Look — blogs!

I've been meaning to update my sidebar for a while now, as there are a lot of good blogs (both new and old) which I like and which are worth bringing to people's attention. Some will already be known to readers of this site since they're written by readers of this site!

I've mostly kept my rather idiosyncratic categories, but have added a new category for digital history -- which I'm interested in but don't actually do. Reading these blogs helps me to keep feeling guilty about that fact. So, here there's academhack, Found History and Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, which range from the practical to the theoretical in varying proportions.

On British history, there's Edwardian Promenade, which I was pleased to find as the Edwardian period seems under-represented in the historioblogosphere. Edwardian Promenade is mainly about the style, fashion and etiquette of the upper classes, which I'm finding unexpectedly interesting (possibly because of my boundless ignorance of such things). Mercurius Politicus is the blog of a student doing an MA on the early modern period. So it has quite a bit on the 17th century and its historiography, the odd travel post, and Carnivalesque 36.

There are a number of great Australian blogs appearing out there. I've been especially impressed by the host site of this month's History Carnival. The Vapour Trail investigates various forms of theatre in 19th century Australia and other English-speaking countries and how this illuminates broader aspects of society and culture. It's a good place to go if you want to know why the Sentimental Bloke was sentimental and whether Circassian beauties were Circassian. Humanities researcher is very close to home for me -- not because of the subject matter (medieval lit) but because the author is an academic at my own university! (Not from Historical Studies, alas, but Culture & Communication.) The title of the next one elicits some cognitive dissonance at first, but soon makes perfect sense: Space Age Archaeology. (Plus it has sputnik cakes.) And then there's The Cerebral Mum, somebody I've known (but haven't seen!) for a long time. It's not all that historical most of the time, but it's always an interesting read, and beside, she's also a history undergrad. Close enough for government work.

In the military history section, there's Zone of Influence, which isn't directly about military history, but rather about wargames (and their history), things which I sometimes post about but never have time to play myself anymore! The War Reading Room is the blog of an independent researcher and writer on various military history topics. And then there's the Australian War Memorial, which as I noted in the last state of the military historioblogosphere, has a new group (or group-of-groups) blog. Very airminded too -- the latest post is about the restoration of a German fighter from the First World War. And even more airminded is Spitfire Site News, which is all about a single type of aeroplane -- what else but the Supermarine Spitfire? One day, there'll be a blog devoted to the Yeoman Cropmaster, and then the blogosphere will be FINAL and COMPLETE and we can all uninstall our RSS readers and go outside and play.

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6 thoughts on “Look — blogs!

  1. Boy, do I feel out of place in this post! I really should be writing more about history than toilet training. (I know which one I find more interesting!) And I need to update my own blogroll to include some history bloggers. Right now though, I'm in research mode for a paper on the "causes" of 1968. Taking a global perspective is something new for me as previously all my history writing has been more narrowly focussed. And for this one, all the local details are so very seductive, I just don't want to step back.

    But we'll fix up that "haven't seen" soon!

  2. Post author

    CM:

    I'm probably the opposite -- not so much global, but broad-brush history anyway (albeit on a very small canvas ...) Earlier this year, though, I wrote a paper which was much more narrowly focused than usual and I really enjoyed getting into the nitty-gritty of one person's career and writings. Hopefully you'll find switching the opposite way to be rewarding too!

    Ricardo:

    Thanks -- I had no idea that these wrecks would still be extant, or that people would go around looking for them!

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