Roundup

QAnon and the Satanic Panics of Yesteryear

by Daniel N. Gullotta

"The perception of a Christian nation in religious freefall fits almost seamlessly with QAnon’s conviction that the United States is under spiritual assault."

The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages

by Tom Nichols

"The Republican Party has become, in form if not in content, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s."

I Couldn't Unlearn the Name of My Great-Great-Grandfather's Enslaved Person — And I Didn't Want To

by Ann Banks

"It is one thing to recognize systemic racism and to agitate for a more just and anti-racist society. Yet it is something else truly to open yourself to the heart-stopping details, the specific horror of kidnapping a 2-year-old child, a child whose name I know."

Many Black Americans Aren’t Rushing to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine – A Long History of Medical Abuse Suggests Why

by Esther Jones

From J. Marion Sims to the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments to the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks' DNA, there are ample historical reasons for Black Americans to feel that medical authorities are unconcerned with their safety and mistrust new COVID vaccines. Acknowledging this history is essential for public health authorities to gain trust. 

What Counts, These Days, In Baseball?

by David Henkin

A cultural historian considers recent baseball controversies in light of new books on the sport, and concludes that ideas of fair competition have much more to do with our social context than fans acknowledge. 

A Path to Citizenship for 11 Million Immigrants is a No-Brainer

by A. K. Sandoval-Strausz

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act showed the effectiveness of a large-scale amnesty for undocumented immigrants and reflected a reasonable and pragmatic approach to normalizing the status of immigrants as workers and community members. It should be remembered as a success and a model. 

When Men Started to Obsess Over Six-Packs

by Conor Heffernan

Today's culture of Instagrammed abdominal muscles traces back to the time when nineteenth-century physical culture movements converged with the archaeological discovery of ancient Greek statuary (bodybuilders then used the new technology of photography in ways we'd recognize). 

No, Classics Shouldn’t ‘Burn’

by James Kierstead

A classicist offers a rebuttal to a recent critique of the field, arguing that practitioners are justified in evaluating a "western civilization" but do so from a multitude of perspectives.

Higher Ed’s Misguided Purging of Trump Supporters

by Jonathan Zimmerman

"The real threat isn’t a horde of evil Trumpers clamoring at our gates. It’s our quest to root out the enemies of democracy, which never ends well for the university."

A Star Is Shorn: Thanks to Woefully Underinformed Campus Activists, Acting Legend, Badger Alum, and Civil Rights Champion Fredric March Is Suddenly “Off Wisconsin”

by George Gonis

In 2018, the University of Wisconsin stripped actor Fredric March's name from a campus theater because of his brief affiliation in 1919 with a campus society called the Honorary Ku Klux Klan. The author argues that this misconstrues the nature of the society, which was not affiliated with the "Invisible Empire" KKK, and erases March's steadfast support for civil rights and opposition to Nazism.

Energy Deregulation Worsened the Texas Crisis — And Enron is Partly to Blame

by Gavin Benke

The problems in Texas are a product of an approach to the energy business that Lone Star State companies like Enron pursued at the end of the 20th century. 

Having Vaccines Alone isn’t Enough to Defeat COVID-19

by Joyce Chaplin

Early efforts at smallpox innoculation showed the importance of social and political factors in making new medical technologies effective. 

An Ode To Kenneth Kusmer (1945-2020)

by Walter Greason

A former doctoral student says "Kenneth Kusmer is a legendary historian for his scholarship, his teaching, and his service. Those accomplishments only scratch the surface of his contributions to history and civilization."

The Necessity of National Unity: Defeated Confederates’ International Appeals to Unity

by Ann Tucker

Defeated Confederate partisans found justification and support for national reunification without accountability by pointing selectively to the contentious politics of the European nationalist movement. 

Take Down Chicago’s Lincoln Statues? It’s Iconoclasm Gone Mad

by Sidney Blumenthal and Harold Holzer

Two biographers of Lincoln question the Chicago Monuments Project, which has placed famous statues of the 16th president on a list of public memorials subject to possible removal.

The Campaign to Free the Wilmington 10 Holds the Key to Successful Activism Today

by Kenneth Janken

A campaign to free 10 racial justice protesters in 1972 worked because it connected the cause to the problems with police, poverty, and racism experienced by a broad cross section of the community, and "recognize[d] racism not as separate from history but as part of historical processes and political economy."

My Brother’s Keeper

by Ada Ferrer

Historian Ada Ferrer offers her own family history of separation and reunification around the Cuban revolution. 

A History of Technological Hype

by Victoria E.M. Cain and Adam Laats

The history of education shows a series of episodes of hasty, ill-considered investment in hyped technologies that failed spectacularly. Will that history convince administrators to look (and research) before they take the next leap?

Spin Doctors Have Shaped the Environmental Debate for Decades

by Melissa Aronczyk

E. Bruce Harrison shifted American business's response to the environmental movement from a posture of denial and refusal to one of strategic compromise that elevated industry's scientists to an authoritative position which has kept a brake on green reforms and regulation. 

Emmanuel Macron’s Socially Constructed Bogeymen

by Daniel W. Drezner

What, exactly, "Islamo-leftism" is, and what relationship it could possibly have to American academic theories, are two big questions left unanswered by the French President's attacks on academic ideas.