• Skip to main content
  • Current
  • Home
  • About
    • About Current
    • Masthead
  • Podcasts
  • Blogs
    • The Way of Improvement Leads Home
    • The Arena
  • Reviews
  • 🔎

slavery

The Author’s Corner with Richard Carwardine

Rachel Petroziello   |  January 30, 2025

Richard Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. This interview is based on his new book, Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union (Knopf, […]

Peter Wood’s “Black Majority” turns 50

John Fea   |  January 8, 2025

When I started teaching colonial American history twenty-five years ago, Peter Wood’s Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina was on the syllabus. I used to teach it alongside Edmund Morgan’s American Slavery-American Freedom. (Today my students no […]

The Author’s Corner with Justene Hill Edwards

Rachel Petroziello   |  November 4, 2024

Justene Hill Edwards is Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia. This interview is based on her new book, Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024). JF: What led […]

The Author’s Corner with Timothy Messer-Kruse

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 23, 2024

Timothy Messer-Kruse is Professor in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University. This interview is based on his new book, Slavery’s Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution (LSU Press, 2024). JF: What […]

The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Lande

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 22, 2024

Jonathan Lande is Assistant Professor of History at Purdue University. This interview is based on his new book, Freedom Soldiers: The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons (Oxford University Press, 2024). JF: What led you […]

The Author’s Corner with Kenneth S. Sacks

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 18, 2024

Kenneth S. Sacks is Professor of History and Classics at Brown University. This interview is based on his new book, Emerson’s Civil Wars: Spirit and Society in the Age of Abolition (Cambridge University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to […]

The Author’s Corner with Andrew Sillen

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 11, 2024

Andrew Sillen is a visiting research scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University and a former Professor of Paleoanthropology and the Founding Director of Development at the University of Cape Town as well as the Vice President of […]

The Author’s Corner with Peter Kolchin

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 1, 2024

Peter Kolchin is Reed Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Delaware. This interview is based on his new book, Emancipation: The Abolition and Aftermath of American Slavery and Russian Serfdom (Yale University Press, 2024). JF: What led you […]

The Author’s Corner with Michael J. Douma

Rachel Petroziello   |  August 19, 2024

Michael J. Douma is Associate Professor in the McDonough School of Business and Director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics at Georgetown University. This interview is based on his new book, The Slow Death of […]

I think Trump adviser Stephen Miller forgot about the slave trade

John Fea   |  August 17, 2024

What to read for Juneteenth

John Fea   |  June 19, 2024

Still unfamiliar with Juneteenth? Get up to speed here. The Atlantic offers some reading suggestions, including this take on Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth: Back in 2021, about a month before Juneteenth became a federal holiday, The Atlantic published an excerpt from Annette Gordon-Reed’s […]

Juneteenth before Juneteenth

John Fea   |  June 17, 2024

Historians Susannah J. Ural and Ann Marsh Daly tell the stories of Black men and women celebrating emancipation well before Juneteenth became a holiday. Here is a taste of their piece at The Atlantic: In a quiet corner of a library at […]

The Author’s Corner with John K. Bardes

Rachel Petroziello   |  June 14, 2024

John K. Bardes is Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University. This interview is based on his new book, The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2024). […]

Evangelical blast from the past:

John Fea   |  June 8, 2024

Amy Grant tackles slavery and the Holocaust in 1988:

The Author’s Corner with Cara Rogers Stevens

Rachel Petroziello   |  June 7, 2024

Cara Rogers Stevens is Associate Professor of History at Ashland University. This interview is based on her new book, Thomas Jefferson and the Fight against Slavery (University Press of Kansas, 2024). JF: What led you to write Thomas Jefferson and the […]

The Author’s Corner with Scott Gac

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 18, 2024

Scott Gac is Professor of History and American Studies at Trinity College. This interview is based on his new book, Born in Blood: Violence and the Making of America (Cambridge University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write Born […]

The Author’s Corner with Diego Javier Luis

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 14, 2024

Diego Javier Luis is Assistant Professor of History at Tufts University. This interview is based on his new book, The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History (Harvard University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write The First […]

What Nikki Haley gets right and what she gets wrong about slavery and race in America

John Fea   |  January 19, 2024

My message to Nikki Haley’s staff: Please hire a historian. First there was this: Just to be clear, the Civil War was about slavery. We addressed this here. Then there was this: And then there was last night’s CNN town […]

Doug Wilson: The Civil War was fought over “federalism” and “decentralized power”

John Fea   |  January 15, 2024

Over the Christmas holiday, GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley got in hot water for this: Over at The Guardian, Steve Phillips asks why we are still debating the cause of the Civil War. A taste: […]

When two early South Carolinians changed their minds about slavery

John Fea   |  January 4, 2024

The South Carolina State Museum recently acquired the personal Bible of enslaver turned abolitionist William Turpin. Historians David Dangerfield (University of South Carolina-Salkehatchie) and Ramon Jackson (South Carolina State Museum) tell us more at Christianity Today: At first glance, William […]

Next Page »