Over at Inside Higher Ed, historian Steven Mintz helps us make sense of the American left. Here is a taste of his piece, “What Does It Mean to Be a Leftist in 2023?“: Today, the left takes many different forms....
Melissa Blair is Associate Professor and Department Chair of History at Auburn University. This interview is based on her new book, Bringing Home the White House: The Hidden History of Women who Shaped the Presidency in the Twentieth Century (University...
Kathryn Cramer Brownell is Associate Professor of History at Purdue University. This interview is based on her new book, 24/7 Politics: Cable Television and the Fragmenting of America from Watergate to Fox News (Princeton University Press, 2023). JF: What led...
The Atlantic is running an excerpt from a new book by Harvard political scientists Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt titled, Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. They write: “Born of compromise and improvisation, the U.S....
Zhongping Chen is Professor of History at the University of Victoria. This interview is based on his new book, Transpacific Reform and Revolution: The Chinese in North America, 1898-1918 (Stanford University Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Transpacific...
Richard N. Langlois is Professor of Economics at the University of Connecticut. This interview is based on his new book, The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise (Princeton University Press, 2023). JF: What led you...
Donald Trump is the first president or former president to face a federal indictment, but as Joshua Zeitz points out at Politico, a sitting vice-president and the president of the Confederacy faced treason charges. Here is a taste of Zeitz’s...
Here is CNN: “The former president faces his first federal indictment for retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys — a total of 37 counts.” Read an...
Robert Mann holds the Manship Endowed Chair in Journalism at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication. This interview is based on his new book, Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU (LSU Press, 2023). JF: What led you to...
Over at Jacobin, Stephen Barton introduces many of us to J. Stitt Wilson, the socialist major of Berkeley, California from 1911 to 1913. Here is a taste: On Easter Sunday, 1911, San Francisco’s Central Theater was packed with more than...
Over at his Substack, historian William Hogeland is telling “lurid tales” of American elections. He begins his series with the presidential election of 1796. Here is a taste of his post: Jefferson supporters, labeling Adams “His Rotundity,” claimed that the...
66 days. That’s how long Didius Julianus lasted as Roman emperor in 193 C.E. As historian Edward Watts notes, he “ran out of things to give his allies.” Here is a taste of his piece at Zocalo: Julianus was so...
Here is part of what I wrote last night after the fourteenth ballot for Speaker of the House: Before the end of the vote, McCarthy had to walk up the aisle to talk to Matt Gaetz to try to get...
The House of Representatives just adjourned for the day. It did not choose a speaker. Hakeem Jeffries won on the first ballot. Jeffries also won on the second ballot and third ballot. Nineteen right-wing Republicans voted against McCarthy on the...
Alex Zakaras is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. This interview is based on his new book, The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson (Princeton University Press, 2022). JF: What led...
Yes. Here is Josh Kraushaar at Axios: Shifts in the demographics of the two parties’ supporters — taking place before our eyes — are arguably the biggest political story of our time. The big picture: Republicans are becoming more working class...
Sam Lebovic is Associate Professor of History at George Mason University. This interview is based on his new book, A Righteous Smokescreen: Postwar America and the Politics of Cultural Globalization (University of Chicago Press, 2022). JF: What led you to...
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....
William Novak is Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. This interview is based on his new book, New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State (Harvard University Press, 2022)....
Steven K. Green is Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University. This interview is based on his new book, Separating Church and State: A History (Cornell University Press,...
