Alexandra Filindra is Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. This interview is based on her new book, Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (University of Chicago...
Matthew Dennis is Professor Emeritus of History and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon. This interview is based on his new book, American Relics and the Politics of Public Memory (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023). JF: What led you to...
William A. Link is Richard J. Milbauer Chair in Southern History Emeritus at the University of Florida. This interview is based on his new book, The Last Fire-Eater: Roger A. Pryor and the Search for a Southern Identity (LSU Press,...
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Alan J. M. Noonan is an independent historian. This interview is based on his new book, Mining Irish-American Lives: Western Communities from 1849-1920 (University Press of Colorado, 2022). JF: What led you to write Mining Irish-American Lives? AN: I have...
America’s 250th anniversary is coming. It should be interesting. Here is Jennifer Schuessler at The New York Times: The story historians tell about the American Revolution has changed enormously since the Bicentennial. Uplifting biographies of the founding fathers may still...
Geroge Packer identifies four national narratives in his recent piece at The Atlantic titled “How America is Fractured Into Four Parts.” I am sure I will be talking more about this piece in the future. “Free America” draws on “libertarian...
Please do not get your American history from my former U.S. Senator. Here is part of a recent lecture to the Young America’s Foundation: Let’s just get some facts straight: Some, but not all, Europeans came to North America to...
We don’t use the word “liberalism” here at Current, but we do care about American institutions, democratic life, the ideals of the founding (consistently applied to all Americans), the positive contribution religion (including evangelicalism) can make to American culture, and...
This is such a great essay by Shadi Hamid. He suggests that American democracy requires a common creed. Here is a taste of his piece at The Atlantic: The notion that all deeply felt conviction is sublimated religion is not new....
Over Zocalo, author Colin Woodard endorses civic nationalism over ethno-nationalism. Here is a taste: The civic nationalist story of America that [Charles] Bancroft envisioned still has the potential to unify the country. Its essential covenant is to ensure freedom and...
Barack Obama believes in America. Conservatives who think he is a socialist may not believe him. The champions of identity politics who have given-up on America will be angry with him. Christian nationalists will not like how he thinks about...
More and more Republicans are implying that it is time to move on from this election and admit defeat. I wish more would step up and proclaim Biden president-elect so that the country can move forward, but most of them...
Back in April 2019 I asked, “Is Joe Biden the Jon Meacham candidate?” The Biden campaign’s appeal to the “Soul of America” came from Meacham’s book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. Today The New York...
“I know I’m tempting fate,” writes Sullivan, “but a landslide is what this country so desperately needs.” Here is a taste of the conservative writer’s recent post at his SubStack site: I know it’s tempting fate to mention the idea, […]
Anthropologist and public intellectual Wade Davis asks if the era of American exceptionalism is over. For your consideration: Read Davis’s Rolling Stone article here....
Listen or read here. A taste: DAVID BLIGHT: Multiculturalism, we use it so loosely that we don’t even know what it means anymore. Well, Douglass knew what it meant. It meant the dream put into reality that people of every...
Joe Grushecky & The Housewreckers with Bruce Springsteen: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u81YZDEmXrA&w=560&h=315]...
A lot of conservatives liked Trump’s speech on Friday night. I am told that The Wall Street Journal gave it a positive review. I commented on the speech here, but I thought I would say a few more things about Trump’s...
In August 2019, The New York Times Magazine published The 1619 Project, an attempt to reframe American history by “placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” American historians have praised...
