Paul Waldman writes: “Everywhere conservatives look, their view of America’s racial story is being challenged.” Most of our culture war debate right now seem to focus on school curriculum and race. Here is Waldman at The Washington Post: As conservatives […]
American history
Texas is trying to whitewash its history
One of these days I will try to put together a list of state education boards trying to change their history curriculums so that students do not come face to face with the many sins of America’s past. Texas will […]
What did anti-1619 Project U.S. senators learn about race from their school textbooks?
The Root just published excerpts of U.S. history textbooks used in schools attended by the thirty-eight Republican senators, including majority leader Mitch McConnell, who recently signed a letter criticizing the New York Times 1619 Project and critical race theory. Here […]
“84% of Republicans believe history should celebrate our nation’s past, while 70% of Democrats think history should question it”
Our culture war is rooted in competing perceptions of the American past. Here is Peter Burkholder of Fairleigh Dickinson University and Dana Schaffer of the American Historical Association at Time: Our recent national survey of people’s understandings and uses of […]
Apparently I am not the only one who gets emotional about infrastructure
One of my favorite lectures in my U.S. history survey class is on early 19th-century infrastructure. I am fascinated by the way roads, bridges, canals, and railroads contributed to American nationalism. It looks like I am not alone. Here is […]
Department of Education proposes “priorities” for American History and Civics programs
You can read the document here. These priorities may influence who gets federal money for American history and civics programs and who does not. The Department is soliciting comments on these proposed priorities. The American History and Civics Education programs […]
Robert Middlekauff, RIP
Middlekauff is best known as the author of The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. It was the first book to appear in the Oxford History of the United States series, which also includes James McPherson’s Battle Cry for Freedom: […]
Joe Biden meets with American historians at the White House
The court historians? Those in attendance included Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Michael Eric Dyson, Joanne Freeman, Eddie Glaude Jr, Annette Gordon Reed, and Walter Isaacson. Mike Allen at Axios reports that everyone wore masks. The topics discussed […]
Winners of the 2021 Bancroft Prize announced
Andy Horowitz won for Katrina: A History, 1915-2015. Claudio Saint won for Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. Here is the press release from Columbia University: Columbia University Libraries has announced that two […]
Historians assess the Trump presidency
Historian Julian Zelizer gathered an esteemed group of American historians at Princeton to assess the Trump presidency. Here is a taste of Jennifer Schuessler’s piece at The New York Times: From the day he took office, Donald J. Trump had […]
Check out the 2021 History Summit
Lindsey Chervinsky is back with another summit. Watch: Authors and books include: Michael Hattem, Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution Ben Wright, Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism Carolyn Eastman, The Strange […]
Imagine what future historians will say about this…
The Senate and House have passed a $1.9 trillion dollar relief bill. It is historic. Meanwhile, the GOP is talking about Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head, and Meghan Markle. Here is Jonathan Lemire and Jill Colvin from the Associated Press: […]
Historian Allen Guelzo featured at the Princeton University alumni magazine
Deborah Yaffe just published a great feature on American historian Allen Guelzo, Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship at Princeton’s James Madison Program. The piece, published at the Princeton University alumni magazine, covers Guelzo’s role in the rollout […]
The *Kansas City Star* hammers Josh Hawley’s view of American history
The Missouri senator’s hometown newspaper offered a sharp critique of his speech at CPAC. After watching CPAC last weekend, I not only noticed a unique political vocabulary, but I also noticed that the speeches were dripping with an off-putting and […]
Is civics education making a comeback?
Here is Joe Heim at The Washington Post: Now, a diverse collection of academics, historians, teachers, school administrators and state education leaders is proposing an overhaul of the way civics and history are taught to American K-12 students. And they’re […]
Liberty University’s Falkirk Center is promoting an embarrassingly bad Eric Metaxas speech on the American Revolution
I was going to include this in my MAGA evangelicals post this morning, but I decided to save it for a separate post. The Falkirk Center at Liberty University just tweeted a video of an Eric Metaxas speech: Almost everything […]
What should we make of Trump’s 1776 Commission Report? Part 1
Yesterday, in his final days in the White House, Donald Trump released the results of his 1776 Commission. He describes the report as a “historic and scholarly step to restore understanding of the greatness of the American founding.” The report […]
Trump announces members of his “President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” There are no American historians.
As COVID-19 cases reach record heights and our country faces unprecedented cyber-attacks, Donald Trump is making appointment to his 1776 Commission. Trump established the commission by executive order on November 2, 2020 and Joe Biden is likely to eliminate it […]
When 20th-century students memorized “Dixie” and “long lists of forgettable governors”
Over at The Montgomery Advertiser, Brian Lyman reports on the treatment of the Confederacy in Southern history textbooks: For much of the 20th century, southern classrooms treated Black history — when they touched the subject at all — as a sideshow to […]
Georgia Representative Barry Loudermilk wants David Barton to direct Trump’s 1776 Commission
Some of you may recall Donald Trump’s November 2, 2020 executive order establishing the “1776 Commission.” We wrote about it here and here. Here is a taste of the order: The 1776 Commission shall: (i) produce a report for the […]