So, are there foundational accounts of the cultural and intellectual history of Victorian Liberalism? I understand that I'm probably the one who should be answering that question and not asking it, but in mining the footnotes of the introductions of recent books, I'm pretty surprised at what I'm finding. I expected to find references to some "classic" works from the 1970s or 1980s, maybe the 1990s at the latest. Instead, people simply go straight to quoting Mill, or Ricardo, or Malthus, or other 19th-century writers. Not that that is a bad thing, but that suggests to me that there might not be an actual, coherent, historiography on the intellectual history of Liberalism. And yet... that's almost impossible to believe. British history in the 19th century IS Liberalism. How in the world could there not be a bunch of "classic" texts on it? I am, clearly, missing something.

I think this is-or is going to become- a historiographical issue. On Tuesday I was at a discussion about a new text someone is writing about the Holocaust and the Red Army. Responses were split- Soviet historians felt some things were totally obvious, Holocaust historians found those same things new and interesting. So I'm curious to know- what do non-specialists (of either or both fields) know about Soviet discussions of the Holocaust? Is it widely accepted that Stalin and Soviet society at large did not discuss/know about the Holocaust? What is the popular understanding for when discussion of the Holocaust, and particular Jewish suffering under the Germans/Romanians, became taboo within the USSR?

Yes! I've been waiting for Theory Thursday, because my dissertation is pulling me into anthropological theory and I feel a little out of my depth.

I'd love to hear anyone's input on the use of codeswitching as a model in historical research. My dissertation deals in part with questions of identity in a culturally hybrid society (medieval Ireland), and codeswitching is one of those words that gets thrown around in conversations with my colleagues to describe the ways my guys are able to navigate and negotiate the mores and institutions of native society (Gaelic Ireland), Anglo-Irish society, and the English court.

After doing some reading, though, it seems like scholars really only use the term to apply to linguistic issues. I'm definitely going to be talking about that as well, and I won't be the first to integrate the theory into medieval Irish scholarship.

But is it accurate/appropriate to talk about a kind of cultural codeswitching? Have other people done it already? Is there a better term I can use?

not 100% sure if i can ask, How much truth is in the phrase "History is written by the winners."?

Hi, can anyone of you recommend me reference books for these themes?

1. History and its theories

a) Greco-Roman b) Ancient Indian c) Medieval (i) Church & (ii) Arab d) The Enlightenment

2. Emergence of Modern theories of history

a) Romanticist theory b) School of Scientific History c) Materialist Theory of history

I'm in Virginia and wrote my MA thesis on Scots-Irish vernacular architecture in the Valley of Virginia. I did an extensive ethnic history of the Scots-Irish, explaining why their particular circumstances made them both culturally distinct and culturally isolated- contributing to a particular recognizable building form that has specific origins and lasting symbolic meaning for Scots-Irish in America, even several generations removed.

Heard an NPR segment yesterday from WVTF about a theater group doing a play comparing Scottish people today and Scots-Irish Appalachians (two hundred years removed) and how they were shocked at some of the cultural differences. Duh. Scots-Irish people were not exactly Scottish. It's like interviewing Basques in Nevada and being shocked that they're culturally different from ethnic Spanish people. You're comparing apples to pears, even without two hundred years of temporal and physical separation.

Why is Scots-Irish so persistently misinterpreted as Scots+Irish or just Scottish?