Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
edge american west square logo

The Edge of the American West

"History can save your ass."

This blog is a blog about history, Yiddishkeit, and the Muppets, neither exclusively nor necessarily in that order. And as William Gibson said about this very blog (no, really), “History can save your ass.” Yiddishkeit and the Muppets are just extras.

The Chronicle Blog Network, a digital salon sponsored by The Chronicle of Higher Education, features leading bloggers from all corners of academe. Content is not edited, solicited, or necessarily endorsed by The Chronicle.

Posts from The Edge of the American West

By David Silbey June 10, 2014
Chillicothe, Ohio unveiled a memorial to the Korean War this last Memorial Day. Unfortunately, the creators do not seem to have had the best historical sense in the world:
By Vance Maverick May 22, 2014
I checked out a study score of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony from the local public library. It’s an early edition, maybe the first American one: © 1945, in the Leeds Music Corporation “Am-Rus Orchestra Scores series.” There’s an introduction by one Harold Sheldon, short but deeply bizarre.
By David Silbey May 19, 2014
Michael Beschloss, criticizing the penchant for commemorating the D-Day anniversary, and talking about Eisenhower avoiding the 1954 anniversary, because:
By David Silbey May 13, 2014
Imperial powers gain much of their strength from their global networks. The British - by owning the oceans in the 19th century - controlled how much of the world’s commerce moved. In that same century, much of the world’s information moved over British telegraph networks. They gave Britain power.…
By David Silbey May 2, 2014
In no particular order: Job reports. In the latest form of blog posts/newspaper articles, we have the “The jobs report is good/bad on the surface, but bad/good underneath” genre. We got a bumper crop of it after today’s release. Yes, I know that today’s report was not of unalloyed good cheer, but…
By David Silbey April 29, 2014
Who’s a nice naval base, then? Shorter John Cassidy: Putin may have a set of motivations that are rational by his lights, but I think he’s crazy: Putin is a Russian nationalist[*] through and through, and, historically, an important part of Russian nationalism has been expansionism. When you are…
By David Silbey April 24, 2014
The Department of the Navy is advertising a summer internship as a “Student Trainee Laborer.” It is paid, admittedly, but doesn’t strike me as a particularly educational experience: This position is that of a Student Trainee (Laborer) assigned to perform a combination of tasks requiring little or…
By David Silbey April 21, 2014
World War II will not be entirely over for a long while:
By David Silbey April 18, 2014
Given today’s xkcd cartoon:
By David Silbey April 16, 2014
Everything is older than you think it is: