Gettysburg.

A 1994 C-SPAN production in which Shelby Foote discusses the Gettysburg Campaign and his book, Stars in Their Courses ...

Happy Birthday, Roget

Peter Mark Roget was born on this day in 1779.

From C-SPAN ...

Joshua Kendall talked about his book The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus. The book recounts the life of Peter Mark Roget, the creator of the thesaurus that was first published in 1852.

Johnson.

Paul Johnson discusses his indexing technique in a 1998 interview with Brian Lamb on the occasion of the publishing of A History of the American People ...

I plan that in a way which I learnt from the days when I was making television documentaries. In those days, I'd get each sequence or part of each sequence, and I'd write it on a card. And then I'd spread all these cards across the floor until I had arranged them in the final sequence I wanted. And I adapted this technique for writing books, particularly very big historical works. I would have every subject on a card, probably needing about 300 words to cover that subject--an average of 300 words. And I would then have hundreds of these cards and spread them out all over the floor of a big room, and perhaps spend a fortnight getting them in the perfect order and divided into chapters. And each of those cards were cross-indexed to my--related to my index so I'd know exactly where to look for in the notes to deal with the subject on that card.

Don't miss Kurt's memorials to Paul Johnson.

Proven.

Something to be proven rather than stated ...

From government to business to blogging, how many thousands of things today should be held to such scrutiny?

Thanks, Kurt.

World-class.

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

Rudyard Kipling

C-SPAN's masterful In-Depth series has yielded unforgettable stories from these world-class historians ...

Stephen A. Ambrose

Shelby Foote

Paul Johnson

David McCullogh

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

C-SPAN features Kevin Hymel, who shows photographs taken by General George S. Patton, Jr. during World War II which he first presented in this book Patton’s Photographs: The War As He Saw It. Mr. Hymel had discovered them in the Library of Congress were they had been donated by Patton’s family in the early 1990s ... HERE.

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

C-SPAN features J.L. Bell's talk about his book, The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War, and events dating back to September 1774, including the Patriot plot to steal four British cannons and the British plan to get them back.

Bell's blog, Boston 1773, is HERE.

Attend.

Soulcraft is the formation of attention that gets us to attend to the things that matter, not the things on the surface. It’s the cultivation of thinking critically for yourself so you’re willing to speak in such a way that you exercise what Socrates called parrhesia, which is clear speech, frank speech, fearless speech, unintimidated speech, speech that flows from your soul not to show that you’re clever and smart, but to show that you’re courageous and wise.

There is a qualitative distinction between success in the mainstream and greatness from the vantage point of a freedom movement and we have reduced all talk about greatness to just success in the mainstream.

Rev. Dr. Cornell West

Robert George and Cornel West on C-SPAN's In Depth (I found the section on "Soulcraft" from 13:00 - 23:00 very interesting) ...



Personal authenticity, in the classical understanding of liberal-arts education, consists in self-mastery—in placing reason in control of desire. According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires—it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self.

Robert P. George

George and West discuss The Examined Life and the value of a liberal arts education ...

Interest.

We are becoming a nation of thieves by trying to live at everyone else’s expense. We have lost our moral mooring and the Church is partially responsible by failing to uphold its beliefs. One of the 10 Commandments says, “Thou shall not steal.” Now I am fairly confident that God did not mean, “Thou shall not steal–unless you get a majority vote” ...

Do-gooders fail to realize that most good is not done in the name of good but done in the name of self-interest.  It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

Dr. Walter E. Williams, from American Contempt for Liberty

Dr. Tawni Hunt Ferrarini and Dr. Walter Williams discuss the United States Constitution and defending liberty in America ...



C-SPAN's In Depth with Dr. Williams ... HERE.

Fleming.

An argument for the Interditch if there ever was one ... three hours of BookTV's In-Depth with historian Thomas Fleming ... HERE.

The best untold story of the Revolution is Anthony Wayne’s victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794. I – and others – consider this the last battle of the Revolution. It put an end to the British plot to arm the Indians and drive the Americans east of the Appalachians. When Washington asked Congress to pass a resolution congratulating Mad Anthony, the Jeffersonian-dominated solons said they did not think it was proper for the august Congress to praise a general of the American regular army. It’s a marvelous glimpse of Jeffersonian hostility to a standing army – and the kind of problems Washington confronted as president. He calmly replied that he was unbothered by Congress’s decision. The President of the United States would thank General Wayne, on his own.

Thomas Fleming