Most American academics start their careers re­searching something small and obscure, and ­then—­if they’re ­lucky—­work their way up to topics of larger import and scope. Only at the pinnacle of their profession are they permitted to muse on sweeping themes.

The midwife kept a record of a regular life filled with such “women’s work” as delivering babies, bartering goods, and doing laundry. But women who “made history” in the standard sense were different: To attain anything recognizable to historians as status or influence, women have had to “mis­behave.” And misbehavior brought danger and, frequently, oblivion. We remember only those who successfully “negotiated the boundary between invisibility and scandal.”

Well-­Behaved Women Seldom Make History

An interview with Drew Gilpin Faust, author of "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War."

There are a number of things that make Drew Gilpin Faust different from those who've come before her as head honcho of America's flagship university.

Faust is, for example, the only president of Harvard known to have produced an academic paper titled "Equine Relics of the Civil War," the research for which included attending a solemn burial ceremony for the cremated bones of Stonewall Jackson's horse.

She is, it seems almost certain, the only one among the anointed to talk about what inspires her by calling herself "an archive rat."

...

In the 21st century, we "shy away from death," she says, and we tend to think of a good death as a sudden one. Not so in the 19th century. Dying well meant having time to assess your spiritual state and say goodbye -- which is difficult to do if you're killed in battle.

What's more, there were so many dying: some 620,000 soldiers in four years. As a percentage of population, Faust says, that's "the equivalent of 6 million Americans today."

How could the culture not be changed?

... Her early work centered on the intellectual arguments of slavery's prewar defenders. She wanted to understand how whole classes of people can get caught up in a shared worldview, to the point that they simply can't see.

Challenging History

In the Great Depression, Roosevelt saw a third of a nation ill-housed. Here you are, in an alternate reality, in the Second Great Depression, ill-housed yourself.

Your favorite neighbors will hit the road in search of work or an upbeat sense of spiritual self-determinism. Pretty soon you'll pack up and leave too.

It is one thing for Cormac McCarthy to win a Pulitzer last year for a deeply depressing novel ("The Road") about nuclear winter. It's another thing entirely -- bad juju -- to envision or talk about the ruin of our economy.

Yet isn't that the point of fretting -- imagining the worst?

Even in the darkest times, 75 million Americans a week were finding a way to go to the movies. (A 15-cent movie ticket in 1933, adjusted for inflation, should cost only $2.40 now. Tell us again how everything's okay?)

"There's this hunger in this generation for discussing collective purpose," he says. "There's a spiritual hunger for something larger to be a part of. They remember 9/11 and being urged to continue shopping."

Wasn't It Great?

I first recommended this article last month when it was behind a paywall at NYRB. (I also mentioned a letter and a reply in the next issue.)

Dyson's review is now freely available through Powell's. An excerpt:

In my opinion, the moral imperative at the end of every war is reconciliation. Without reconciliation there can be no real peace. Reconciliation means amnesty. It is allowable to execute the worst war criminals, with or without a legal trial, provided that this is done quickly, while the passions of war are still raging. After the executions are done, there should be no more hunting for criminals and collaborators. In order to make a lasting peace, we must learn to live with our enemies and forgive their crimes. Amnesty means that we are all equal before the law. Amnesty is not easy and not fair, but it is a moral necessity, because the alternative is an unending cycle of hatred and revenge. South Africa has set us a good example, showing how it can be done.

In the end, I admire von Braun for using his God-given talents to achieve his visions, even when this required him to make a pact with the devil. He bent Hitler and Himmler to his purposes more than they bent him to theirs. And I admire the United States Army for giving him a second chance to pursue his dreams. In the end, the amnesty given to him by the United States did far more than a strict accounting of his misdeeds could have done to redeem his soul and to fulfill his destiny.

Freeman Dyson, on "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" by Michael J. Neufeld

The “Gospel Temperance Railroad Map” is an example of an allegorical map. It was published in 1908 by G. E. Bula and looks very much like the typical American railroad map of its day. It presents the traveler with three main lines diverging from Decisionville in the State of Accountability at the left-hand side of the map. The routes of the lower two lines, the Way That Seemeth Right Division and the Great Destruction Way Route, pass at first through towns representing relatively minor vices and self-deceptions of alcohol use, but lead inevitably to more serious “states” of Depravity, Intemperance, and Bondage. A River of Salvation offers hope for some, but those who stubbornly remain on the path of drink and debauchery end, without escape, in the City of Destruction. The upper line from Decisionville, the Great Celestial Route, is not without its trials, represented by such station stops as Bearingcross, Abandonment, and Long Suffering; but the final destination, The Celestial City, is clearly more desirable than its counterpart.

See also "Mapping", Episode 110 of This American Life:

Five ways of mapping the world. One story about people who make maps the traditional way—by drawing things we can see. And other stories about people who map the world using smell, sound, touch, and taste. The world redrawn by the five senses.

In particular, see Act One, with Denis Wood and his maps, like this one:

On Halloween 1982, I walked around the neighborhood and photographed all the jack-o'-lanterns. In most cases, the photograph is of the pumpkin on the porch at that location, but where my photographs didn’t turn out, we duplicated an image from another porch.

What is a Map?

The world alters as we walk in it, so that the years of a man's life measure not some small growth or rearrangement or moderation of what he learned in childhood, but a great upheaval.

-- Robert Oppenhemier

At each branching point the options are well defined, but the choice is arbitrary. So two systems that are wholly identical at the outset might end up on quite different branches while experiencing the same driving force, simply because they happened to take different paths at each junction. "Time forks perpetually towards innumerable futures," as Jorge Luis Borges says in his story "The Garden of Forking Paths."

The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. The area of impact and incision is numb. It is the entire system that is changed.

This needs to be seen.

Newly discovered snapshots donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos.

Read the accompanying article. You'll find more information about the exhibit at ushmm.org.

In the Shadow of Horror, SS guardians frolic

No, not this one. The one before that.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning book version was recommended here back in 2003.

Charlie Wilson, a Texas congressman known for his foreign exploits, love of beautiful women, fun-loving lifestyle and serious legislating, always seemed to be a creation of Hollywood.

Now, he is.

The former Democratic lawmaker, who retired in 1996, is the main character in "Charlie Wilson's War," a movie starring Oscar winners Tom Hanks as Wilson, Julia Roberts as a connected Houston socialite and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a shadowy CIA agent. The film, directed by Mike Nichols, is nearly wrapped up for release on Christmas Day.

"It's just unworldly," Wilson said of watching Hanks play him.

Here's the plot outline:

A drama based on a Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.

The film is directed by Mike Nichols, whose prior work includes "Closer" and "The Graduate".

America's Afghan Victory, Coming Soon to a Theater Near You