Here's a bit of shameless self-promotion: I'm giving a free, virtual public talk for the Centre for Scottish Studies at noon ET on Tuesday, 23 February. My talk explores the political career of Elizabeth Stewart, countess of Arran (yes, we can talk about women in the sixteenth century having political careers!) and the way that negative tropes about female ambition have impacted perceptions of powerful women for centuries. Lady Arran is a fascinating figure; while she the most hated woman at the court of James VI, she was also powerful enough that the usual kinds of direct attacks used against other women could not be used against her, and, some literary scholars have argued that she is Shakespeare's inspiration for his characterization of Lady Macbeth.

The talk will be 40 minutes with some time for Q&A and will be hosted via Zoom webinar. If any of this sounds like it would be interesting, do consider signing up! To register for your free ticket, just visit the Centre's Eventbrite page here.

I've been working my way through the letters of H. P. Lovecraft in chronological order, and just hit 1933. This was a big year for my area of interest, because Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany - while there are a couple of mentions in Lovecraft's correspondence about the 1932 election, 1933 is when Lovecraft & co. really start talking about Hitler and the Nazis to any extent.

If you had to sum up Lovecraft's thoughts on Hitler & the Nazis in one word, it would be "disbelief." Not that Hitler would come to power, or believed what he did, but he genuinely thought that the extremes of Hitler's behavior would be moderated by other forces in German politics. That as bad as Hitler seemed - and Lovecraft thought he was buffoonish, enjoyed making fun of his mustache, and declaimed the Nazis ignorant - that there was no way they could be as bad as the press portrayed him. Lovecraft blamed the Jewish press (yes, Lovecraft was antisemitic), he insisted that there had to be a middle ground that represented the reality...kind of the classic fallacy of the centrist.

And, as weird as it sounds, he tried to see the good in the Nazis. That sounds really bad to us today, but take it in context: the Holocaust hadn't begun yet. Antisemitism in Europe and the United States was rampant. Mein Kampf wasn't available in English until October 1933, and that in an abridged edition (although excerpts ran in the newspapers). Lovecraft saw the sole benefit of the Nazi party was its ultranationalism, which aligned with his own fiercely nationalistic politics and prejudices...and even Lovecraft would change his opinion as Hitler put his policies into practice.

It's not pleasant reading, especially knowing what's to come. But of course Lovecraft didn't know that.

I'm on two committees for completing PhD candidates this year, one as co-chair. This week, amidst the hellscape that is the job market, both got news of offers for tenure-track jobs. They worked themselves to the bone to get here, and are both possessed of incredible initiative, but amidst this worst lottery it's a great outcome. I'm honored to be associated with both.

Content warning: terrible humor.

The opening of the Moscow Metro in 1935 was accompanied by great fanfare and triumphalism in the USSR — but what about in the United States?

Well, it's not as though nobody cared in the US — newspapers had been following the stories of foreign consultants on the Metro since the late 1920s, before the project was even officially proposed in the Central Committee, and paying attention to the role of women, particularly American tourist women, in construction. (Yes, some American tourists helped build the Moscow Metro, believe it or not, basically for a laugh.)

But, at least in the Boston Globe, the opening of the Metro was met with absolute groaners. I mean, maybe these were knee-slappers in 1935, but... well, I doubt it.

Russia has a subway. This should definitely dispose of the theory that under the Soviet Government the Russians have found peace and comfort.

The Soviet experiment may now be summed up in seven words: From serfdom to straphanging in 17 years.

Stalin's regime has been a success. He found the people fighting for existence on the farms, and he has put them to fighting for seats in a subway.

The first underground transit system has been finished in Moscow. It was opened for inspection the other day, free rides being given so everybody could get some preliminary training for the ordeal to come.

Stalin took a ride in it. P. S.—He got a seat!

He declares it the most beautiful subway in the world, and invites comparisons. In no other subway can you be trampled on amid more artistic surroundings.

In digging the subway everybody in Moscow was asked to take a hand. Every able man and woman in the city took a shovel and did a little digging at one time or another. Stalin is a smart ruler. If the people don't like the subway they will have themselves to blame.

The enthusiasm with which the people gave a hand in building the line was amazing. It goes to show the determination of a free people to enjoy the privileges of standing up while taking a ride.

It will be formally opened soon and we a await a movietone record of the first attempt of an Omsk peasant to get directions from a Moscow subway guard.

No rules of Russian subway etiquette have as yet been announced, but no placards will be necessary to notify a capitalist that he will be expected to get up and give the proletariat a seat.

I always thought you were supposed to save the best joke for last, but what do I know.

It also really confuses me to think that this was being published at the same time as the Marx Brothers were making A Night at the Opera. Just goes to show you, history is truly a process of trying to unite completely contradictory facts into a single narrative. Here, though, I'm at a loss. There is absolutely no logical explanation for the contrast. History, as a discipline, is finished. We can't come back from this one.

Phillips, H. I. "The Once Over: Moscow Gets a Subway," in The Boston Globe, April 30, 1935, p. 18.

I just wanted to note that three great crusades historians have passed away recently - Ronnie Ellenblum, Giles Constable, and Jean Richard.

Ellenblum died on January 7, I'm not sure if a cause of death is known yet but he was only 68. He's best known, at least to me, for his work on settlement and population in the crusader states. I have a well-worn copy of his book "Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem". He also worked on crusader castle-building.

Constable died on January 17, age 91. I think he's probably best known for his work on religious history in the central Middle Ages, writing about Cluny abbey and figures like Peter the Venerable; he also worked on the crusades sometimes ("Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century" among other things).

Jean Richard died this week on January 25, just a couple of weeks away from his 100th birthday. He was an extremely prolific author in English and French. He focused on medieval Burgundy but also wrote a general history of the crusades, and his work on the crusader County of Tripoli and diplomatic missions to the Mongols is still important.

This week, I found out out that I got accepted to two conferences: Business History Conference and Fighting Scarcity and Creating Abundance: The Politics of Food and Water in Canadian History and Beyond. There will be no dinosaurs in either presentation. Sorry.

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