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historiography

Why did the chicken cross the road? Historians respond.

John Fea   |  January 19, 2022

University of Chicago historian Kathleen Belew is teaching her students how different kinds of historians might respond to this age old question: Here are some the answers she has received:...

Episode 91: “Providential History and the Pacific Northwest”

John Fea   |  September 19, 2021

Did Marcus Whitman “save” Oregon? In this episode we talk with Sarah Koenig, author of Providence and the Invention of American History. She tells the story of a Protestant missionary to the Pacific Northwest and how his story provides a...

Bernard Bailyn, RIP

John Fea   |  August 7, 2020

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...

Os Guinness’s Appeal to the Past is Deeply Problematic

John Fea   |  May 25, 2020

Watch Christian speaker and author Os Guinness deliver a speech titled 1776 vs. 1789: the Roots of the Present Crisis. It is part of an event hosted by the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview.  Someone sent it to me...

The Author’s Corner with Thomas Richards

Annie Thorn   |  May 21, 2020

Thomas Richards Jr. teaches history at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. This interview is based on his new book, Breakaway Americas: The Unmanifest Future of the Jacksonian United States (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write Breakaway Americas? TR: This book...

White Supremacy, Capitalism, and a New Book on the History of St. Louis

John Fea   |  May 19, 2020

Is capitalism racist? If you answer yes, you are one of the cool kids in the historical profession right now. Scholars working on the connections between capitalism and slavery have produced some interesting, helpful, provocative, and controversial work. Much of...

Remembering Donald Dayton

John Fea   |  May 13, 2020

Theologian and church historian Donald W. Dayton has died. While I was a student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School pursuing an M.A. in American church history, I read a lot of Dayton. As a young evangelical, I was passionate about...

The Author’s Corner with Gregory Downs

Annie Thorn   |  February 17, 2020

Gregory Downs is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. This interview is based on his new book, The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic (University of North Carolina...

The 1619 Project: Debate Continues

John Fea   |  January 25, 2020

When we last left the debate on the 1619 Project, Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz leveled more criticism of the project in a piece at The Atlantic.   Social media historians (and some non-historians who are advancing informed and not-so-informed opinions)...

What Do You Wish You Had Learned in the First Semester of Your History Graduate Program?

John Fea   |  July 10, 2019

Recently, Baylor University history professor Andrea Turpin asked her Twitter followers a question about her upcoming graduate-level historiography class: Historians: I am teaching graduate historiography in the fall and would love to know: What is something you wish you had...

Hayden White on the Humanities

John Fea   |  April 4, 2019

Hayden White, the author of Metahistory and the champion of narrative history, died in 2018.  The Chronicle of Higher Education has published a transcript of a radio interview he did in 2008 with Stanford literature professor Robert Pogue Harrison.  Here is a taste of...

The Relevance of the Enlightenment (#AHA19)

John Fea   |  January 4, 2019

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...

Gender History at #AHA19

John Fea   |  January 3, 2019

Over at Perspectives on History, Colgate University historian Monica Mercado “takes stock” of gender history at this weekend’s annual meeting of the American Historical Association.  Here is a taste: More than 30 years after Joan Scott first argued for gender as...

The Revival of Midwestern History

John Fea   |  December 6, 2018

Jon Lauck of the University of South Dakota is one of the growing number of scholars trying to bring back the history of Midwest.  Check out his books: From Warm Center to Ragged Edge: The Erosion of Midwestern Literary and...

Tweet Thread of the Day: The Historiography of American Conservatism

John Fea   |  September 10, 2018

Last weekend Politico published historian Geoffrey Kabaservice‘s piece “Liberals Don’t Know Much About Conservative History.” Kabaservice writes: The end-of-century victories of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, however, forced historians to realize that conservatism could no longer be dismissed as a mere road...

The Author’s Corner with Paul Escott

John Fea   |  April 19, 2018

Paul Escott is Reynolds Professor of History at Wake Forest University. This interview is based on his new book, Rethinking the Civil War Era: Directions for Research (The University Press of Kentucky, 2018). JF: What led you to write Rethinking the Civil War Era? PE: I...

Mary Beth Norton Was the First Historian to Use the Word “Gender” in *The William and Mary Quarterly*

John Fea   |  February 8, 2018

The phrase “African American” was not used in the WMQ until 1999. Check out Michael McDonnell‘s piece at Panorama on the William and Mary Quarterly‘s searchable index.  For those of you unfamiliar with the William and Mary Quarterly, it is the premier journal of...

A Short Survey of Reconstruction Historiography

John Fea   |  February 5, 2018

Do you need a quick primer on the historiography of Reconstruction?  If so, check out Allen Guelzo‘s short piece at History News Network: “The History of Reconstruction’s Third Phase.”  Here is a taste: Understanding Reconstruction as a bourgeois revolution –...

What Should We Make Of Populism?

John Fea   |  January 19, 2018

Over at Politico, Joshua Zeitz wonders if American historians were wrong when they said populism was a “good thing.”  A taste: Imagine, if you will, that millions of hard-working Americans finally reached their boiling point. Roiled by an unsettling pattern of...

A High School Student is Asking About Leopold von Ranke.

John Fea   |  October 12, 2017

Apparently a high school student is sending e-mails to historians asking them about 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke.  The student is interested in whether or not these historians believe in “objectivity” in the writing of history.  As some of...

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