Welcome to The Midnight Bell (a virtual pub and general discussion thread) (2025)

[Sam]

In an earlier post, I recommended a book from the Oxford Very Short Introduction series. I had only just read my first of these on Descartes and thought it a fairly good background supplement to the author's writing. Have any of you had any experiences with these books. I picked up a few more to check out as either refreshers, supplements or in the case of subjects that I am familiar, vehicles to criticize. These types of surveys are sometimes dismissed by professionals for what they lack, but not all of us have the time to absorb all the material need to either keep up with or add to the education we already have. So I am looking forward to reading more of the series and will pass my own judgements.

[Hester]

I'd be up for a group read of A Very Short Introduction .....would love to understand the historiography of American history .

i saw Jill Lapore /These Truths in a second hand book shop this week and was tempted . Any thoughts ?

[G]

Hester wrote: "I'd be up for a group read of A Very Short Introduction .....would love to understand the historiography of American history .

i saw Jill Lapore /These Truths in a second hand book shop this week..."

I've seen some of her work, and can endorse her as a sound historian. I don't know this book, but have the impression it's more of a political history. It's just a question of which aspects of history you want to delve into. A good survey is going to touch on many aspects, but to be manageable it's going to approach the period it's covering through the lens of one or two.

[G]

I love the Oxford very short introductions. I have yet to read one that isn't good, and they've given me a way into several topics that I needed an introduction to (or an updating of). So much has changed in how historians think about their field since 1980, when I had my last survey course in US history.

I'd be up for a group discussion of American History: A Very Short Introduction

[Roman Clodia]

Ben wrote: "That's a great idea. Sam. A group read of an American history text in which we can all contribute our own history of studying the history."

That is indeed a marvellous idea, Sam. Let's do it! I'll set up a thread called American History and we can start with the Very Short Introduction and then go from there.

I've looked at the preview of the Zinn and like it a lot so I'll read that but there's no problem if others choose a different history - or just join the chat.

I've also seen the Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States which looks tempting but might be in the Zinn school, though is more up to date - one for the back burner for me. As a politics junkie, I have no problem if it's political history but want a foundation history first.

On Zinn's interpretative framework, he's upfront about his socialist politics so that's fine. Leftist Americans used to be seen as centrist, even right-leaning, in Europe but sadly we're aligning more closely over the last decade or so as the Overton window has shifted decisively rightwards.

On the Very Short Introductions, I love the series. Most of them are very good at giving not just an overview of their topic but also a snapshot of where the scholarly field is at the time of writing and the issues, problems and debates that are occupying the academe.

However, one that I disliked is Stanley Wells on William Shakespeare: my review explaining why is here if anyone is interested:

www.goodreads.com/review/show/1679763554

[Roman Clodia]

Ok, the American History thread is here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I haven't been prescriptive about books or dates, as you'll see.

[Jan C]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm wondering if anyone can suggest a good history of America to me? Preferably 'popular' rather than academic, and not a brick so under c.500 pages.

I guess I'm particularly interested in the Re..."

I liked Samuel Eliot Morison's The Oxford History of the American People 1. It is a big book but very readable. I first heard of it when my sister took it to the beach. Yes, beach reading! A little hefty for that.

[Jan C]

G wrote: "I love the Oxford very short introductions. I have yet to read one that isn't good, and they've given me a way into several topics that I needed an introduction to (or an updating of). So much has ..."

All in 184 pages??

[Susan]

I logged into Goodreads yesterday and a book I had never looked at was in my Currently Reading list? I've removed it, but interested to know whether this has happened to anyone else? Is it just another Goodreads oddity?

[Nigeyb]

It's never happened to me

[Sonia]

Susan wrote: "I logged into Goodreads yesterday and a book I had never looked at was in my Currently Reading list? I've removed it, but interested to know whether this has happened to anyone else? Is it just ano..."

It did happen to me once. I just assumed I had left my tablet open, and on moving it had randomly clicked on something. But maybe not ...

[Susan]

This book was something I'd never click on. I mean, it could have been someone else was reading it, but it takes more than one click to say you are currently reading it? It just seemed very odd!

[Susan]

Nothing to do with books but just wanted to share my daughter passed her A Levels and got into her first choice University!

[Hester]

great news Susan . Congratulations to her !

[G]

That’s marvellous, Susan. Congrats to her (and you)!!

[Susan]

Thank you - very relieved this morning...

[Roman Clodia]

Well done to your daughter - and you! What will she be studying?

[Susan]

Need you ask, RC? English of course!

[Roman Clodia]

Hurrah! Can I ask where, though don't worry if you're not comfortable sharing - just in case some of my friends teach there.

[Nigeyb]

🫶🏻

[Susan]

Thanks. She is going to City and my son is doing his postgrad at UCL. The useful thing about City is it is extremely easy to get to and she can continue working part-time at my college, where she recently (this summer) started working.

[Roman Clodia]

Fantastic!

[Susan]

Thank you, RC. Another hurdle jumped!

[Blaine]

Great news, Susan. Congratulations to you both.

[Susan]

Thank you, Ben. Not only that, but NetGalley just gifted me Mick Herron's new book early! Days like this don't happen often...

[Roman Clodia]

Haha, this is a great day indeed! (Now just crossing my fingers for Clown Town too)

[Roman Clodia]

Yes, yes, YES! I've just been approved for Clown Town too - perfect timing as my holiday starts tomorrow... well, NOW.

[Susan]

Hurrah!!!!

[Sonia]

Congratulations Susan and your daughter. Relief all round I am sure. Exciting times.

[Sam]

I'm happy for you Susan, Always good to hear of good things from the kids

[Susan]

Thanks, all! Really appreciate your kind thoughts.

[G]

I thought this was interesting. I haven't given a lot of thought to his central claim. Perhaps some of you all have done. I do recall my parents' complete inability to grasp that being born into a world that had the literal capacity to destroy itself in a single act, together with a willingness to use such weapons, made for a fundamentally different experience of being alive than they had enjoyed in their youth. (My mother exemplified the difference, though, in maintaining to her death that such weapons were necessary and their use sometimes justified.)

https://lithub.com/hiroshima-at-eight...

[Alwynne]

G wrote: "I thought this was interesting. I haven't given a lot of thought to his central claim. Perhaps some of you all have done. I do recall my parents' complete inability to grasp that being born into a ..."

That's really interesting thanks G. Haven't had time to fully absorb it but seems a bit hyperbolic/sweeping.

I had very different experiences from yours. Most of my close friends' parents and some grandparents had been active in organisations like CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - so grew up very much aware of the devastating potential of nuclear weaponry. Went to a school that drew from a very lefty, Guardian-reading area.

It's troubling that there's never been an official apology for Hiroshima or Nagasaki or what happened afterwards. I hadn't realised until I read Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War that the American occupiers initially opted not to tell Japanese medical services what the nature of the bomb really was or what it had done to the people they were desperately trying to treat/save. Although it wasn't until I read Shizuko Go's intensely powerful Requiem that I realised the extent of the firebombing, use of Napalm, on Japanese civilian populations in the lead-up to dropping nuclear bombs.

[Jan C]

We read John Hersey's Hiroshima in high school, 20 years after the event. Somewhere I have Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6-September 30, 1945 by Michihiko Hachiya.

Do people apologize for acts of war? I believe that Japan did eventually apologize for the sneakiness of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't think it is actually for the attack but for the lack of the announcement which we were supposed to receive, save for the lack of ability to type on the part of the Japanese ambassador. The Japanese received several warnings about the bomb. They were never going to surrender. Then the first bomb fell and they didn't think we had more than one of them. We had two.

Without the bombs there is no telling how long the war would have lasted. They were never going to surrender. They were trying to negotiate keeping Hirohito in charge. How many thousands more would have died? On both sides?

We had to see just how terrible war is and how terrible the bomb was. In order for no one to ever use it again.

[Hester]

Worth listening to this podcast , not just for the final episode , which explores the final days of the war in the Far East , but also for the nuanced and complicated insights from both sides in Burma and Singapore . The war in the Far East didn't have the simplistic moral arc that has made the war in the West an easier story to tell. Quite a lot of the first person accounts have never been broadcast and include voices from the five million British Empire combatants from Africa and India as well as a letter from a Kamakasi pilot the day before his mission .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00...

[Roman Clodia]

Alwynne wrote: "That's really interesting thanks G. Haven't had time to fully absorb it but seems a bit hyperbolic/sweeping"

That was my response too. Like Alwynne, I grew up with CND politics. All the while I was reading this article, I was thinking that the Holocaust was a bigger milestone in the history of humanity - though I don't want to think about one of them as less worse in a comparative way. So I was glad that did get a mention in the article.

One of the differences is the malign intention behind Nazi genocide and the systematic and deliberate eradication not just of people but of the empathy and humanity of the perpetrators.

I tend to have a lot of sympathy for the theorisation of postmodernism as a response to this moral abyss: we saw what we as a species are capable of and it ended any kind of Enlightenment progressive narrative. The artistic response has been - and this is also a sweeping statement - an interest in instability, in a distrust in authority (in an artistic/literary sense), in fragmentation, parody, and play.

So I'm not dismissing this article and would agree with a lot of the thinking but it seems oddly belated to me at the same time.

[Roman Clodia]

Jan C wrote: "We had to see just how terrible war is and how terrible the bomb was. In order for no one to ever use it again"

I'd really like to think that but that's a rational position and given the current leaders of nuclear-armed states, their psychopathy, their willy-waving, and their belief in 'tactical' i.e. localized use of nuclear weapons and first-strike advantage, it's hard to maintain this. I could imagine some of them thinking that if they have to end, they'll take the world with them.

[Jan C]

We'll have to hope (and possibly pray) that wiser head s (from somewhere) will prevail.

[Alwynne]

Just to say we've talked a lot about what's happening in the US with people being taken from their homes or detained on the streets. It's probably worth highlighting that similar things are happening here too:

https://novaramedia.com/2025/08/25/i-...

[Jan C]

Recently read that they made firefighters stop fighting a massive fire in the Pacific Northwest for 3 hours. Native Americans were volunteering to help fight the fire. They took 2 of them - probably because they were filming them.

[Alwynne]

Charlie Kirk came up in connection to a discussion on universities, canonical texts and teaching frameworks. And Sam responded and posted a reminder that for some posters - if identifiable that in the US comments perceived as negative have led to firings etc

Sam mentioned the overwhelming coverage of Kirk's murder in the US.

"Thanks Sam, that's worth raising. It's similar here. The Sikh community is well established and it's very unusual for it to be targeted by the far right. But last week a young Sikh woman was raped and brutalised by two white men who told her to 'go back to her country' and that she didn't belong here. That would be horrific at any time but it also happened in the lead-up to a massive far right march claiming to be about protecting girls and women from violent migrant men. And yet our news cycle, my social media feeds, all completely saturated with articles about, praise for Charlie Kirk. And yet when the Democrat couple the Hortmans - and their dog - were murdered it hardly warranted a mention. However, the wording of so many of the posts I read was so similar, it felt quite obviously manipulated/orchestrated."

[Roman Clodia]

Well said, that rape of the Sikh woman was horrific.

[Sam]

Thanks for moving this Alwynne. For the moment, I will reserve most thoughts regarding regarding the media coverage and social media response, but I would point out the real media coverage has been very high. On the same day Planes shot down Russian drones, Israel struck Hamas in Qatar, and these stories got far less coverage. For mass communications followers the coverage is interesting and would be worth measuring the amount of on air or print coverage over time this story generates. I'd also be curious of how many people knew of Kirk and to what degree in U.S. or elsewhere since he wasn't as publicized as others.

And yes the connection and coordination of response on other events is worth noting.

[Sam]

On another topic, I had planned on making a comment comparing Arendt's using coverage of significant world events as a vehicle for critically commenting on "the human condition,," drew her own personal criticism, attacks, and censure from authorities seeming IMO to be agenda driven. It fits better here.

[G]

Sam wrote: "Thanks for moving this Alwynne. For the moment, I will reserve most thoughts regarding regarding the media coverage and social media response, but I would point out the real media coverage has been..."

The question of how many people here in teh US knew of Kirk is interesting. I first heard of him a few months ago from a person I follow on Substack, a former CIA analyst with a PhD in American history, who focuses on white Christian nationalism. I've spoken with several people this week who also had very little sense of who Kirk was. The coverage is deplorable for making him sound like a reasonable person who encouraged the kind of public debate about issues that is vital to a healthy democracy. And he's been turned into a Christian martyr even by some of my friends who live in the evangelical-adjacent church space I grew up in. This all suggests to me that those without prior knowledge of who he really was are unlikely to form an accurate picture now.

[Alwynne]

G wrote: "Sam wrote: "Thanks for moving this Alwynne. For the moment, I will reserve most thoughts regarding regarding the media coverage and social media response, but I would point out the real media cover..."

I'd come across him because of the recent Cambridge debate, the students managing to undermine his arguments went viral. I also knew that influencers like Fuentes considered him too lightweight, too moderate - apparently because he was prepared to engage with the 'enemy'.

[G]

Alwynne wrote: "G wrote: "Sam wrote: "Thanks for moving this Alwynne. For the moment, I will reserve most thoughts regarding regarding the media coverage and social media response, but I would point out the real m..."

I was aware of his "professors watchlist" and the resulting attacks on professors here without ever remembering the name of the originator.

[Alwynne]

G wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "G wrote: "Sam wrote: "Thanks for moving this Alwynne. For the moment, I will reserve most thoughts regarding regarding the media coverage and social media response, but I would poin..."

I obviously don't condone murder. But not sure why this one, which seems to fit with multiple instances of American shootings involving lone gunmen, has gotten so much traction. Other than because of the connection to Trump and because it's politically expedient. Images of him were very prominent in yesterday's far-right march which was billed as linked to anti-migrant concerns but shifted to discussions of re-migration. And had an address from Musk via videolink.

During the Cambridge debate Kirk talks about his close friendship with Trump and how much he believes Trump's achieved globally. I can't say he made a very positive impression, I got the sense he would not have been a safe man to cross.

I was fascinated to see that he drew on the Apocrypha to support some of his arguments though. Is that common in American conservative Christian circles? It would be highly unusual in most Christian circles here.

The debate is on YouTube btw, just look for Cambridge Union, Charlie Kirk debate.

[Alwynne]

I also read that the markings on the bullets have likely been misinterpreted as many are connected to videogames where they have very specific meanings - the shooter was apparently heavily into gaming. A bit like that huge furore over the Britney Spears's song where she asks her boyfriend to 'hit' her one more time which people not in the know interpreted as physical violence but just meant hit me up with a text/call.

[Alwynne]

G wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "G wrote: "Sam wrote: "Thanks for moving this Alwynne. For the moment, I will reserve most thoughts regarding regarding the media coverage and social media response, but I would poin..."

The impression being given here was that he was very prominent. Mostly because he's been credited with gaining the youth vote for Trump via Turning Point USA groups.