Chris Christie: The Longshot

I revisit the theme of Christie as longshot over at Ordinary Times this morning.

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2015/04/18/chris-christie-the-longshot

Attaching Strings to Anti-Poverty Legislation

I wrote a piece attempting to justify "strings attached" in anti-poverty programs over at Ordinary Times. It doubles as a bit of a critique of academia, or at least on analytical overconfidence. Link below:

http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2015/04/13/a-partial-defense-of-strings-attached

Moving!

I'll actually be posting most of my stuff over at Ordinary Times, a pretty cool site with a vibrant commenting community. The site leans Left, but it's a thoughtful sort of liberalism, in my estimation, and they seemed to want a somewhat-conservative perspective over there as well. I posted a brief introduction where I tried to lay out where I come from and what I try to do when I blog. At least to start things out, I'll be cross-posting here as well.

Six Really Good Books on the History of Disease

I'm almost finished with a very long reading list (40+ books) on the history of disease, and I am starting to look back on them for an upcoming exam. I wanted to highlight, briefly, the six books I've read on disease that were most illuminating.

1. William McNeill - Plagues and Peoples

William McNeill's book is foundational. Not all of the conclusions hold up 40 years later, but the nature of the analysis, to me at least, is what we should be striving for in the area: how do microorganisms affect the flow of history? So it's probably the best point of departure for the field itself.

2. J.R. McNeill - Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914

William McNeill's son, JR McNeill, is a stellar historian in his own right. McNeill zooms in on mosquito-borne disease and poses a very compelling argument about its significance in the colonization process. His observation about the American campaign in the Mexican War is absolutely eye-opening; things could have gone very differently there.

3. David Arnold - Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India

David Arnold's book is the best example of what I'd deem "post-Foucault" analysis. It's very much informed by Foucault's arguments about language and power, but it grapples with the biology and reality of disease much more so than its intellectual cousins. If you're read Arnold, you can predict what a lot of related books will say about different geographical subjects.

4. Peter Baldwin - Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930
5. Paul Weindling - Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe, 1890-1945

Peter Baldwin's book is an absolute tour de force in terms of exploring increases in state power in Europe. I think it pairs nicely with Paul Weindling's book that focuses more explicitly on the use of state power after it developed. Baldwin's book is more about change throughout the 19th century, and Weindling's is more about continuity from the 1890s forward, so they really do pair quite well. These books are long, depressing, and expensive, but both absolutely illuminating.

6. Carlo Cipolla - Faith, Reason, and the Plague in 17th C. Tuscany

Microhistory in the vein of Natalie Zemon Davis's excellent Return of Martin Guerre. It focuses on a very small, very poor town in Tuscany and its experience with an outbreak of plague in the 1630s. I think it would make a great movie, at the very least, but it is a valuable perspective on the lived reality of disease in the time period. Carlo Cipolla was the master; you really can't go wrong with his books.