Roundup

What Story do You Want to Tell? Learning Narrative Storytelling through Podcasting

by Hayley R. Bowman

Historians looking to work in new media need to stop asking who will care about their research and figure out the story they want to tell in a podcast. 

How New York’s Suburbs Got So Segregated

by Alan J. Singer

The builders of Long Island's mass postwar suburbs chose not to challenge existing patterns of segregation, with consequences for communities and individuals today. 

The Ethics of Coalition-Building

by Samuel Moyn

Can progressives justify alliances with the America-First right to push Biden to stop America's "forever wars"? 

Undoing the Voting Rights Act

by Steve Suitts

Samuel Alito ventured far from the legislative intent of Congress's 1982 update to the Voting Rights act, making it much more difficult to challenge restrictive state voting laws. 

What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?

by Laura K. Field

"Many of the people associated with Claremont, including several of its most prominent figures, have gone all in for MAGA—some even embracing its most authoritarian, paranoid, and racist strands."

How the Meaning of Infrastructure Has Changed Over Time

by Peter A. Shulman

Economists who have criticized the broad working definition of "infrastructure" in the Biden bill need to consider the history of the term, as "the means to build something greater." 

What Was the Fascism Debate?

by Udi Greenberg

What are the stakes in the academic debate over whether the Trump administration was fascist? 

Black Power and Anti-Carceral State Infrastructure

by Joshua L. Crutchfield

Mutual aid groups that formed in response to the COVID pandemic echo the ways that participants in the Black Freedom movement sought to create alternative instititutions for the benefit of communities and individuals that did not reinforce the power of the police. 

Like the U.S., Rwanda is in a Pitched Battle Over its History

by Tom Zoellner

"Rwanda holds an important lesson for America’s culture wars today, but not in the way Tucker Carlson thinks. Rather, in Rwanda, political leaders have rewritten the country’s history to gain political power."

The Fires This Time: The Climate View from California

by Rebecca Gordon

This month's heat emergencies signal that the catastrophic effects of climate change are definitely here and will hit the disadvantaged the hardest.

The Chinese Communist Party Has Followed Sun Yat-sen’s Road Map

by Peter Zarrow

The recent course of the Chinese Communist Party follows the vision of nationalist Sun Yat-sen more than that of Karl Marx. 

Donald Trump has Blurred the Line Between Populism and Fascism in a Dangerous Way

by Federico Finchelstein

A number of right populist leaders in the post-World War II era kept power by embracing democratic elections. Donald Trump is pushing a return to authoritarian politics that rejects democracy. 

The Roundup Top Ten for July 9, 2021

by HNN Staff

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

A New Deal for Writers in America

by Scott Borchert

"The best reason to support a new F.W.P. is also the most obvious. Like its predecessor, the project would be an economic rescue plan for writers, broadly defined: workers who have been grappling with a slowly unfolding crisis in their industry for at least a decade."

The Culture Wars Come for the American Historical Association

by Daniel J. Samet

The author contends that the American Historical Association is mischaracterizing Texas's recent legislation on history curricula, which is a needed corrective to left-wing excesses. 

The Root Cause of Central American Migration? The United States

by Aviva Chomsky

Joe Biden's pledge to pay attention to the conditions in Central America that are driving migration is a good start, but policy needs to be based in a recognition that those conditions have been created by the economic and military influence of the United States. 

The Paradox of Trumpist Patriotism: You Love America, but Hate Most Americans

by Joshua Tait

"The paradox of the most ardent patriots being angriest at the state of their own country is a version of the conservative dilemma."

Texas Republicans Rush to Guard the Alamo from the Facts

by Jason Stanford

"The Alamo myth leaves much out, most notably that Texians opposed Mexican laws that would free the enslaved workers they needed to farm cotton."

We Disagree on a Lot of Things. Except the Danger of Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws

by Kmele Foster, David French, Jason Stanley and Thomas Chatterton Williams

Political Philosopher Jason Stanley is part of an ideologically diverse group of writers who, regardless of their view of antiracist politics and discourse, condemn the passage of laws restricting the teaching of "critical race theory." 

Critical Race Theory is Just the New Buzzword in Conservatives’ War on Campuses

by Lauren Lassabe

"When understood in this historical context, it becomes clear that complaints about critical race theory are not genuine objections to one type of idea or teaching. Instead, this grievance is part of a far longer and larger campaign to reshape campuses by elevating conservative views and quashing liberal ones."