Yesterday I wrote a post on George Will’s recent column on identity politics and modernity. Over at Facebook, historian Jonathan Couser responded to Wills. Here is his take, published with his permission. –JF George Will is one of the few...
Enlightenment
Should Congress be in the business of discerning the will of God?
Conservative Christians are irate about what happened recently on the floor of the House of Representatives. During a debate on the Equality Act, Florida congressman Greg Steube argued against the act by reading Deuteronomy 22:5 and a passage from a...
Fear and Frederick Jackson Turner: Night 4 of the GOP convention
Well, it’s over. Last night Donald Trump, a president who lost the popular vote by 3 million and has never had his approval rating rise over 50%, used the White House–the “people’s house–for a political rally. Most of the sycophants...
N.T. Wright: We Have Created a Monster That Can Only Be Subdued by Love
I have been working through N.T. Wright‘s Gifford Lectures, published by Baylor University Press as History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology. (Thanks to Byron Borger at Hearts & Minds Bookstore for bringing this book to my attention...
Advent vs. Steven Pinker
Here is Fleming Rutledge, an author and Episcopal priest: Across the Charles River from the Church of the Advent sits mighty Harvard. There, the famous psychology professor Steven Pinker thinks the world is getting better. In a recent interview, he...
Does Religious Liberty Have Christian Roots?
Robert Wilken‘s new book Liberty in Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom makes the case that religious liberty has Christian roots that date back to the second century. Tal Howard reviews Wilken’s new book at The Anxious Bench...
Where Does History Go From Here?
Over at the Boston Review, historian and essayist Maximillian Alvarez argues that both pro-Trumpers and anti-Trumpers are still operating within Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” argument. Here is a taste: Fukuyama’s take on the “end of history,” to be fair, has...
The Relevance of the Enlightenment (#AHA19)
We are thrilled to have Megan Jones, a history teacher at The Pingry School in Martinsville, New Jersey, writing for us this weekend from the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago. Here is her first dispatch. –JF...
The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Clark
Jonathan Clark is Hall Distinguished Professor of British History at the University of Kansas. This interview is based on his new book, Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018). JF: What led...
Michael Roth on Steven Pinker’s *Enlightenment Now*
Over at Inside Higher Ed Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University and a strong defender of humanities and the liberal arts, reviews Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. A taste: In his new book, Enlightenment Now: The...
The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Israel
Jonathan Israel is Professor Emeritus of Modern European History in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. This interview is based on his new book, The Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited...
The Author’s Corner with James Delbourgo
James Delbourgo is Associate Professor of History of Science and Atlantic World at Rutgers University. This interview is based on his new book, Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum (Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press,...
The Author's Corner with Gideon Mailer
Gideon Mailer is Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. This interview is based on his new book, John Witherspooon’s American Revolution: Enlightenment and Religion from the Creation of Britain to the Founding of the United States (The University...
Are We Ready for a World Without Reason?
Columnist Anne Applebaum uses Donald Trump’s recent comments about Sweden to reflect on the importance of reason and the Enlightenment to Western Civilization. Here is a taste of her column “Sweden, Immigrants, and Trump’s Post-Enlightenment World.” And so: A faked...
The Author's Corner with Nicholas Guyatt
Nicholas Guyatt is University Lecturer in American History at the University of Cambridge. This interview is based on his new book, Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation (Basic Books, 2016). JF: What led you to write Bind...
The Author's Corner with John Dixon
John Dixon is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. This interview is based on his new book, The Enlightenment of Cadwallader Colden: Empire, Science, and Intellectual Culture in British...
The Author’s Corner with Douglas Sweeney
Douglas Sweeney is Chair of the Church History & History of Christian Thought Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. This interview is based on his new book, Edwards the Exegete: Biblical Interpretation and Anglo-Protestant Culture on the...
George Marsden on British Colonial Collegiate Education, Circa 1764
At Brown University. Great stuff at the beginning of the lecture on the historical imagination. And Gordon Wood is in the audience! I think he would like Marsden’s opening comments. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OwluiBp7c8]
Oh How I Wish Contributors Received a Free Copy
The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment is here for the low, low price of $451.00. From what I can tell, Mark Spencer has edited an amazing research tool for students of American history. It is now time for all...
The Author’s Corner with Tom Shachtman
Tom Shachtman is an author, filmmaker, and educator who has written over thirty books along with a series of documentary films and has lectured at various universities and historical societies. This interview is based on his forthcoming book Gentleman Scientists and […]