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Michael Kazin

Michael Kazin: Democrats must “revive aggressive populism on the left”

John Fea   |  November 9, 2024

Here is the Georgetown historian at Dissent: Perhaps the only positive consequence of the victory of an utterly despicable nominee and his down-ballot faithful is that progressives inside and outside the Democratic Party are groping their way toward a common […]

Historian Michael Kazin remembers his life as a Weatherman

John Fea   |  October 10, 2023

Michael Kazin is one of the best political historians working today. Check out our interview with him in Episode 41 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. We discussed his work on populism. Back in 2021, Current published his […]

Cornel West is running for president

John Fea   |  June 5, 2023

Here is Maggie Astor at The New York Times: Cornel West, the progressive activist and professor, announced a presidential campaign on Monday with the People’s Party, a third party led by a former campaign staff member for Senator Bernie Sanders. […]

Michael Kazin: American leftists should support Ukraine

John Fea   |  March 8, 2023

The Georgetown historian weighs-in at Dissent. Here is a taste of his piece, “Reject the Left-Right Alliance Against Ukraine“: At critical times, foreign wars have tested the moral convictions of American leftists and affected the fate of their movement for […]

“Socialism has been as impossible to separate from the narrative of the nation’s history as the capitalist economy itself”

John Fea   |  January 5, 2023

Over at Literary Hub, Georgetown historian Michael Kazin offers a “Brief History of American Socialism.” Here is a taste: “America will never be a socialist country,” declared Donald Trump in his 2019 State of the Union Address, given to a […]

How the populist tables have turned

John Fea   |  September 6, 2022

Over Labor Day weekend I reread Michael Kazin‘s 1998 book The Populist Persuasion: An American History and was once again reminded that throughout the course of our nation’s history populism has appeared on both the right and the left. (For […]

Is today’s anti-abortion movement analogous to the 19th-century push for the prohibition of alcohol?

John Fea   |  August 4, 2022

Some of you may remember Chris Shannon’s recent Current feature, “Analogies of Abortion.” The piece criticized a New York Times op-ed by Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin. (Some of you will recall Kazin’s Current review of Anthea Butler’s White Evangelical […]

Michael Kazin compares the backlash to the overturning of Roe with the backlash to prohibition.

John Fea   |  July 11, 2022

The Georgetown University historian of the American Left compares the backlash to Dobbs vs. Jackson with the backlash against prohibition in the 1920s. Here is a taste of his piece at The New York Times: Once the dry movement got […]

Michael Kazin on the history of the Democratic Party

John Fea   |  April 15, 2022

The Georgetown University historian is the author of the recently released What It Took To Win: A History of the Democratic Party. The guys at “Know Your Enemy” podcast talk with Kazin about the book: Listen here.

“While the Right has been busy taking the White House, the Left has been marching on the English department.” E.J. Dionne and Michael Kazin remember Todd Gitlin.

John Fea   |  February 10, 2022

Here is a taste of Dionne’s column on the hero of the New Left who died this past weekend at the age of 79: …Gitlin was president of SDS from 1963 to 1964 and wrote the best account of the […]

Historian Michael Kazin reviews conservative pundit Mark Levin’s book on Marxism

John Fea   |  January 5, 2022

Michael Kazin is a history professor at Georgetown and former editor of Dissent. Some of you may recall his Current review of Anthea Butler’s White Evangelical Racism. Over at The Nation, Kazin reviews radio and Fox News personality Mark Levin’s […]

Kazin: Biden must tell the truth about Afghanistan to save his presidency

John Fea   |  August 20, 2021

Georgetown University historian and Current contributor Michael Kazin compares Biden to LBJ. Here is a taste of his piece at The New York Times: For days now, the news media has likened the chaotic end of our misadventure in Afghanistan, and the […]

The C-SPAN presidential rankings are here!

John Fea   |  July 1, 2021

C-SPAN asked scholars to rank the presidents in terms of public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision, the pursuit of justice, and “performance within the context of the times.” The list […]