new nas album is out today. was surprised to see moorish science temple symbols on the back of his new shirts. i've mentioned him before in my work, as he has passed on old folk knowledge in many of his songs--a feature of his music that has largely gone unnoticed by reviewers and scholars. One of my favorite things that I spotted in his lyrics was his references to "little me" (go to 14:47 in this video), a version of the spiritual killer in African American tradition more commonly known as the "little man," but also depicted as a man dressed in black (he being equated with "death" personified, as he is in the Bone Thugs n Harmony Crossroads video). The Moorish Science Circle 7 symbol has folk roots that go back to at least the 19th c, and was originally brought by slaves from Africa--so it is surprising to me that it's still appearing in popular culture. (Bonus video for those interested in the prominence of red in African American folk culture, such as the preference for red ties in Baptist churches--Nas has touched on this topic too.)

NB: The reason I'm posting videos and not academic references is I am the only scholar who as ever pointed out these connections, but my book that has the info--A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 2--is so expensive that, unless you're lucky enough to be at one of the few schools that has it--you'll probably never read it, so I made videos to spread the word.

On the other hand, I do not regard the rise of woman as a bad sign. Rather do I fancy that her traditional subordination was itself an artificial & undesirable condition based on Oriental influences. Our virile Teutonic ancestors did not think their wives unworthy to follow them into battle, or scorn to dream of winged Valkyries bearing them to Valhalla. The feminine mind does not cover the same territory as the masculine, but is probably little if any inferior in total quality. To expect it to remain perpetually in the background in a realistic state of society is futile—despite the most feverish efforts of Nazis and Fascisti. However—it will be some time before women are sufficiently freed from past influences to form an active factor in national life. By the time they do gain influence, they will have lost many of the emotional characteristics which now impair their powers of judgment. Many qualities commonly regarded as innate—in races, classes, & sexes alike—are in reality results of habitual & imperceptible conditioning.

• H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 28 Oct 1934, DS 583

H. P. Lovecraft lived during a transformative period in America's national life, when women gained increasing voice in politics and national discourse, sexual freedom, and work outside of the home. While many of his views are decidedly chauvinistic by today's standards, Lovecraft admired and encouraged the work of female writers like C. L. Moore and Winifred Virginia Jackson, as well as revision clients Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop.

Hey, folks. A couple months back I did a podcast with Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt about her book Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Here is the thread related to that.

Well, she's trying to get more reviews on the Amazon page for her book (it only has 10 at present). If you ended up reading her book and would be interested and willing to write a nice review, I'm sure she'd appreciate it.

Here is a link to the page on Amazon.

Thanks!

The BBC have launched a new, weekly history podcast! It's called 'Time Travellers' and comes out of a feature on Radio 3's Essential Classics morning show. Each episode features five short stories from the show's back catalogue, organised around a particular theme. Most of the stories are presented by academic historians based at UK universities. I've recorded a few things for them myself, based on stories from my research about Victorian popular culture. There’s a wide variety of different historical periods and themes to enjoy though.

Episode one is titled ‘History Without Borders’ and examines a range of things - both people and animals! - that moved across international boundaries. I’ve got a story in this episode all about a charismatic performing cowboy named Mexican Joe, who took Liverpool by storm in 1887, around the same time that Buffalo Bill was doing the same in London. They only give me 300 words to play with for each story, so I’d be happy to talk more about this if anybody’s interested!

The first three episodes are online now. If you'd like to check them out, you can find them at all the usual podcast places, including:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/time-travellers/id1397898474?mt=2
BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p069vjyc

Is there any historical basis for Milan Kundera's account of the death of Stalin's son Yakov in The Unbearable Lightness of Being?

Quick summary about Yakov from the book:

... during the Second World War, Stalin’s son, captured by the Germans, is put in a camp together with some British officers and they all share a latrine. After the British officers tell Yakov several times to clean his latrine smeared with shit, he takes offence and asks to have the camp commander as an arbiter. But “the arrogant German” refuses to talk about “shit”. Not being able to stand the humiliation, Stalin’s son runs into the electrified barbed-wire fence that surrounded the camp and dies (The Unbearable Lightness 243).

From Parastoo Nasrollahzadeh thesis, "Exploring Kitsch: Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five"

I didn't see anything on wikipedia, but maybe I missed it.

Politico ran a big article about Civil Defense history and my work. Check it out if you are interested!

Summer has "officially" started for me (after two weeks of travel and workshops, etc.), and I've been dutifully working on finishing my (damned) book on the history of nuclear secrecy in the USA. Progress is going good; I can just about bang out an overly-long chapter a week (it is mostly editing of my dissertation, plus adding some new things, cutting some dumb things, and fixing the writing infelicities of myself-ten-years-ago). Almost done with chapter 4 (of 10 — just got through the creation of the "restricted data" legal concept in 1946), so I'm hoping to be basically done (minus some monumental footnote-fixing and gap-filling sessions) by early August. The book is way too long. But I'm not going to worry about that for now — my plan is to just get the words onto the page and then see what the press says (and probably paying a colleague to do an editing job on it).

I had a shower thought of sorts the other day about common /r/AskHistorians, and I was wondering, do you guys write RES macros to answer people? Most questions related to US history and World War 2 could be answered with some links to the wiki and previous answers.

If any of you use macros, I'd love to copy them! I guess I could help in my spare time when checking /r/AskHistorians/new :)

I'm currently reading the novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, and I think it will wind up being one of my favorite books. Has anyone else read it, and if so what do you think?

I have a question regarding NATO. Why did Turkey and Greece join 3 years later, in 1951? What was going on with these two countries, from the end of world war 2 and in the era of cold war.

Do question, what is the racial background for historians and is there any data that I can look at? Hopeful to be historian asking why so.