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...
political history
Michael Kazin on the history of the Democratic Party
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....
The Author’s Corner with William Novak
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)....
The Author’s Corner with Steven K. Green
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,...
The radical tradition in early national New York
Historian Sean Griffin explores the legacy of Thomas Paine in early 19th-century New York. Here is a taste of his piece at the blog Gotham: New York City has long been considered a hotbed of radical political ideas, as well...
The Author’s Corner with John Leshy
John Leshy is Emeritus Harry D. Sunderland and Distinguished Professor of Real Property Law at UC Hastings College of the Law. This interview is based on his new book, Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands (Yale University...
New York City mayor Eric Adams “isn’t easily placed on the traditional left-right spectrum”
I have long been attracted to figures–both in history and in the present–who do not fit well into the political boxes we try to create for them. Fordham University political scientist Christina Greer puts New York City mayor Eric Adams...
I barely recognize the Republican Party of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “economic girley men” GOP Convention speech in 2004
When Schwarzenegger gave this speech he was about eleven months into his first term as the 38th Governor of California. It is about the American dream, immigration, opportunity, and political and economic freedom. There is no culture war rhetoric in...
A database of the 1,715 members of Congress who owned slaves
The Washington Post has published a database of American enslavers. It includes some familiar names: Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Breckinridge, Preston Brooks, Aaron Burr, Pierce Butler, John C. Calhoun, Charles Carroll, Henry Clay, De Witt Clinton, Davy Crockett, Jefferson...
Is Biden’s presidency doomed? Some historical perspective.
Princeton’s Julian Zelizer offers some historical context at CNN: Those who are worried should find some solace in the fact that contemporary presidents have been able to come back from difficult moments like these. Challenging first terms don’t inevitably put...
Harry Reid: Mormon politician
Today a couple of Harry Reid pieces caught my attention. If you have not yet heard, the Nevada senator (1987-2017) and former Senate Majority Leader (2007-2015) died earlier this week. Over at The Washington Post, historian Benjamin Park reflects on...
Episode 29: “The Rise of Barack Obama”
The background to the speech that would change his life and the life of a nation. Episode 29: “The Rise of Barack Obama” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above new episodes of this narrative history podcast. Here is...
How members of Congress used violence to silence their political adversaries
Joan E. Greve of The Guardian interviews Yale historian Joanne Freeman about violence in Congress. If any of my U.S. history survey students are reading this post, this is what we talked about in class yesterday. Here is a taste...
The Author’s Corner with J. Matthew Gallman
J. Matthew Gallman is Professor of History at the University of Florida. This interview is based on his new book, The Cacophony of Politics: Northern Democrats and the American Civil War (University of Virginia Press, 2021). JF: What led you...
The Author’s Corner with Benjamin Wetzel
Benjamin Wetzel is Assistant Professor of History at Taylor University. This interview is based on his new book, Theodore Roosevelt: Preaching from the Bully Pulpit (Oxford University Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Theodore Roosevelt? BW: In the fall...
The C-SPAN presidential rankings are here!
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...
Are we in the midst of a third American revolution?
CNN legal scholar Carrie Cordero and historian Ed Larson at USA Today: We are all familiar with the first American Revolution: an actual war, a rebellion for self-governance. But it was not long after that Thomas Jefferson called the election of 1800...
On fighting “a guerilla battle at the grassroots of a generation of lower-middle-class people who feel betrayed and exploited”
Here is Rick Perlstein in Reaganland on the rise of the New Right in the 1970s: That notion–conservatism as an ideology for working people–was another New Right theme. [Richard] Viguerie’s father had been a construction worker; his mother toiled in...
The second episode of “A History of Evangelicals and Politics” podcast is here!
Episode 1: “The Religious Making of a President” (our second episode) dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this brand new narrative history podcast. In this episode I talk about the differences between my conversion experience...
What is conservatism?
As historian Joshua Tait reminds us, the meaning of the term “conservatism” has been a contested one in the United States. In his recent piece at The Bulwark he compares a circle of writers in the 1940s and early 1950s...