A few things online that caught my attention this week: The “new history wars” waged at the recent meeting of the American Historical Association. God and guns in American history James Waddell reviews Simon Garfield, All the Knowledge in the […]
Way of Improvement
Commonplace Book #228
If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, “Ay,” he replies, “there is not its equal in the world.” If I applaud the freedom that its inhabitants enjoy, he answers: “Freedom is […]
What is going on at Belmont University?
The Nashville based Christian university will be hiring Jewish faculty. Here is Sara Weissman at Insider Higher Ed: Belmont University, a private Christian institution in Nashville, Tenn., plans to break a long-standing tradition of only hiring Christian instructors by opening […]
Why did evangelicals support Trump?
Someone sent me this video today so I thought I would share it again. This is a book talk I did in 2018 on Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington D.C.
The Author’s Corner with Jacqueline Jones
Jacqueline Jones is Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin. This interview is based on her new book, No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog:
Sweeping government reform hits the state of Arkansas!
😉
What is going on at Hamline University?
An art history professor at Hamline University in Minnesota was fired for showing a 14th-century painting of the prophet Muhammad. I will let writer Jill Filipovic take it from here. Below is a taste of her recent piece at Slate […]
What will they say about us?
Cultural critic George Scialabba wonders what we might ask our nineteenth-century ancestors. Perhaps we might ask them why they believed it was legitimate for one person to own another? Or we might ask, “Why did women seem to you incapable […]
Two former Republicans search for a political home
New York Times columnists Bret Stephens and David Brooks, both conservatives, reflect on what has happened to the Republican Party. It’s a fascinating discussion. Here is a taste: David Brooks:Â My thinking about the G.O.P. goes back to a brunch I […]
Evangelical roundup for January 12, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Jack Hayford, RIP. Do young evangelicals listen to their pastors? Catholics and evangelicals together? Evangelicals in France oppose euthanasia. Eric Metaxas makes Roger Stone’s “best-dressed” list: Who will evangelicals vote for in the 2024 […]
Historians Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer on the state of the Republican Party
The Princeton University historians are the editors of Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About our Past. Here is a taste of their recent interview with Vanity Fair: I know both of you are particularly public-facing […]
Do American football players need more than prayers?
The nation was shocked when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during a recent Monday night football game. For several days the Hamlin story shared top billing in the American news cycle with Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker of the […]
Marjorie Taylor Greene: mainstream Republican
As the Republican members-elect of the 118th Congress tried to select a Speaker of the House last week, Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, an election denier, former QAnon follower, and believer in Jewish space lasers, backed Kevin McCarthy on all […]
Jim Cullen on Bruce Springsteen’s first album
Columbia Records released Greetings from Asbury Park on January 5, 1973. Jim Cullen, the dean of Springsteen scholars, reflects at The Washington Post: Fifty years ago this week, a scruffy young artist from New Jersey released his first album. In […]
The latest American export: insurrections
The United States loves to export its political ideals and practices to the rest of the world. The latest export seems to be antidemocratic insurrections. Here is a taste of Anne Applebaum’s Atlantic piece: “What the Rioters in Brazil Learned […]
It Twitter goes away, “how will people find quick justice?”
Here is a taste of Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany’s piece, “Twitter Was the Ultimate Cancellation Machine.” Whatever else it is, Twitter is a place where the average person can subject others to their displeasure. They have been mistreated by Southwest […]
Authors I am teaching this semester
Today is the first day of classes! Based on this list of authors, try to guess the two courses I am teaching this semester: Antiquity: 18th Century: 19th Century: 20th Century: Late 20th and 21st Century
Was America founded as a Christian nation? Historian Allen Guelzo weighs-in
Here is the prize-winning historian at John Piper’s Desiring God website: John Randolph of Roanoke (1773–1833) had no confidence that America was, or ever had been, a Christian republic. Six months after the close of the War of 1812 — […]
The Author’s Corner with Mark Dillon
Mark Dillon is Associate Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, Second Judicial Department. This interview is based on his book, The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation (State […]