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historical analogies

Is the Build Back Better Act dead?

John Fea   |  December 28, 2021

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod does not think so. He asks us to remember the Affordable Care Act. Here is a taste of his New York Times op-ed: No historical parallel is perfect, but the near-death and revival of the...

“No, getting vaccinated isn’t like being forced to wear a yellow star”

John Fea   |  May 4, 2021

When it comes to understanding the present, historical analogies can only do so much. For a nice introduction to the use of historical analogies check out Current Managing Editor Jay Green’s essay “Public Reasoning by Historical Analogy: Some Christian Reflections”...

Gordon Wood on a “distant democratic world that eerily resembles our own”

John Fea   |  March 6, 2021

Historian Gordon Wood wonders if we are in a new “Age of Jackson.” Is Wood making a historical analogy? This is unusual for him. Here is a taste: Many people have compared Donald Trump’s presidency to that of Andrew Jackson...

When false allegations from court evangelical Charlie Kirk resulted in death threats to a Harvard professor

John Fea   |  November 13, 2020

Danielle Allen is a politics professor at Harvard. In a recent article at The Washington Post she writes about the death threats she received after Charlie Kirk, a spokesperson for Liberty University’s Falkirk Center, made a false allegation about her...

Episode 72: Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump, and the Upending of SHEAR

John Fea   |  August 2, 2020

In this episode we talk with Daniel Feller, the editor of The Papers of Andrew Jackson at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. We discuss his work as a documentary editor, the uses of Andrew Jackson in the age of Trump, and...

What Can We Learn From the Great Depression?

John Fea   |  May 19, 2020

Here is Harvard historian Lizabeth Cohen at The Atlantic: Americans are out of work. More than 20 million lost their jobs in April alone. Lines at food banks stretch for miles. Businesses across the country are foundering. Headlines scream that the coronavirus...

Historians Doubt Received Wisdom

John Fea   |  April 6, 2020

How should the 1918 influenza pandemic inform our response to COVID-19? Here is a taste of Kevin Peraino’s piece at Politico: So what is history for? Yes, it can reinforce one’s pet theories. But there’s another way to think about it:...

Should Historians Judge People by the Standards of Their Time?

John Fea   |  January 28, 2020

I get this all the time: “Let’s not judge slaveholders based on present-day morality because they were products of their time.” Indeed, slaveholders were products of their time.  The historian’s primary goal is to try to understand them in context...

Andrew Johnson’s 1866 Anti-Impeachment Tour

John Fea   |  January 13, 2020

This sounds familiar. Over at The Washington Post, Ronald Shafer describes Andrew Johnson’s attempt to rally supporters against his possible impeachment.  Johnson took the road to make his case. Here is a taste: “Congress, factious, domineering, tyrannical Congress has undertaken to...

The Benefits of Impeachment: Some Lessons from Andrew Johnson

John Fea   |  October 8, 2019

Historian Gregory Downs thinks that Trump should be impeached even if the Senate keeps him office. There is a good chance that the time between the impeachment in the House and the trial in the Senate might “curtail Trump’s worst...

Bacon’s Rebellion in the Age of Trump

John Fea   |  February 15, 2018

We covered Bacon’s Rebellion yesterday in my U.S. survey class.  Like last year, the subject seems more relevant than ever.  I wrote this piece a few months ago at The Panorama: In Spring 2017, I gave a lecture to my history...

Worse Than Watergate?

John Fea   |  February 3, 2018

Conservative politicians and pundits believe that the FBI is secretly working to undermine the Donald Trump’s presidency.  This, of course, is why Trump released the Nunes memo yesterday.  Here is Iowa Congressman Steve King: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQujubX__v8&w=560&h=315] “This is earth-shaking and...

Trump Echoed His Favorite President Last Night

John Fea   |  January 31, 2018

Andrew Jackson was a great defender of American democracy.  He was a president elected by the “common man.” He believed that the people gave him his mandate to rule.  “The people,” of course, were white men.  They deserved his loyalty...

More on Historical Analogies

John Fea   |  October 27, 2017

From the moment Trump announced his candidacy for POTUS historians began making analogies.  Then, after nearly all of the analogies were exhausted, they began interrogating the very idea of historical analogies.  Zachary Jonathan Jacobson‘s recent piece at The Chronicle of Higher...

Historians Discuss American History in the Age of Trump

John Fea   |  September 7, 2017

Tom Ashbrook interviews historians Judith Giesberg and Julian Zelizer on his WBUR-Boston show “On Point” Listen here. Themes discussed and things learned: Julian Zelizer is writing a book about Newt Gingrich Zelizer says that we should be careful not to place...

What Should Historians Be Doing in the “Age of Trump?”

John Fea   |  June 27, 2017

Moshik Temkin, a historian at Harvard’s Kennedy School, is not a big fan of historical analogies.  These analogies are never perfect and they often say more about the politics of the historian making them than they do about his or...

Is Trump the New Nixon? Historians Debate the Usefulness of Analogies

John Fea   |  June 2, 2017

At The New Republic, Graham Vyse asks this question to several historians and gets several different answers.  This, of course, should be expected.  Historical analogies are always problematic. Rick Perlstein, for example, describes “the whole concept of the ‘historical parallel’ as perverse,...

Johnson, Not Jackson

John Fea   |  May 24, 2017

If you want to draw a historical analogy between Donald Trump and a previous POTUS, historian and writer Joshua Zeitz thinks that Andrew Johnson, not Andrew Jackson, “provides the best model for Trump’s collapsing presidency.”  Johnson, of course, was the...

Some Historical Perspective on the Watergate-Comey Comparison

John Fea   |  May 13, 2017

Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer and Brandeis University historian Martin Keller wonder if current comparisons between Watergate and the firing of James Comey are just another way for liberals, progressives, and Democrats to score political points. Here is a taste...

Donald Trump Will Be Bringing a 1,400 Pound Block of Cheese to the White House Next Week

John Fea   |  March 17, 2017

Just kidding. I think the kids call that “click bait.” Everyone seems to writing about Andrew Jackson this week.  Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that Donald Trump visited his grave the other day?...

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