results for ‘google’

Prof. Glen LaFantasie teaches American history at Western Kentucky University. Glenn is a respected scholar known for his excellent work the fighting at Little Round Top and on Col. William C. Oates. Glenn has written a really interesting analysis of the phenomenon of secession–clearly illegal in 1860 and clearly illegal now–and how its threat is rearing its ugly head again now. With thanks to Jim Epperson for bringing it to my attention.

How the South rationalizes secession
150 years later, a campaign to deny that the South’s exodus from the union was a revolution is in full force
BY GLENN W. LAFANTASIE

Secession is making a comeback. Tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s secession from the

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Last week featured another of my infamous banzai runs. On Thursday night, I was scheduled to speak to the Hagerstown Civil War Roundtable, so I drove over that morning. Now, it’s about 350 miles from my house to the meeting place/hotel, so it took me about 5.75 hours to make the drive. I went straight to the Antietam National Battlefield, where I met up with fellow blogger and friend John Hoptak. This was my second visit to Antietam in two weeks. Along with three friends, I had spent a weekend stomping the battlefield with old friend Dr. Tom Clemens just ten days earlier.

John and I spent most of our time together hiking the portion of …

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One of the myths that J. D. Petruzzi and I tried to dispel in our book Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg is the criticism that Jeb Stuart failed to take steps to provide intelligence to Robert E. Lee during his ride to Gettysburg. That criticism is not well-founded, as Stuart did, indeed, forward significant intelligence to the Confederate authorities.

We know this because a June 27, 1863 dispatch from Stuart, reporting that the Army of the Potomac had moved north toward Leesburg and the Potomac River and had abandoned its base of operations at Fairfax Court House, was published in John Beauchamp Jones’ excellent 1866 book A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary. As …

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In response to yesterday’s post, my friend Bud Hall has weighed in on the loss of the southern end of Fleetwood Hill. This was originally a comment to the post, but it is important enough that I decided to feature it as a main post here.

Back in 1984, I was transferred to FBI Headquarters in Washington, and soon bought a home in Virginia. Growing up in Mississippi on a cotton farm–and descended from a 13th Mississippi infantryman–I of course retained in my genes a compelling interest in the Civil War.

My very first weekend trips took me (and my maps) to Brandy Station. Map and primary source analysis, as well as discussions with land owners, convinced me that

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I first met Dr. Clark Donlin at a Civil War cavalry conference convened in Winchester, VA in 1996. Pretty much anybody who was a cav guy was there, and Clark was no exception. At the time, I had no idea who Henry Sawyer was, but Clark knew everything there was to know about Henry Sawyer. He told me that he portrayed Sawyer, and also told me that he was hoping to write a book on Sawyer.

Clark and I were in infrequent contact. He would call me once or twice a year to ask me a question, or run something by me, or look for advice, and we would e-mail. He was always very pleasant to talk to, and I …

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Last week, Amazon released its Kindle 2 wireless reading device. The concept works like this: the device, which is 1/3 of an inch thick, is like a big IPod, only for books. The idea is that you download digital files of books onto the thing, and you then take it with you and not large, bulky books. According to Amazon, the Kindle can hold 1500 books on the device.

I have really mixed feelings about this. David Woodbury is excited about it because of its convenience and because it’s a nifty gadget perfect for travel. Rene Tyree bought one and really likes it. She also points out that there are a number of public domain books available for free or …

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Kevin Levin has a really good post on his blog today that I commend to you. Be sure to read the comments, as they are critical to understanding Kevin’s point.

Kevin’s had one particular anti-Semitic neo-Confederate nut job–my first nominee for 2009’s grand champion, by the way–who calls herself “JosephineSouthern”, and who cannot resist any opportunity to (a) be insulting and condescending, (b) loudly bang the neo-Confederate drum, and (c) ignore Kevin’s rules for civility as a condition to being permitted to leave comments on his blog. Given that the primary focus of Kevin’s blog is Civil War Memory, his blog is a prime focus for all of these neo-Confederate jerks who so seem to enjoy tormenting him.

It’s a …

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According to this article on CNet News, Microsoft is pulling the plug on its book scanning project, essentially leaving it to Google.

404 for Microsoft’s latest decision
Posted by Charles Cooper
In the middle of a gritty search war, did Steve Ballmer just commit the mother of all mistakes?

I’ve been wondering about that ever since Microsoft said it would close its Search Books and Live Search Academic projects, thus ceding the field of book digitization to Google. (While both Live Search Books and Live Search Academic are going dark, both Google’s Book Search and Google Scholar continue to operate.)

Satya Nadella, who runs Microsoft’s Search, Portal and Advertising Platform Group wrote in a blog post that “given the

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Time for a rant. It’s been a while since the last one.

Google Book Search can be an extremely valuable resource. However, its usefulness can be severely limited by a practice that I REALLY don’t understand. More on that in a moment.

I remain as vehemently opposed to the concept of Google scanning works that are still covered by copyright as I have ever been. The flagrant disregard of intellectual property rights offends me deeply, and I will never support that aspect of the Google problem.

At the same time, the database of public domain materials is tremendously useful. I’ve made very extensive use of it, and I appreciate it. However, there is an aspect of the program that I …

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The Process of Researching Your Book Will Cost Much More Than You Expect, So Plan Accordingly. In this, the final post of the series, I will address something that J. D. suggested in a comment to the last post. I actually had planned on ending the series with this particular subject, so J.D. beat me to the punch. Ah, well.

J.D. is absolutely correct about the costs associated with researching and writing one of these books. Let me very blunt about this. I’m self-employed. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. It’s really as simple as that. Folks pay me in excess of $200 for my time, so it has to be worth my while to pry myself out …

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