North Korea has been very effective in denying the outside world any significant information on its nuclear program. As a result, the outside world has had little direct evidence of the North Korean efforts and has mainly relied on indirect inferences, leaving substantial uncertainties.

De Quincey’s wicked book

By Robert Morrison
In The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Immanuel Kant gives the standard eighteenth-century line on opium. Its “dreamy euphoria,” he declares, makes one “taciturn, withdrawn, and uncommunicative,” and it is “therefore…permitted only as a medicine.” Eighty-five years later, in The Gay Science (1882), Friedrich Nietzsche too discusses drugs, but he has a very different story to tell.

The Nat “King” Cole Show: pioneer of music television

By Ron Rodman

In this blog last month, I wrote about Dr. Billy Taylor and his pioneering work on television as an advocate for jazz. To celebrate Black History Month, it is appropriate to mention another African American musician who was a pioneer on American television: Nat King Cole, jazz pianist and vocalist, was the first African American musician to host a nationally-broadcast musical variety show in the history of television.

‘And the Oscar went to …’

In his acceptance speech at the 1981 Oscars (best original screenplay, Chariots of Fire), Colin Welland offered the now famous prediction that ‘The British are coming!’ There have since been some notable British Oscar successes: Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989); director Anthony Minghella for The English Patient (1996); Helen Mirren (in The Queen, 2006).

Out of Shakespeare: ‘Aroint thee’

By Anatoly Liberman
Dozens of words have not been forgotten only because Shakespeare used them. Scotch (as in scotch the snake), bare bodkin, and dozens of others would have taken their quietus and slept peacefully in the majestic graveyard of the Oxford English Dictionary but for their appearance in Shakespeare’s plays. Aroint would certainly have been unknown but for its appearance in Macbeth and King Lear.

American copyright in the digital age

In 2010, Aaron Swartz, a 26-year-old computer programmer and founder of Reddit, downloaded thousands of scholarly articles from the online journal archive JSTOR. He had legal access to the database through his research fellowship at Harvard University; he also, however, had a history of dramatic activism against pay-for-content online services, having previously downloaded and released roughly 100,000,000 documents from the PACER database.

The best of times? Student days, mental illness, and gender

By Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman
Students are often told — perhaps by excited friends or nostalgic parents — that university is the best time of their life. Well, for some people these years may live up to their billing. For many others, however, things aren’t so straightforward. College can prove more of a trial than a pleasure.

Richard Burbage: Shakespeare’s first Hamlet

By Bart van Es
The death of Richard Burbage in 1619 caused a minor scandal. So lavish was the outpouring of grief that it threatened to overshadow official mourning for Queen Anne who had died a few days before. Shakespeare’s leading actor had a legendary status in the seventeenth century. It is also a minor scandal that he is not more famous today.

Obama’s State of the Union Address

By Elvin Lim
Obama’s speech last week was an attempt to be as partisan or liberal as possible, while sounding as reasonable as possible. “Why would that be a partisan issue, helping folks refinance?” the president asked as part of this strategy. The Republican Party continues to suffer an image problem of being out of the mainstream, and the president was trying to capitalize on this moment of vulnerability.

Cyber attacks: electric shock

By Alfred Rolington
Cyber attacks on Iran have been well publicised in the press and on Western television. General William Shelton, a top American cyber general, has now turned these attacks around saying that these events are giving Iran a strategic and tactical cyber advantage creating a very serious “force to be reckoned with.”