Blogadoon - Part IV

But I guess between being busy and not really understanding blogs, I didn't grasp the point of Dimitri's email. (Worse, I'm not even sure I replied.) So I stuck with what I had, and not until mid-summer did I run across Blogger. At that point, for the first time, I began to read other people's blogs, but not very often (most of them suck bananas). Nor did I know any of the systems already in existence to locate the better, more informative blogs. Nor did I much care. I'd placed IPMH on hiatus back in early June and wasn't sure I'd pick it up again in the fall.

I might well have abandoned IPMH but for an email from my Australian friend Jeffrey Grey, who to my knowledge was its most faithful reader--indeed, IPMH is how Jeffrey and I came to meet. Jeffrey is almost the only practicing military historian who found the ideas in IPMH intriguing--at least, intriguing enough to send the occasional email prodding me to continue.

I did resume IPMH in September and found it a useful vehicle by which to gather my thoughts for a conference I was organizing on "The History of War in Global Perspective." At the same time, however, I worried about the amount of time required to prepare each entry. I thought a pre-packaged blog would save me time. For that reason, and really no other, I got a site on blogger in early December.

Ouwardly then, I looked (at last) like one of the blognoscenti. But mentally I was still keeping a web journal. I didn't think about the blogosphere and certainly didn't reach out to it.

Then one day, massively, it reached out to me.

Continue to Part V