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...
American identity
The Author’s Corner with Matthew Dennis
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...
The Author’s Corner with William A. Link
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,...
Bono: The United States is “the greatest song the world has not yet heard”
Watch:...
The Author’s Corner with Alan J. M. Noonan
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...
Can the “spirit of 1776 survive the history wars of 2021?”
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...
The four Americas
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...
What the heck is Rick Santorum talking about?
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...
Defending liberalism
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...
Will America survive without religion?
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....
The United States: A nation of ideals
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 on the possibility of America
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...
Here is your Thursday morning court evangelical update
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...
Historian Jon Meacham helped write Biden’s acceptance speech and then commented on it on MSNBC
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...
Andrew Sullivan is “dreaming of a landslide”
“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, […]
Is America unraveling?
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....
David Blight talks with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about Frederick Douglass
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...
Song of the Day
Joe Grushecky & The Housewreckers with Bruce Springsteen: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u81YZDEmXrA&w=560&h=315]...
Thinking historically about Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech
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...
Episode 63: The 1619 Project
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...