Crooked Timber is a widely-read political blog

Political blog

A political blog is a common type of blog that comments on politics. In liberal democracies the right to criticize the government without interference is considered an important element of free speech...

 run by a group of (mostly) academics from and working in several different nations, including the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, the Republic of Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

. The name alludes to a quotation of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

:

History

Crooked Timber was founded in July 2003 as a merger of several individual blogs, including Junius and Gallowglass, along with some new contributors. Additional members were added over subsequent months until the group reached an agreed optimum of 15 members.

Crooked Timber ranked in Technorati

Technorati

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. By June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media...

's Top 100 blogs between 2003 and 2005 and is still widely linked to in the academic blogosphere

Blogosphere

The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...

. On March 9 2008, it was listed as number 33 in The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

's list of the world's 50 most important blogs. On April 15 2011, an article on academic blogs in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 listed Crooked Timber as one of seven influential examples of the type, describing it as having "built a reputation as an intellectual global powerhouse".

The quotation "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made" (Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden) is from Kant's Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

"Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" or "The Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmopolitical Plan" is a 1784 essay by Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant , a lecturer in anthropology and geography at Königsberg University...

. The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin

Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century and a dominant liberal scholar of his generation...

 alluded to the quotation in The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas.

Current members

Name	Occupation
Chris Bertram	Political philosopher at the University of Bristol University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is... , UK
Michael Bérubé Michael Bérubé Michael Bérubé is the Paterno Family Professor in Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches cultural studies and American literature...	Professor of American literature and cultural studies at Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
Harry Brighouse Harry Brighouse Harry Brighouse is a British political philosopher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include the relationship between education and liberalism. His work on this topic has been widely cited . In addition to academic journals, his work has been published in the...	Political philosopher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Daniel Davies	Financial analyst in the city of London London London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Henry Farrell Henry Farrell (political scientist) Henry Farrell is an Irish-born political scientist at George Washington University. He previously taught at the University of Toronto and earned his PhD from Georgetown University. His research interests include, trust and co-operation; E-commerce; the European Union; and institutional...	Political scientist at George Washington University George Washington University The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
Maria Farrell	Director of Information Coordination, ICANN ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
Niamh Hardiman	Senior Lecturer at University College Dublin University College Dublin University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
Eszter Hargittai Eszter Hargittai Eszter Hargittai is a sociologist at Northwestern University. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from Smith College and a Ph.D...	Sociologist at Northwestern University Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
Kieran Healy Kieran Healy Kieran Healy is an Irish sociologist at Duke University and a regular visitor to the Research School in Social Science at the Australian National University. He earned his PhD in sociology from Princeton University having begun his studies at University College Cork, in Ireland. He is married to...	Sociologist at Duke University Duke University Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
John Holbo	Philosopher at the National University of Singapore National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....
Jon Mandle Jon Mandle Jonathan Mandle is currently the Department Chair and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University at Albany, SUNY. He is a member of the Crooked Timber group blog...	Political philosopher at SUNY Albany University at Albany, The State University of New York The State University of New York at Albany, also known as University at Albany, State University of New York, SUNY Albany or simply UAlbany, is a public university located in Albany, Guilderland, and East Greenbush, New York, United States; is the senior campus of the State University of New York ...
Scott McLemee	Writer, Inside Higher Education
John Quiggin John Quiggin John Quiggin is an Australian economist and professor at the University of Queensland. Quiggin studied at the Australian National University, obtaining bachelor's degrees in Arts and Economics in 1978 and 1980 respectively, and completing a master's degree in Economics in 1984. Quiggin was awarded...	Economist at the University of Queensland University of Queensland The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation... , Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
Ingrid Robeyns	Postdoctoral researcher, University of Amsterdam
Belle Waring	Trained as a Classicist at Berkeley; living in Singapore Singapore Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
Brian Weatherson Brian Weatherson Brian Weatherson is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell's Sage School of Philosophy....	A philosopher at Rutgers University Rutgers University Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

Former members

Name	Occupation
Ted Barlow	Economic consultant in Houston, TX
Tom Runnacles	Software developer Software developer A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...  in the city of London, previously studied philosophy at Oxford University
Micah Schwartzman	Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law University of Virginia School of Law The University of Virginia School of Law was founded in Charlottesville in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as one of the original subjects taught at his "academical village," the University of Virginia. The law school maintains an enrollment of approximately 1,100 students in its initial degree program...

External links

• Crooked Timber
• Technorati entry for Crooked Timber