The Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin writes, “On the left, talk of proletarian revolution has given way to vital debates about how to enact Medicare for All and a Green New Deal, revive unionism, and strip the power of the […]
Archives for October 2022
What happened to Michael Flynn?
Here is Peter Wehner at The Atlantic: A prayer at a âReAwaken Americaâ event in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a few days ago, at which Michael Flynn appeared, captured the sensibilities of this moment: âFather God, we come to you in the name of […]
Dinesh D’Souza’s 2,000 Mules has finally reached bookstores
Back in September the conservative publisher Regnery pulled 2,000 Mules, the book version of Dinesh D’Souza’s election fraud documentary. (You may recall that D’Souza called Bill Barr an “overweight,” “largely immobile,” “fatso” after the former attorney general panned the documentary). […]
Is the real threat to free expression cancel culture or the fear of cancel culture?
Eve Fairbanks, the author of The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning, is a Virginia-born author who currently lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. She writes as a white woman who published a book about race. Here is […]
Evangelicals gather to “reconstruct” evangelicalism
The speakers include Elizabeth Conde-Fraizer, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Carl Ellis Jr., Walter Kim, Russell Moore, Gavin Ortlund, Karen Swallow Prior, Love Sechrest, Mark Noll, Jay Augustine, Vince Bacote, Gayle Doornbos, Benjamin Espinoza, Malcolm Foley, Ernest Gray, Emily Hunter McGowin, […]
The Author’s Corner with Lloyd Barba
Lloyd Barba is Assistant Professor of Religion at Amherst College. This interview is based on his new book, Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California (Oxford University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Sowing the Sacred? LB: Having […]
Fish Story
Cold, dark, and lonely places beckon. Why?
Steven Mintz: A liberal education is a “distinctively American article of faith”
Here is the University of Houston historian at his Insider Higher Ed blog: No longer does the âsimple advice to high schoolers to âgo to collegeââ suffice. What one studies and where one studies matter greatly in terms of return […]
Historian Jeremi Suri on Abraham Lincoln’s funeral
Here is an excerpt of Suri’s new book Civil War By Other Means. It is published at Lit Hub: The reverence for the slain president grew in coming days. On April 19, a horse-drawn hearse carried Lincolnâs body to the […]
Does Evan McMullin have a chance in Utah?
In Utah, incumbent GOP Senator Mike Lee is running against conservative and 2016 presidential candidate Evan McMullin. The Utah Democratic Party is not running a candidate in this election and is encouraging members to back McMullin. Over at Religion News […]
Boyhood and guns
Over at JSTOR Daily, Rachael Kay Albers asks “how marketing made guns a fundamental element of contemporary boyhood.” She calls attention to the scholarly work of Charles-Edward Anderson, Anne G. Kimball, Sarah L. Olson, Jay Mechling, Wendy Varney, and Garen […]
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Did you know that Current patrons can now choose to support us annually or monthly? Click the red SUPPORT button to join us with an annual subscription, and get a 10% discount. Existing monthly subscribers who switch to an annual subscription can take advantage of […]
The Author’s Corner with Patrick Luck
Patrick Luck is Assistant Professor of History at Florida Polytechnic University. This interview is based on his new book, Replanting a Slave Society: The Sugar and Cotton Revolutions in the Lower Mississippi Valley (University of Virginia Press, 2022). JF: What […]
Laughter in the Museum
Giggling at art history should be part of the point
William & Mary’s monument to the enslaved
More and more colleges and universities are coming to grips with their connections to slavery. Here is historian Jody Lynn Allen at Perspectives on History: In the 1930s, William & Mary (W&M) constructed a four-foot brick wall around the oldest […]
What is going on in Nashville? (And why didn’t I know Pat Sajak was the chair of the Hillsdale College Board of Trustees?)
Over at Religion News Service, writer David Dark introduces us to the Nashville “Prayer Trade.” Here are some of the things I learned (or was reminded of) from the piece: Michael W. Smith, Ricky Skaggs, and Steven Curtis Chapman were […]
The Author’s Corner with Maurizio Valsania
Maurizio Valsania is Professor of American History at the University of Turin. This interview is based on his new book, First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF: What led you […]
“I think we have yet to find the limits, or the bottom, of who and what White evangelicals might justify in their allegiance to Trump and the Republican Party.”
The quote in the title is from Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. It comes from an interview with Jennifer Rubin […]
Evangelical roundup for October 24, 2022
What is happening in Evangelical land? Baptized into Christian nationalism. I mean literally baptized. U.K. evangelicals weigh-in on the resignation of the Liz Truss. Matthew Milliner reports on a James Davison Hunter lecture: Happy Birthday to the president of the […]
FiveThirtyEight Hates Democracy
The search for âmore accurate pollsâ is nonsense and harms America