Tag Archive

Todd Gitlin

USIH Odds and Ends: Bin Laden, New Beardians, Cosmopolitanism BLEG, and Trigger Warnings

1. (of 4) The Mind Behind 9/11: No Straight Lines Plus an Irony This NYT piece on Osama Bin Laden’s bookshelf, described as “a weird hodgepodge,” fascinates me. When trying to understand the thoughts of others, sometimes the only empirical evidence available is books and bookshelves. We see a kind of full bookshelf when we explore the references and citations of another’s written works. But how much can we infer about Bin Laden’s mind from the works listed in the NYT piece? Read more

Those Were the Days

All in the Family is on my mind today — not so much the book by Robert O. Self, but rather the 1970s television show, produced by Norman Lear, starring Read more