democracy

Newspapers and democracy

  |  

Click the link to Nancy Gibbs’s piece at The Washington Post and spend some time with the interactive map on the declining state of the American newspaper. Here is a taste of the piece: If you’re a Democrat hoping to...

Mark Lilla on “beautiful souls” and democracy

  |  

What is a beautiful soul? In 2020 essay at Liberties, cultural critic and humanities professor Mark Lilla defines it this way: What is a beautiful soul? For Schiller, who coined the term, it was a person in whom the age-old...

The class conflict at the heart of the American Revolution

  |  

Over at Jacobin, historian William Hogeland discusses his ongoing work on “workers” and “elites” in the late eighteenth century. Here is a taste of his interview with Astra Taylor: ASTRA TAYLOR: Can you talk about what your narrative of America’s...

Petitioning as a civic duty in a democracy

  |  

What does it mean to participate in a democracy? Historian Sarena Zabin argues that between the American Revolution and the Civil War it was petitioning, not voting, that was the important way people performed their civil duties. Here is a...

What is the Civics Secures Democracy Act?

  |  

James F. O’Connor, the president of the Ohio Council for the Social Studies, explains in a piece at the Cincinnati Inquirer: A famous tale about Benjamin Franklin goes as follows: Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional...

Historian Jeremi Suri on Abraham Lincoln’s funeral

  |  

Here is an excerpt of Suri’s new book Civil War By Other Means. It is published at Lit Hub: The reverence for the slain president grew in coming days. On April 19, a horse-drawn hearse carried Lincoln’s body to the...

How to “defeat fascism” and save democracy

  |  

According to writer Anand Giridharadas, we can save democracy by commanding attention, making meaning, meeting people where they are, picking the right fights, helping people find a “home” where they feel safe, and telling better stories. It’s a really helpful...

Current contributing editor Adam Jortner on Moore v. Harper

  |  

Check out Jornter’s piece, “The Supreme Court’s biggest case this term threatens American democracy.” Here is a taste: Moore v. Harper is perhaps the most significant case of the U.S. Supreme Court term beginning Monday. At stake is the question of...

Can the United States Constitution survive the social media age?

  |  

The United States Constitution, James Madison argued, only works when people are spread-out geographically. Social media shrinks that distance. Here is a taste of political scientist Danielle Allen’s piece at The Washington Post. When we teach constitutional history, we often...

Should Catholics promote democracy?

  |  

This is the title of a Commonweal podcast with Catholic historian and University of Notre Dame provost John McGreevy. A summary: For most of its history, the Catholic Church clung to a deep skepticism concerning the legitimacy of democracy.  But...

American democracy is dying

  |  

This is the diagnoses of Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London. Here is a taste of his piece at The Atlantic: I’ve spent the past 12 years studying the breakdown of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism...

The Author’s Corner with Olivier Zunz

  |  

Olivier Zunz is James Madison Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia. This interview is based on his new book, The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville (Princeton University Press, 2022). JF: What led...