perfidy

Awwww yeah! Via Instapundit comes this observation from Rick Klau that Bernard Bailyn has commented about weblogs, in a sense:

"The weblog is a one-man show. One has complete freedom of expression, including, if one chooses, the freedom to be scurrilous, abusive, and seditious; or, on the other hand, to be more detailed, serious and 'high-brow' than is ever possible in a newspaper or in most kinds of periodicals. At the same time, since the weblog is always short, it can be produced much more quickly than a book, and in principle, at any rate, can reach a bigger public. Above all, the weblog does not have to follow any prescribed pattern. ... All that is required of it is that it shall be topical, polemical, and short." 

Of course, this isn't really about weblogs. Take the same quote - verbatim - and swap out "pamphlets" for "weblogs". The author is Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn, writing about the "literature of revolution" in his Pulitzer prize winning book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. It's on page two.

I haven't read that book in years, or any of his books for that matter. Although reading Bailyn is like downloading smartness directly into your forebrain, grad school got me in the habit of reading later commentaries on his work instead. It's not possible to breeze through Bailyn. 

Everyone should read this book though, then some Hofstadter. Does a body good!