Not familiar with the Samuel Alito “Appeal to Heaven” flag controversy? Get up to speed here. I am seeing a lot of tweets like this: What Reed and Pence fail to recognize is that symbols like the Pine Tree Flag […]
change over time
On turning yet another year older
For two of my college years at the University of Virginia, I got to live in the French House, a beautiful historic mansion on the edge of campus. There were clear rules involved: all conversations in the house had to […]
Rep. Scott Perry references Frederick Douglass from the House floor. Historian David Blight is having none of it.
I have never voted for Scott Perry, but he does represent me in the United States House of Representatives. Perry is the chairman of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. He refused to cooperate with the House committee investigating January 6th […]
Bad history has consequences
Yesterday in my Historical Methods and Age of Hamilton classes I took some to talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In my Historical Methods class I could not pass up the chance to take our conversations about public history, […]
Matthew Karp critiques the “stamped from the beginning” approach to history
Princeton historian Matthew Karp offers a stinging criticism of the “stamped from the beginning” view of American history. Here is a taste of his Harper’s piece “History as End: 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.” Whatever birthday it […]
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 […]