rcmnd

The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800--1850Book

by Whitney R. Cross

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Statistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University who writes the long-running blog Three-Toed Sloth and the Bactra Review of books.
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A very solid historical work, though it presumes a fair degree of familiarity with the Protestant sects of early 19th century America, and even with the political history of New York.

His monthly "Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur" post for April 2008 — the books he read that month and feels he can recommend.

bactra.org ↗·2008-04-30

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The small bar beside a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The bar shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Full and green is recent. It drains, and turns amber and then grey, as the post gets older.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The bar is empty after about:

A striped bar means the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no bar.