Thursday, 9 January 2003

Getting Your Way Around the World of Blogs . . . An excellent list of Blog Directories. The Pepys Project is a great worldwide directory of Blogs. Great to have someone build a project and use some historical meaning as a point of jumping into the project. We can learn much from studying the way people who were new to literacy went about to create their world. There are ways we can apply the past to the future. We may gain some greater insights into literacy through applying those concepts to the world of Technacy. You do not know who Pepys is? You can learn more on the site but here is a brief: Samuel Pepys was born in in London, England on 23 February 1633. He was well-educated, earned a degree in 1654 and though intending to become a lawyer, upon the execution of Charles I moved into another field. He worked in various capacities in government under the Protectorate. In June 1660 he was appointed Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, in the government departments overseeing the royal dockyards. Also in 1660, at 27, Pepys began his diary and recorded in it until he was 36, when fear of losing his eye-sight compelled him to stop. Samuel Pepys' diary is famous, and historically valuable, because of Pepys' eye for detail and unerring recounting of events both magnificant and mundane; from the Plague in 1665 to the Great Fire in 1666, to the coronation of Charles II; from where he ate, with whom and at what time he returned home; from chastising household help, to walloping his wife while they slept, Pepys' account of his world offers an incredible glimpse into the daily life of someone who lived 340 years ago. In my opinion, you can learn more about day-to-day life in post-Cromwellian times reading Pepys' vivid entries, than you could from a dozen strightforward history texts. After completing his last entry in the diary, Samuel Pepys lived another 34 years. In that time, he became Secretary to the Admiralty (1673), and then became a Member of Parliament (also 1673). From that point, Pepys continued to have a distinguished career in the Navy offices, about which you can learn more at The Samuel Pepys Library site.     4:12:23 PM