History Blog Award Nominations #4

today’s fortune. Originally uploaded by lil aNNa.

Best individual blog is an impossible category to judge. One of the strengths of the history community on the web is the sheer diversity of it. How do you compare Copernicus Sashimi with Blog Them Out Of The Stone Age or (a)musings of a Grad Student? Here’s how I’d try. First the Individual Blog of the Year should be a fairly frequently updated blog. Daily updates are over-rated, but you’d want something every week. This is perhaps a little arbitrary, but cuts down the number of blogs you’re looking at.

You’d need to do this as any definition of “history blog” is going to be broad. Lots of bloggers touch on historical topics and lots of historical bloggers venture into other areas. I think to be a history blogger who didn’t look around at other topics would reveal a rather worrying case of tunnel vision. In fact the more I think about what would make a history blog, the more clear it becomes that I really don’t understand them.

For instance do you want a blog to compile the best of the web so you don’t have to? Rogue Classicism would be a good choice. You can hear the howls of anguish when David Meadows takes a break. If were a classic department web thing then, when he had blog trouble earlier this year, I’d have been trying to subtly offer him web space and software on my university department’s server.

The Trireme Veterans for Truth have argued that there’s a real lack of commentary in archaeological blogging, which suggests that people do want to hear commentary. I like Rebecca Blood’s position that in selecting what to put up you are making commentary, but I can see that it’s a very limited form of commentary.

To my amazement I like Early Modern Notes. I’m never going to get an ‘A’ for diplomacy, so I should explain. Between school and television I’ve been fairly well convinced that modern history is as dull as ditchwater. A student in one of my seminar groups is doing ancient history as, after six years of history in British schools, he want to do something that isn’t Hitler. Being slightly older I had history as far back as Victoria drilled into me. This has left me with huge prejudice against the early modern period. Sharon Howard demonstrates that this is wrong. What I should have developed is a prejudice against dull history regardless of the period. There’s usually something fascinating to be found there and if I were running a book I’d make EMN the favourite. The combination of intelligent comment, news and sheer exuberant activity mean there’s something for most people there. I won’t nominate it though as everyone else is.

The big thing shared by both EMN and Rogue Classicism is that they both cover large tranches of history, which makes them relevant to many people. Does this mean that a specialised blog of high quality is going to get overlooked? Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean and Towards and Archaeology of Iconoclasm but come to mind as blog with narrow foci, but covering their subjects really well. I suppose this raises the question what are the awards for?

If I were running a book on Betfair, Early Modern Notes would be favourite, but if the judges want to take the opportunity to highlight something that has been overlooked by casual browsers then there’s a lot of other very good blogs to choose from. If EMN wins it will be a worthy winner against a lot of tough opposition. —–