Hannah Farber is Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University. This interview is based on her new book, Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding (Omohundro Institute and University of North Carolina Press, 2021). JF: What […]
Archives for December 2021
The right wing echo chamber is growing
In a 2009 New York Times column Nicholas Kristof brought attention to The Daily Me. He wrote: When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that […]
Evangelical roundup for December 6, 2021
What is happening in Evangelical land? Evangelicals are searching their online Bibles for the word “sorcery“ More on evangelical “deconstructionists“ It might be a good for idea for Liberty University leaders to get their own house in order before they […]
What Fate Awaits Your Thoughtful Gift?
“Buyer beware” takes on new meaning when browsing at an estate sale
The 2022 Georgia governor’s race is heating-up
Remember Brian Kemp’s 2018 campaign ad for Georgia governor?. If not, watch it here: Kemp defeated Stacy Abrams in a very close and controversial general election in November 2018. In April 2020, Kemp issued a stay-at-home order after learning for […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Democrats need to get out more. Bill Bradley’s one man show–no, literally. A short history of conservative critiques of American higher education. Why are we obsessed with winning? John McWhorter […]
Kentucky congressman asks Santa to bring him more ammo
As you can see from his family Christmas photo above, Kentucky representative Thomas Massie is celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace. Some of you may remember Rep. Thomas Massie from this video:
CNN fires Chris Cuomo
Interestingly enough, someone tweeted this earlier today: Here is Brian Stelter: CNN said Saturday that anchor Chris Cuomo has been “terminated” by the network, “effective immediately.”The announcement came after an outside law firm was retained to review information about exactly […]
“The danger of being a professional exposer of the bogus is that, encountering it so often, one may come in time to cease to believe in the reality it counterfeits.”
Alan Jacobs dug-up this gem from W.H. Auden’s 1941 review of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christianity and Power. It was published in The Nation on January 4, 1941: A brother once came to one of the desert fathers saying, “My mind is […]
What a Charles Willson Peale painting can teach us about vaccinating our children
Central Michigan University historian Andrew Wehrman has been an indispensable guide in this age of COVID-19. Here is a taste of his recent piece at Age of Revolutions blog: For portrait painters like Charles Willson Peale, ignoring smallpox was part […]
‘Tis the Season!
Messiah University may no longer have a history department, but our history majors are doing their best to hold on to the department’s time-honored traditions. This weekend the History Club did some Christmas caroling at faculty homes (History and Politics […]
Dr. Oz is running for a U.S. Senate seat. He’s been there before.
Oz is running for Pat Toomey’s Pennsylvania Senate seat. Get up to speed here. But as Ian Ward reminds us at Politico, he has been there before. Here’s a taste: On a hot summer morning in June of 2014, Mehmet […]
Song of the day
We did the Bangles cover last week. Today we have the original:
The “radical young intellectuals” of the American Right
In a piece at The New Republic, writer and podcaster Sam Adler-Bell lists some of their names: Nate Hochman, Declan Leary, Saurabh Sharma, Jack Butler, Sohrab Ahmari, Christopher Rufo, Josh Hammer, Jack Posobiec, Curtis Yarvin, and Matthew Walther. Here is […]
Sources on the history of religious-based vaccine resistance in America
I included a lot of history in today’s Current feature on vaccine exemptions. The piece draws on a talk I gave earlier this week to the constituents of the Council of Foreign Relations. I am told that the video will […]
Former Regent University professors have some stories to tell about Cornerstone University’s new president
On the day before Gerson Moreno-Riaño’s inauguration as president of Cornerstone University the faculty voted no confidence in him. (Read the faculty letter to the Board of Trustees here). The university went ahead with the inauguration almost as if the […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Daniel Hummel, Remote Work, Redux Daniel K. Williams, Why It Took a Pro-Choice Politician to Remind Pro-Lifers of “Human Dignity and Value” Elizabeth Stice, Memes Eat Brains M. Elizabeth Carter, […]
On “Religious Exemptions”
When did American individualism become a “sincerely held religious belief”?
The Author’s Corner with Gabriel Loiacono
Gabriel Loiacono is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh. This interview is based on his new book, How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories (Oxford University Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write How […]
Episode 29: “The Rise of Barack Obama”
The background to the speech that would change his life and the life of a nation. Episode 29: “The Rise of Barack Obama” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above new episodes of this narrative history podcast. Here is […]