Stephen Kantrowitz is Plaenert-Bascom and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This interview is based on his new book, Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the Nineteenth-Century United States (University of North […]
Way of Improvement
The Avett Brothers’ bass player has started a podcast on John Quincy Adams
Longtime listeners of the The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast will remember our interview with Bob Crawford, the bass player of the folk-rock band the Avett Brothers. Listen here. I have long appreciated Bob’s support for our work at […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week atĀ Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week atĀ The Way of Improvement Leads HomeĀ blog: Here are the most popular posts of the last week atĀ The ArenaĀ blog:
The Author’s Corner with Travis A. Rountree
Travis A. Rountree is Assistant Professor of English at Western Carolina University. This interview is based on his new book, Hillsville Remembered: Public Memory, Historical Silence, and Appalachia’s Most Notorious Shoot-Out (University Press of Kentucky, 2023). JF: What led you […]
Evangelical roundup for April 13, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Iowa evangelicals love Donald Trump. Nikki Haley is the commencement speaker at Pat Robertson’s Regent University in Virginia Beach. The diversity of evangelical support for Israel. Shane’s list of common sense gun laws: French […]
Commonplace Book #256
Though the evidence of the dead end of Father Greed is found everywhere in history books and is all around us now, greed with us at present is not a sin. With us, it cannot rise, like abortion and racial […]
“Just a little bit of flattery”: Christianity Today and J. Edgar Hoover
Christianity Today news editor and historian Daniel Silliman reflects on his current employer’s relationship to FBI Director (1935-1972) J. Edgar Hoover. Silliman’s thoughts were triggered by his reading of Lerone Martin’s The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover. Here is a […]
“Christianity in overalls”
Over at Jacobin, Stephen Barton introduces many of us to J. Stitt Wilson, the socialist major of Berkeley, California from 1911 to 1913. Here is a taste: On Easter Sunday, 1911, San Franciscoās Central Theater was packed with more than […]
Virginia will commemorate “Green Book” locations
The Negro Motorist Green Book (or simply Green Book) was an annual guidebook that included businesses–hotels, restaurants, etc.– friendly to African American travelers. Last month Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin signed into law a bill that designates surviving Green Book locations […]
The Author’s Corner with Sharon Ann Murphy
Sharon Ann Murphy is Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History and Classics at Providence College. This interview is based on her new book, Banking on Slavery: Financing Southern Expansion in the Antebellum United States (University of Chicago […]
Businessman Kenneth C. Griffin gives $300 million to the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences
The rich get richer. Here is The Harvard Gazette: Harvard University announced today that business leader and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin ā89 has made a gift of $300 million to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to support the […]
Commonplace Book #255
Consider Thomas L. Friedman’s announcement (New York Times, January 9, 2019): “I believe there is only one thing as big as Mother Nature, and that is Father Greed–a.k.a. the market. I am a green capitalist.” As a green capitalist, Mr. […]
Fox News anchor Brett Baier: “I look at my job as being sort of like an ice hockey goalie trying to stop bad pucks from getting through…”
I am not sure if Brett Baier is Jim Craig of the 1980 Olympic team or Elvis Merzlikins of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Whatever the case, he has faced a lot of “bad pucks” over the years. Here is David […]
Democrats heading to Chicago in 2024
The Democratic Party will return to Chicago in 2024. It will be held from August 19-22. You can get the details from any news website, but we thought we would call your attention to previous Chicago conventions. This will be […]
“The Left is more likely…to hold men responsible for their own problems and advise them to purge themselves of their ‘toxic masculinity.'”
Over at Commonweal, Brendan Ruberry reviews Richard V. Reeves’s book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It. Here is a taste: “…today, around the industrialized world, men seem […]
In the GOP it’s “the elites vs. the rabble”
Here is a taste of Sam Adler-Bell’s New York Times op-ed: “The One Things Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will“: Thus far, Mr. DeSantis has had greater success with party elites. By pairing aggressive stances on the culture wars with […]
Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey Jr. is running for re-election in 2024
Good news from Pennsylvania! Here is John Salant from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: U.S. Sen. Bob Casey announced Monday that he will run for re-election next year, a boon for Democrats in a must-win race for the party to hold the […]
Evangelical roundup for April 10, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Latino evangelicals against DeSantis’s immigration policies. Nashville’s The Covenant School will move to a new church for the remainder of the academic year. Evangelicals and premarital sex. Evangelicals are always renewing and reviving. Shane […]
The Author’s Corner with Joseph Giacomelli
Joseph Giacomelli is Assistant Professor of Environmental History at Duke Kunshan University. This interview is based on his new book, Uncertain Climes: Debating Climate Change in Gilded Age America (University of Chicago Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Real historical documents or fake historical documents? Take the quiz. When George W. Bush was a hero. Can national flood insurance keep pace with climate change? Climate change and home […]