Poem of the day: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front Love the quick profit, the annual raise,vacation with pay. Want moreof everything ready-made. Be afraidto know your neighbors and to die.And you will have a window in your head.Not even […]
progress
Are “progress” and “justice” just a “secularized form” of “providence”?
Over at Inside Higher Ed, historian Steven Mintz writes: “In a world increasingly shaped by secularism and scientific empiricism, a paradox emerges: the enduring belief that history has direction, meaning and purpose—a secularized form of providentialism. Once the realm of […]
Ross Douthat: “What if progress isn’t linear, and the World Spirit’s purposes are a bit more complicated than an optimistic form of liberal Protestantism expects?”
Sometimes history does not move in a linear direction towards “progress.” Ross Douthat offers us a short lesson in historical thinking: Here is Douthat’s column on Donald Trump: In different ways in my own lifetime, American conservatism and liberalism placed […]
The Author’s Corner with Eric Herschthal
Eric Herschthal is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Utah. This interview is based on his new book The Science of Abolition: How Slaveholders Became the Enemies of Progress (Yale University Press 2021). JF: What led you to write The Science […]
Matthew Karp critiques the “stamped from the beginning” approach to history
Princeton historian Matthew Karp offers a stinging criticism of the “stamped from the beginning” view of American history. Here is a taste of his Harper’s piece “History as End: 1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.” Whatever birthday it […]