Frank Cogliano is Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh. This interview is based on his new book, A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic (Harvard University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write A Revolutionary Friendship? […]
early American republic
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 infrastructure?
The opponents of Joe Biden’s new bill think “infrastructure” is just roads and bridges. Yes, infrastructure was focused largely on roads and bridges in the early 19th-century, but it also included new innovations like railroads and the telegraph. Today those […]