As some of you know, I am working on a three-volume project, geared to a general reading audience, on evangelicals and politics in the twentieth-first century. Sometimes I don’t know if I am doing journalism or writing history, but I...
activist history
Staughton Lynd, 1929-2022
We brought Staughton Lynd’s death to your attention yesterday. We now have an obituary. Here is the New York Times: Staughton Lynd, a historian and lawyer who over a long and varied career organized schools for Black children in Mississippi,...
Staughton Lynd, RIP
I haven’t found an obituary yet, but Twitter is reporting that the activist-historian/historian-activist has died at the age of 92. I am sure we will have a few more things to say about Staughton Lynd‘s death in the coming days,...
AHA president James Sweet: “The apology I issued” was not a “retraction.” Activists historians are starting a fight they will not win.
Over at The Atlantic, David Frum revisits James Sweet’s column at the Perspectives on History. I covered this controversy about history and presentism in a way that was favorable to Sweet’s position. See these posts: The James Sweet/AHA blowup What...
Larry Schweikart: activist historian
Back in 2002 I met Larry Schweikart. He was a professor of history at the University of Dayton. I was interviewing for a job in the history department at the University of Dayton. He may have even been on the...
Joan Scott and David Bell debate history, presentism and power
In the wake of AHA president’s James Sweet’s “controversial” column in Historical Perspectives, David Bell of Princeton and Joan Scott of the Institute of Advanced Study have responded at The Chronicle of Higher Education. (See our coverage here and here...