Jane E. Calvert is Director and Chief Editor of The John Dickinson Writings Project. This interview is based on her new book, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson (Oxford University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to […]
American founding
No Josh Hawley, the United States was not “founded on revival”
I included this in today’s roundup, but I wanted to call attention to it again. Yesterday Missouri senator Josh Hawley spoke at MAGA worship leader Sean Feucht’s Washington D.C. rally. Here is part of what he said: It’s a privilege […]
The Author’s Corner with Sarah Kornfield
Sarah Kornfield is Associate Professor of Communication and Affiliated Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Hope College. This interview is based on her new book, Invoking the Fathers: Dangerous Metaphors and Founding Myths in Congressional Politics (Johns Hopkins University […]
More sloppy history from Tim Barton of Wallbuilders
In the video posted below, which appears to be a lecture at an Arkansas evangelical church called “The House,” Tim Barton of Wallbuilders claims that every founding father with an extant library had a copy of John Wise‘s sermons. And […]
More cherry-picking from the Bartons
Watch the clip below. Tim Barton, the president of Wallbuilders, is speaking at an evangelical congregation: So what is Tim Barton doing here? He wants his audience to believe that the founders sought national unity at the time the Revolution […]
What Nikki Haley gets right and what she gets wrong about slavery and race in America
My message to Nikki Haley’s staff: Please hire a historian. First there was this: Just to be clear, the Civil War was about slavery. We addressed this here. Then there was this: And then there was last night’s CNN town […]
Stephen Wolfe’s book on Christian nationalism “is worth a read only in the same sense that rubbernecking at a car crash counts as sightseeing”
Recently the Christian nationalist historian Stephen Wolfe tweeted several passages from my book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction. Here is the tweet: Here is the entire tweet: I don’t have the time or inclination to […]
The Author’s Corner with Joan DeJean
Joan DeJean is Trustee Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. This interview is based on her new book, Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast (Basic Books, 2022). JF: What led you […]
The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Singerton
Jonathan Singerton is Lecturer of Global and Comparative Histories of Central Europe at the University of Innsbruck. This interview is based on his new book, The American Revolution and the Habsburg Monarchy (University of Virginia Press, 2022). JF: What led […]
Episode 97: “In Search of George Washington’s Hair”
Using America’s obsession with Washington’s hair as his window, historian Keith Beutler examines how “physicality,” or the use of the material objects, was the most important way early Americans (1790-1840)–museum founders, African Americans, evangelicals, and school teachers– remembered the nation’s […]
Is there just one American origin story?
Emily Sclafani teaches history at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. Here is a taste of her piece at the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History titled “The Danger of a Single Origin Story.” I write this as a secondary […]
The Author’s Corner with Hannah Farber
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 […]
Abigail, an enslaved woman owned by John Jay, died in Paris trying to win her freedom
Historian Martha Jones tells the story at The New York Times: Despite its many markers of memory there are some stories about the past that Paris does not tell. I am an African American historian who spends each summer in […]
The Author’s Corner with Brian Ogren
Brian Ogren is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Rice University. This interview is based on his new book, Kabbalah and the Founding of America: The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World (New York University Press, 2021). […]
Josh Hawley’s “Love America Act.” Let’s break it down
Last week we published a post on Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s op-ed in The New York Post condemning critical race theory and promoting his personal view of what young Americans should learn in history class. His views are encapsulated in […]