Two New Members
Susan Breitzer holds a PhD in American Jewish history from the University of Iowa. She is an independent historian, educational content writer, and freelance book reviewer for Kirkus Reviews and is currently moving into academic developmental editing. She has recorded a podcast for the Organization of American Historians’ “Intervals” series on religious responses to the 1918 influenza pandemic and has presented guest lectures at Duke University on “Jewish Perspectives on Faith and Feminism.” She contributed one of the five interpretive essays for the “Collecting These Times” digital project on American Jewish responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ted Atlas, whose area of interest is 20th-century California history, is the author of the book, Candlestick Park, published in 2010 by Arcadia Publishing as part of its Images of Sports series. In 2017, Ted spoke about the dual evolution of football and technology for the Ainsley HouseHistory Happy Hour series in Campbell, California, and has worked as a docent at the San Francisco 49ers Museum at Levi’s Stadium. He has also published articles in Aviation and Air Attack magazines. He filed a successful application with the California Office of Historic Preservation that led to the listing of the Willows-Glenn County Airport in the National Register of Historic Places on October 6, 2023. He has given presentations to several service groups, including the Naval Order of San Francisco and the Museum of American Heritage located in Palo Alto. He is currently working on a book about the Bay Area’s role in the Cold War.
Other News
Liz Schott is scheduled to give a talk in Building One on Treasure Island at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 10th, about Dorothy Wright Liebes, the subject of the biography Liz is currently researching and writing. The venue for her talk is quite apt since she’ll be discussing how, in the summer of 1938, Liebes embarked on a six-week, nine-country journey across Europe in preparation for her role as the director of the Decorative Arts Pavilion at the Golden Gate International Exposition, scheduled to open on Treasure Island the following year. Her mission was to gather items that illustrated her conviction that “the art spirit of any age may well be measured by the vitality in the design of everyday things.” Liebes described the items she collected for display in the pavilion as “useful and beautiful.” During her talk Liz will share some of the Liebes family’s personal photos from the exhibition.
Peter Stansky presented a paper, “George Orwell: Reputation and Reception,” at the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies, on March 29th at Stanford University. Stansky also chaired a session, “20th-Century Social and Intellectual Currents.” It was the 50th ear of the conference. Stansky’s Orwell paper was very well-received, and the Orwell session, proposed by Stansky, drew a fine attendance with many questions and comments. Stansky asked what Orwell would think of the world now. Following are several highlights from Peter’s presentation.
During the Vietnam War, the Right tried to co-op Orwell, but it was a mistake. As Stansky wrote in his book, Socialist Patriot, Orwell retained traditional values at the same time that he fought for individual rights and support for the working people of England. Despite the “advances” of AI, computers, and Trump, Orwell’s books are selling better than ever. His reputation has been smudged. More readers recognize flaws; he was a misogynist, an anti-Semite, and, in some corners of his world, a racist. And yet, he did notbfall into the mid-century habit of trying to kill all those for whom he had less esteem.
Stansky saw Orwell start as a moderately successful author. He was fortunate that a book club picked up The Road to Wigan Pier. That brought him attention and sales. Homage to Catalonia was not a great seller. Stansky notesthat Orwell was a “premature” anti-fascist and anti-communist. He gradually won attention as the man of virtue, “St. George.” However, Stansky reminded his audience that Orwell never made claims of virtue. He identified with the ordinary person who has faults.
Orwell gave the government names of individuals who would be blacklisted. Stansky said, “It was not a nice thing to do.” Still, his name echoes loudly. Winston Smith’s life in 1984 is Orwellian. Winston is taken away to be tortured until he realizes he loves Big Brother. Boxer, the horse in Animal Farm, works harder than other animals. Pigs want to buy whiskey. They sell Boxer to knackers for money. Not happy books, not even with a tiny, shining hope glowing somewhere. Orwell knows the totalitarians will not let go. Are there other authors whose names became precise descriptions of bad ways of life? Dickensian names, predicaments, and coincidences are often funny—a different league.
A recent book, Wifedom, rips Orwell’s reputation for misogyny. The wife is Eileen, Orwell’s wife. Unfortunately for those who enjoy a “tell all” biography, the author makes factual errors—such as where Orwell was born—and seems to race through the writing in order to take swipes at Peter Stansky as well as Orwell.
At the Orwell session, Stewart Weaver spoke on “Orwell’s Cookery: Food and Drink in ‘An Age Like This’” (showing Orwell’s defense of English cooking as his pride of Englishness) and Laura Beers spoke on “Free Speech vs. True Speech in the Work of George Orwell.” (supporting Orwell’s desire for truth in speech over freedom of speech). Conference presenters came from around the globe, from India to Ghana to England.
—Leslie Friedman
A subject discussed in Dot Brovarney’s 2022 book,
Mendocino Refuge, received high- profile media coverage in 2024. Newsweek, KQED, and The San Francisco Chronicle reported results of the first scientific study based on USGS work at Leonard Lake in the upper Russian River watershed. In 2014, scientists began to remove samples of earth from deep beneath the lake. Ten years later, based on analyses of layered core sediments up to 3,200 years old, Clarke Knight and her team revealed what the Chronicle (4/25/24) calls “a first of its kind glimpse into California’s multi-millennial history of atmospheric rivers.” The study indicates the presence of even more intense storms in the distant past than what we’re experiencing now. This data will play an important role in climate change planning. According to Newsweek (4/25/24), “Lake sediments provide a natural archive that documents past local and regional precipitation events…aiding our understanding of long-term climate flood linkages…” With some glee, Dot notes the parallel between what we historians strive to accomplish with our archival research and what these scientists are doing with their natural archive: illuminating past events and patterns to inform and benefit our present and future.
Mendocino Refuge: Lake Leonard & Reeves Canyon is available for order by email or phone from bookstores and museums listed at
mendocinorefuge.com.
Members: Please submit news of your history-related publications, lectures, awards, research finds, etc. to info@instituteforhistoricalstudy.org.
Posted in Institute Activities
A video of this presentation can be viewed on our YouTube Channel.
Writing and Revising Narrative History
Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer, with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of four books: Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner 2022); The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020; a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History); Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Georgia, 2012); and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia, 2005). She writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and TIME. Before leaving academia to write full-time in 2014, she taught U.S. history and American Studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. She grew up in Colorado but now lives in Boston with her husband and two cats.
Despite the growing scholarly work at the intersection of religion and technology, how to characterize their relationship remains a matter of dispute for historians of technology. Some have argued that the problem arises arises from using poor terminology, and from giving primacy to technological knowledge over religious knowledge. Enrico Beltramini takes a different view. He argues instead that the cause of this dispute stems from competing ideas about our basic understanding of the universe. The history of technology is founded on a secular understanding, while religion wants to sustain a post-secular worldview that protects the sense of the sacred. Enrico argues that the harmonization of religion and history of technology requires a reconsideration of the theoretical apparatus that governs the religion-secular divide.
Enrico’s presentation is based on his essay “When Religion Meets History of Technology. Secularism and the Problem of the Sacred,” History and Technology , Vol. 39, Issue 3-4 (2024), 316-327. This essay is a response to an essay by Jennifer Karns Alexander in an earlier issue.
After a full academic career, first in Italy and later in California, Enrico accepted early retirement from teaching during the COVID pandemic while at Notre Dame de Namur University. He now maintains an academic affiliation with the university, dedicating himself to research, writing, and active participation in scholarly conferences.