In her new book Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, historian Katherine Carte offers a major reassessment of the relationship between Christianity and the American Revolution. She argues that religion helped set the terms by which Anglo-Americans encountered the […]
early American history
Yale’s Harry Stout is still going strong
I am teaching Harry Stout’s The Divine Dramatist again this Fall. I find it to be the most undergraduate accessible biography of Whitefield available. My students really like it. Stout has been busy of late. He has two biographies in […]
Did Benjamin Franklin successfully thwart cancel culture?
Here is “presidential historian” Jane Hampton Cook yesterday on Fox News: Cook’s appearance follows this article at Fox News. What qualifies one as a “presidential historian?” Unfortunately, Cook doesn’t really know what she is talking about here. Cook comes from […]
The Author’s Corner with Kelly Jones
Kelly Jones is Assistant Professor of History at Arkansas Tech University. This interview is based on her new book, A Weary Land: Slavery on the Ground in Arkansas (University of Georgia Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write A […]
The Author’s Corner with Robert Wooster
Robert Wooster is recently retired as Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, where he taught for thirty-five years. This interview is based on his new book, The United States Army and the Making of America: From Confederation […]
The Author’s Corner with Steven Elliott
Steven Elliott is Part-time Lecturer of History at Rutgers University-Newark. This interview is based on his new book, Surviving the Winters: Housing Washington’s Army during the American Revolution (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Surviving […]
The Author’s Corner with Jeanne Abrams
Jeanne Abrams is Professor at the University Libraries and the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver. This interview is based on her new book, A View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe […]
The Author’s Corner with Kirsten Fischer
Kirsten Fischer is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. This interview is based on her new book, American Freethinker: Elihu Palmer and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in the New Nation (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). JF: […]
The Author’s Corner with Richard Pointer
Richard Pointer is Professor Emeritus of History at Westmont College. This interview is based on his new book, Pacifist Prophet: Papunhank and the Quest for Peace in Early America (University of Nebraska Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write […]
Episode 74: An Independent Woman in Revolutionary America
In this episode we talk with historian Lorri Glover about Eliza Lucas Pinckney, a woman who lived through the American Revolution in South Carolina. Pinckney’s story sheds light on gender, agriculture, politics, and slavery in this era and unsettles many […]
Elections in early America: a reading list
Over at the blog of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, Liz Covart offers a nice bibliography of books on early American election and political history. Here is a taste: Richard R. Beeman, The Varieties of Political Experience […]
The Author’s Corner with Carla Pestana
Carla Gardina Pestana is Professor of History, Department Chair, and Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World at the University of California, Los Angeles. This interview is based on her new book, The World of Plymouth Plantation (Belknap […]
The Author’s Corner with Eric Smith
Eric Smith is Senior Pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in Savannah, Tennessee and Adjunct Professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. This interview is based on his new book, Oliver Hart and the Rise of […]
Night four at the 2020 DNC convention
It was a great night for the Democratic Party. I don’t think they could have done this convention any better. Frankly, it may have been more effective than a traditional arena convention. The GOP has a tough act to follow. […]
The Author’s Corner with Christopher Pearl
Christopher Pearl is Associate Professor of History at Lycoming College. This interview is based on his new book, Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State (University of Virginia Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write Conceived in […]
Bernard Bailyn, RIP
Here is Harvard historian David Armitage: It is with deep sorrow that I share news of the death of Bernard Bailyn (1922-2020) earlier today. Truly a giant: a fine friend, inspirational colleague and unmatched historian of early America and the […]
Christian historians and the “imago Dei”
Earlier today I posted on the politicization of the Judeo-Christian belief that human beings are created in the image of God. In this post, I want to cover how a belief in the imago Dei informs how I do history. […]
How fast did news of American independence spread?
I just ran across this Smithsonian piece from 2017. Fascinating: It was the breaking news to end all breaking news—the fledgling British colonies of North America were committing treason and declaring independence. But in an era long before smartphone push alerts, TV […]
The Author’s Corner with R.B. Bernstein
R.B. Bernstein is a Lecturer in Political Science at the City College of New York and teaches in the Skadden, Arps Honors Program in Legal Studies at the Colin Powell School of Civic and Global Leadership. This interview is based […]
Tuesday night court evangelical roundup
What have Trump’s evangelicals been saying since our last update? Rudy Giuliani shares a tweet from a spokesperson for Liberty University’s Falkirk Center. Notice how Giuliani uses Jenna Ellis’s tweet of Psalm 27 to make a political statement. When he says “we all […]