Mur – Mauer – Wall

Racontée et redite, l’histoire du Mur -celui de Berlin en particulier- invite à sélectionner les meilleures vues :

- Le reportage-dessins de Patrick Chappatte.
- Le livre-articles de Cees Nooteboom, Une année allemande : Chroniques berlinoises 1989-1990 publié en français chez Actes Sud (titre original : Berlijnse notities).
- Le dossier sur les murs dans Books(Mag) d’août dernier.
- Fragments de « 1989 » : Mémoire et conflits de mémoire dans la transition postcommuniste, par La Vie des Idées.
- Schlagwort “Berliner Mauer” in Der Zeit.
- Le webdocumentaire du Monde.

Etc. car la curiosité est assez passe-muraille.

Timed monography about the Internet

At last !

Thanks to the excellent EH.net portal (Economical History, it means), here is a review of a book about the history of the internet : Paul E. Ceruzzi, Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945 to 2005. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.

How is technology “rooted in place” ? How do “defense spending, land use policies, highway construction and suburbanization” intertwine ? Read further : “Ceruzzi does a remarkable job exploring the intersection between defense spending, land use policies, highway construction and suburbanization. He ends with a futuristic glance. Edge cities like Tysons Corner today are challenged by larger demographic trends, as transportation systems feel the strain. As people drive through Tysons Corner, they likely don’t see the enigmatic buildings around them, prompting questions about how technology is rooted in place — but only see the bumper in front of them. (…)“.

& :
- Innovation and the Growth of High Tech (another EH.net review) | Economic History resources (EH.net unfolded).
- Eco on WebOL.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Le lyrisme est une chose, la compréhension critique une autre en général.

- Les articles-recensions-discussions portant sur CLS, par La Vie des Idées : Lévi-Strauss en mode mineur, Les cosmogonies de Lévi-Strauss, etc.
- Le mythe CLS, par Book(mag) qui offre lui aussi une rafale d’articles, de discussions pour se rappeler que toutes les idées se discutent, se cisèlent et qu’aucune d’entre elles n’est au-delà du débat.
- Le dossier CLS de Sciences Humaines, intégralement -temporairement ?- disponible en ligne.

Etc.

Sharp words

The London Review of Books is now 30 years of age ; a good article in FT Week-end by John Sutherland tells the story of this marsupially child of the New York Review of Books.

Good reviewing, excellent writing, witty criticism are vital friends of sharp minds.

& :
- Books, which is very excellent in french as the title does not show. Les derniers nés peuvent être brillants ; à dévorer chaque mois pour les articles qui sont parfois des traductions d’articles des sources citées ici, ou des brèves particulièrement informées de la planète Livres.
- La Vie des Idées, one of the best in french only online. L’intelligence n’attend pas le nombre des années ; rien de littérature mais tout de l’esprit critique dans les sciences sociales.
- Esprit, the ancestor from France’s 1930s and still valid. L’âge n’entame pas l’intelligence, même si l’impression pointe parfois d’une quête éditoriale incertaine.
- Le Matricule des Anges, from France and for contemporary litterature only.
- Pierre Assouline, librairie aiguisée à lui seul.
- The New Yorker, high brow from 1925 onwards & Granta, resuscitated 30 years ago.
- Intelligent Life, if only for a short but very sharp article on Lydia Davis (@LitteraturOL).
- (…).

& :
- Pour le lectorat francophone, là où il est question de la vie des idées chez WebOL.

Codex Sinaiticus

Point d’emphase indue, le manuscrit ne présente rien moins que la plus ancienne version intégrale connue du Nouveau Testament. Cette bible incomplète, datant du IVe siècle conservée au Monastère Sainte Catherine dans le Sinaï au bénéfice d’un air si sec, fut numérisée puis mise en ligne, que voici avec toute la simplicité d’un clic.

Les participants du projet sont principalement  la British Library, la Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, le St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai et la National Library of Russia, St Petersburg aux côtés d’autres encore.

So what ?

“Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible’s original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

(…)“

Anthropo-lectures

La Vie des Idées est une bibliothèque foisonnante et hypnotisante, dans laquelle le rayon Anthropologie serait, ou sera, ou a commencé à être lu :

- Vers une anthropologie critique (Daniel Cefai).
- Essai contre le don (Pascal Sévérac).
- Ethnologie de la parenté (Nicolas Duvoux), entretien avec Florence Weber.

Et ce qui devrait être classé dans ce rayon-là, cet entretien-ci avec Irène Théry intitulé L’origine interdite : contre l’anonymat des dons d’engendrement ; une sorte de résumé de son remarquable article paru dans la livraison de mai 2009 de la revue Esprit consacrée à “La filiation saisie par la biomédecine“.

Etc. et bien d’autres choses.

Historical Darwin

Who Charles Darwin is : did he really invent the notion of evolution ? where did his influence come from ? what debates were ragging during the 19th century ?

To have a historical insight into it is the best way to understand Science-in-action, as Bruno Latour would say. Science is more than just scientists, whoever brilliant they may be.

Once again, the New York Review of Books publishes a remarkable and accessible article by Richard C. Lewontin.

Digital ethnography

Is this on the digital world, via the digital tools ?

Michael Wesch has released on YouTube An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, presented at the US Library of Congress (55 minutes, 23rd June 2008).

Previously, he also introduced his collective YouTube Ethnography Project on, yes, YouTube (2007). Many other video materials from him and his students are online : “My videos explore mediated culture, seeking to merge the ideas of Media Ecology and Cultural Anthropology. Currently we are analyzing anonymity and pseudonymity on YouTube, throughout the web, and in the “real world” throughout all times and all places“.

To know more about MW, browse his MediatedCultures site at Kansas State University (US).

& :
- IT @WorkOL.
- Thanks to Fabrice Forest from UmanLab for the tip.

Add-on : Doing Anthropology 8-minute-video-explained on MIT TechTV (courtesy of Céline Verchère from CEA/LID).

American History in Video

It seems to be a time limited offer, up to 30th April 2009. According to EH.net (Economic History Resources),

“American History in Video is live! This new online resource for teaching and research is growing to include thousands of of rare newsreels from 1929 through the 1960s, including the entire series of both Universal and United. You’ll also find the historic Longine Chronoscope broadcasts and hundreds of hours of documentaries from leading producers such as The History Channel.

It’s all in streaming video—just point your browser and click—with synchronized, scrolling transcripts alongside. Make custom clips, which will live at permanent URLs. Put your clips into playlists and share. And much more…“

What will happen thereafter ?

& :
- Europeana (@WebOL), the pan-european digital archive project.
- INA, the french Institut National de l’Audiovisuel.
- Economic History Resources (@WebOL), with some insights into EH.net.

Business Models + Ecosystems

Trendy terms, old issue : how doing Business interconnected with others ? As often, even the good works in management are short of history insights.

Nonetheless, The Keystone advantage (What the New Dynamics of Business Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability) is a rich account of extensive field inquiry by Harvard Business School researchers. The authors are Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien.

The presentation of this opus is online : “Fundamentally, [keystone organizations] aim to improve the overall health of their ecosystems by providing a stable and predictable set of common assets—think of Wal-Mart’s procurement system and Microsoft’s Windows operating system and tools—that other organizations use to build their own offerings. (…) [T]he first requirement usually involves the creation of a platform, an asset in the form of services, tools, or technologies that offers solutions to others in the ecosystem. (…) The second requirement for keystones’ success is that they share throughout the ecosystem much of the value they have created, balancing their generosity with the need to keep some of that value for themselves. (…)“.

& :
- HBS’s workshop called Working Knowledge which is “a forum for innovation in business practice, offering readers a first look at cutting-edge thinking and the opportunity to both influence and use these concepts before they enter mainstream management practice.“
- Business Ecosystems @Wikipedia.
- More to come on an innovative editorial endeavour by Alexander Osterwalder.
- More resources @WebOL/Eco.
- History, you mean ? To justify the “history tag” for this post, note that resources are available @HBS and @HBS-WK.