Roundup

What Joe Can Learn From Ike

by Ted Widmer

Eisenhower understood that less could be more, and his calming speeches stood in sober contrast to the heated rhetoric of the times.

#WEWANTMOREHISTORY

by Greg Downs, Hilary N. Green, Scott Hancock, and Kate Masur

At historic sites across the United States on September 26, dozens of participating historians presented evidence to disrupt, correct, or fill out the oversimplified and problematic messages too often communicated by the nation’s memorial landscape.

Trump’s Illness, like Woodrow Wilson’s Stroke, Could be Turning Point in History

by Christopher McKnight Nichols

Presidential illness and disability have historically functioned as a turning point from which presidents never fully recover even if their bodies and minds do.

Trying to Make Social Media ‘Fairer’ Poses Dangers for Republicans

by Paul Matzko

While trying to force media to be “fair” sounds good in theory, waging political campaigns via regulatory policies can backfire.

Our Unrepresentative Republic

by Mark Boonshoft

We should understand that plans to add states or end the Electoral College are plans to restore actual representation. Their opponents are defending a system of virtual representation. You don’t have to be a party hack to see these similarities.

The Creation Of Holidays In America Has Always Been Political

by Diana Muir Appelbaum

All holidays are invented, none will last forever and the decision to add a holiday to the federal calendar is always political.

Why History Shows 'Court Packing' Isn't Extreme

by Nicole Hemmer

The politicized change in the size of the court has already happened. It occurred in 2016, when a Republican-controlled Senate allowed the court to shrink to eight justices. 

How In-Person Voting Can Save America

by Nils Gilman and Keri Leigh Merritt

Americans need an actual plan, a strategy to ensure that their votes will count. The best way to accomplish this momentous task? Mask up, be safe and vote in-person, preferably early.

Popular TV Characters Have Become a Part of the 2020 Campaign. Here’s Why

by Oscar Winberg

By the early 1970s, politics was moving to a focus on candidates over parties; New York Mayor John Lindsay sought help for his 1972 presidential bid from actor Carroll O'Connor, whose endorsement blurred the lines between the liberal O'Connor and his reactionary Archie Bunker character.

“Where The Waters Reflect The Clouds”: Examining Minnesota’s Indigenous History

by Katrina Phillips

"Recent events have forced Minneapolitans and Minnesotans to reckon with the state’s treatment of historically excluded populations. For the original inhabitants of what’s now Minneapolis, though, resistance and activism are nothing new."

Packing the Court: Amid National Crises, Lincoln and His Republicans Remade the Supreme Court to Fit their Agenda

by Calvin Schermerhorn

In remaking the court in Republicans’ image, the party got what it wanted – but not what was needed to fulfill the promise of “a new birth of freedom.”

Accuracy and Authenticity in a Digital City

by Anne Sarah Rubin

The technological capacity to render the city of the past in minute detail doesn't replace the work of interpreting and understanding how people lived in its spaces.

The Political History of Concealing Illness, from Brezhnev to Trump

by Joy Neumeyer

Like his Communist counterparts, Trump’s predilection for pageantry offers a hollow illusion of vitality while letting potentially fatal problems fester.

The Desert Keeps Receipts

by B. Erin Cole

A meditation on the preservation of the Nevada Test Site in graphic form.

The Roundup Top Ten for October 9, 2020

The week's top op-eds by historians and about history from around the web. 

Princeton, Betsy DeVos, And The Need For a Real Debate About Race

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Although the Department of Education investigation of Princeton is likely in bad faith, Jonathan Zimmerman contends that Princeton's self-flagellation about its institutional racism reflects a rising orthodoxy, not a deep debate about how the university operates.

The Overlooked Queer History of Medieval Christianity

by Roland Betancourt

An attentive reading of the record shows that same-sex intimacy, gender fluidity, and diverse sexual identities were prevalent among early Christians, contrary to the claims made by some fundamentalists today that these represent deviations from historical norms. 

Why the White Abolitionist Should Have Listened to the Black Abolitionist

by Ann Banks

In a rave review of the video series The Good Lord Bird, the New York Times proclaimed in its headline “the necessity of John Brown.”   As a muse, John Brown is having a moment. 

Why ‘Stand Back and Stand By’ Should Set Off Alarm Bells

by Kathleen Belew

"What binds these disparate groups is that they espouse the violent defense of white supremacy."

The Plot Against Whitmer Won’t Be The Last White Supremacist Threat

by Kathleen Belew

I'm very concerned that more violence is imminent, and that these ideologies pose an imminent threat to our democracy and to people going about their everyday lives.