From Associated Content:

A series of Islamic cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad have been declined for publication by Yale University Press. The Ivy League school initially planned to include them in a book about how the cartoons incited violence from Muslim fanatics against the original publishers of the cartoons, which included one in a Danish newspaper four years ago.

Yale intended for the book and the inclusion of the cartoons to stimulate intellectual debate on why Muslims would be outraged by the depictions of their prophet. In Sunni Islam, orthodox sharia forbids the portrayal of Muhammad or other human or animal figures, while Shi’ite Islam allows the depiction of humans. There are several Persian paintings that exist that in

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in case any of my readers are in the Cleveland area and have an interest, I am speaking to the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable on Wednesday evening. The Cleveland CWRT meets at a place called Judson Manor, which is located near the Cleveland Clinic at the corner of East 107th Avenue and Chester Avenue. The social hour and meal begin at 6:00, and I believe that I go on at 7:00. Advance reservations are required, so please be sure to make a reservation if you intend to come hear my talk, which will be based on my book Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg.

If any readers make it to the talk, please …

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From CNET on September 2:

Amazon came out swinging Tuesday against Google’s proposed settlement with book authors and publishers.

Amazon’s opposition was made public last week when it joined the Open Book Alliance, but the company filed its own brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Tuesday arguing against making the proposed settlement final. In its filing (click for PDF), Amazon notes that it has also scanned books, but has not taken the controversial step that Google took in scanning out-of-print but copyright-protected books without explicit permission.

Way back in 2004, when Google began scanning books from libraries, it believed it had the right to scan the entire text of a copyright-protected book under

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Recently, the newsletter of the Old Baldy Civil War Roundtable of Philadelphia published the results of an update poll as to the 50 greatest books on the Civil War of all time, and J.D.’s and my book Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg made the list! We’re in some very elite company, and it is both humbling and flattering to make a list like that. I’m also pleased to see Jim Morgan’s A Little Short of Boats: The Fights at Ball’s Bluff and Edwards Ferry make the list; we published that book at Ironclad, and I was the one who persuaded Jim to write it. Given that thousands of books have been published on …

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The first Battle of Middleburg occurred late in the day on June 17, 1863. Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, the acting commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps, was known to be a terrible xenophobe. He felt that foreigners had no place in the American Civil War, and he didn’t trust any of them. Once he took command of the Cavalry Corps, he took steps to purge his command of all foreign-born officers. One of his prime targets was Col. Alfred N. Duffie of the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry.

Duffie, a Frenchman of questionable military lineage, had briefly commanded a division before a reorganization and poor performance caused him to be demoted to regimental command. Pleasonton sent Duffie’s regiment, …

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Today, the CWPT issued the following press release, announcing yet another preservation victory:

Dear Friend,

Just as I was able to write to you recently about our triumph in saving 643 acres at Davis Bridge, Tennessee, I now have the privilege to let you know that CWPT has successfully raised our portion of the matching grant to help save 178 absolutely key acres at Port Republic, Virginia!

Partnering with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation (SVBF), we are helping to buy the development rights and preserve forever 178 acres at Stonewall Jackson’s final battle of the 1862 Valley Campaign.

Of the total $420,000 cost, the SVBF is putting in $140,000 of the price, the Commonwealth of Virginia is putting in $140,000,

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Yesterday, reader Phil LeDuc left me the following comment on my post about our ongoing library project:

The space-for-books problem is kind of like taxes (and death I guess), isn’t it? You can defer it for a while, but inexorably it gets you in the end. I’ve got the same situation.

On a related note Eric, have you catalogued your collection at all? Whether manually or using a software program or similar means?

It’s something I think I need to do for insurance and other purposes, and I’d be interested to hear from you and your readers on this subject. I’d like to find something that’s user-friendly and can produce reports that can be sorted by subject or title or

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From today’s edition of the on-line version of the Culpeper Star-Exponent newspaper:

Watching history march by

JEFF SAY, JSAY@STAREXPONENT.COM , (540) 825-0771 EXT. 115
Published: August 31, 2009

BRANDY STATION
Behind a winding country road sits a historic house.Many would never give the little sign off Carrico’s Mills Road a second glance, and that would be a mistake. Because if you follow that road far enough, you will find a home that witnessed thousands of Union and Confederate troops marching along its property.

Very few members of the public have had an opportunity to tour Berry Hill Farm, which sits close to Stoney Ford, on Mountain Run, one of the most heavily traversed fords in the county.

Thanks to the

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I spent a big chunk of this afternoon working on the library project. Here’s what’s gone on so far….

All of the fiction books were moved out of the main library and were relocated to a bookcase in our living room. It’s true. W.E.B. Griffin has been banished. The baseball books were also moved to the same bookcase. That opened up a 7 foot tall x 3 foot wide bookcase that had been completely full with fiction books.

I moved two bookcases that had been in my office home and put them in front of the closet in the library (the closet really doesn’t get used for much of anything, so it’s not a big loss), and moved all of …

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Not far from our house is one of my favorite destinations–a Half Price Books store. One never knows what one will find there, and sometimes, you can get some really excellent buys there. I’ve seen a few of my books there in the past, typically when they’ve been remaindered by my publishers. That never excites me, but I understand the business of bookselling, and I understand that publishers will remainder my books whether I want them to or not.

Today, though, was a first for me.

I wandered over by where they keep the valuable books–often rare, or antique books, that they keep under lock and key–and was stunned to find one of my books in that case, locked up, …

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