Rob MacDougall

"It takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we do not say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say."

@LurkerReloaded @antichrist Yes

@antichrist @robotnik yo this real?

Those of us with the luxury of academic tenure, I believe, are the luckiest of all because all we have to do to be aligned with radical change is to talk about it every day. And yet even we often don’t, prevented by our own fear or ignorance.

@cwilliamg Welcome to the History department. Thrilled to have you join us.

@ScottMacShack @Quaker

(source: Joel Meyerowitz, St. Louis, Missouri, 1978 via twitter.com/shannonmattern…)

@ultra_lilac @MutantsMichael vivid memory of my wife Lisa, a grown adult woman with multiple advanced degrees, arguing the merits of Paddington 2, in part because Paddington 1 was, and I quote, "so meticulous in its world-building"

@MutantsMichael IT’S A GOOD FILM, MICHAEL.

@alanmaceachern definitive is the new secret/untold

All I want for Christmas is the self-confidence of an author who publishes a "definitive history."

This one was fun to do.

@TristanPEJ Wasn't there a movie about a Russian or (East) German family who contrived to keep their frail grandmother from knowing about the collapse of communism?

1984, but its just with parents

@icpetrie my brother got married on my 40th birthday does that count?

@Beth_macshack Thanks, Beth. I actually feel 💯 the same way but needed to feign otherwise to make the sentence work (I'm always happy to dust off my 2 hour lecture on whether or not whales are fish!)

So here's my essay/review of @jeremyzallen's fine book AMERICAN LUCIFERS, a powerful, often gruesome history of light and capitalism before electricity: muse.jhu.edu/article/775834

@ShiraLurie aw, you know just what to say

@robotnik Honestly kind of annoyed at how good this review is.

Thank you to @robotnik for this incredibly thoughtful and generous review in Reviews in American History. He beautifully places American Lucifers in historiographical context in ways I didn’t or couldn’t. It’s not every review that teaches you something new about your own book!

@icpetrie Doing what I can to boost her Impact Factor

@samplereality Thanks, Mark.

You should read American Lucifers too - it has won awards and lots of well-deserved praise - but in the meantime my review is marginally shorter.

So, whew! That's a lot of emotional baggage to put on a book review.