Junius r.i.p.

by Chris Bertram on February 9, 2007

This is a note to former readers of my blog “Junius”, which I abandoned when we set up Crooked Timber back in 2003. Because of issues with the transition to the “new” (googlified) Blogger, I’ve deleted the site. I did save the archives first, though, and I may make these available from an new location if there’s any demand (and if I get round to it).

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Crooked Timber » » Quick Study
02.10.07 at 5:08 pm

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terence 02.09.07 at 10:33 pm

Hi Chris,

I think it would be useful if you made your archives available. A while ago on a thread here you linked to a post on your old blog reviewing texts on political philosophy (something which lead to me buying two of the texts mentioned, I think). But I also had a look around and stumbled across a post where you spoke praisingly of Harry Hatchet (who had just changed his name from Harry Steele). Harry’s Place has traveled quite someway from those days (from single angry ex-trot to Decent superblog) and, I imagine, so have your opinions of their opinions. Which all led to your post seeming incredible dated. But it was only written in 2003. I mean, heck, I’m still working on a paper the research for which I started in 2003 (incidentally the year I first heard the word blog).

Look how far the blogosphere, and bloggers, have come since then.

This is one pretty good reason to keep your archives online if you ask me.

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Russell Arben Fox 02.09.07 at 11:54 pm

Junius was a good blog, Chris. It was one of the very first I read regularly–I don’t remember how I stumbled onto it (through Jacob Levy, perhaps?), but once I found it I kept coming back. I can remember you once writing a whole post to patiently explain to me what an “anorak” was. Ah, the small, easy-going blogosphere of 2002.

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Chris Bertram 02.10.07 at 7:08 am

Yes it was a very different atmosphere wasn’t it, with fewer of us. One in which there was a camaraderie among bloggers that crossed all kinds of ideological divides. That rather got blown away by the Iraq war, but, even more by the US presidential election of 2004.

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Jon Pike 02.10.07 at 8:56 am

Hi Chris,
I’d be grateful if you kept the stuff alive. Your material on Honderich amongst other things, was very good, and there’s earlier stuff around the time that you wrote: http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/bertram.html whcih I found valuable. I hope that’s not unfair, but we were talking about people having travelled quite some way. I wonder, do you still stand by it? Have you published anything else on the Afghanistan piece? Your view on that seem closer to (eg) Walzer, and other opponents of the war in Iraq, but supporters of some interventions (like me), than it does to (eg) Daniel at his dismissive, absolutist, best. So presumably, either you stick by your earlier pieces, and chop things up rather differently, or you would want to engage in a bit of self-criticism. But anyway, keep the record available, please.

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Chris Bertram 02.10.07 at 9:13 am

Hi Jon. Well I’d certainly change _some things_ about the Afghanistan piece with hindsight, but I don’t think I’d change the basic line. Nor have I changed my opinions about Bosnia and Kosovo. The very first piece I wrote for Junius (back in Feb 2002) expressed scepticism about the case for war in Iraq. I wobbled a bit, but Daniel convinced me that Iraq would be a disastrous mistake and he was right. Since then, there have been quite a few things that have alienated me considerably from the “decent left”, not least their propensity to project base motives on those who disagree with them. (Incidentally my record on supporting/opposing interventions/wars compares rather well with the likes of Nick Cohen: Cohen opposed Kosovo and Afghanistan and supported Iraq, I did the exact opposite of him on all occasions.)

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