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A French Quarter Pontalba Row building.

A Postcard from New Orleans, Louisiana

… (right). Like St. Louis No. 1, New Orleans carries its history in its very bones, still bearing marks of the past … women and children at auction in New Orleans The dark history of the slave trade in Louisiana is often overlooked in favor of less violent aspects of antebellum history. Until recently, there was no recognition of the …
lab tech with vaccine

Vaccines and Responsible Parenthood

Review of Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization, by Elena Conis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014)
Artist representation of data security and privacy. Large eye peeks through an open window.

These Machines Know Too Damn Much

… And now our privacy is circling the drain.  But the real history of data privacy in America is considerably more … they made the United States the first nation in history to legally demand a regularly scheduled enumeration … more personal details like financial information, criminal history, marital status, medical history, and level of …

American Populism and the Persistence of the Paranoid Style

… bimetallism . All are convinced. [Read here for more on the history of currency and today's currency wars ] It also … the masses of people, whose actions at certain moments in history coincide with some of these beliefs, will share … and cultural tendencies inherent in his title. These books received wide general readership, and the last two won …
Khrushchev during his visit to the Agricultural Research Service Center in Maryland.

Khrushchev’s Great American Road Trip

Review of Nikita Khrushchev's Journey into America, by Lawrence J. Nelson and Matthew G. Schoenbachler (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2019)
… of inferiority complex misses the mark. For lovers of food history, this book is a trove, detailing menus as the …
View of the Solovetskii Monastery.

A Postcard from Solovki

… I’ve spent my career studying and teaching modern history—events and processes from the 16 th century on and … China, India, and Central America—are a reminder that human history is so much longer than we usually care to remember; … Zayatskii Island. It is of course not unusual in Christian history for priests and others to erect crosses or …
President Richard Nixon

Republican Character

Review of Republican Character: From Nixon to Reagan, by Donald T. Critchlow (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018)
… of intense political polarization Arizona State University History Professor Donald Critchlow takes readers back to an … defeat in 1964 was the most decisive in American history. With these three as foils, Critchlow holds up … Character 's Epilogue briefly summarizes America's long history of polarization. Critchlow insists that "judicious …

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: America's Love Affair with the Two-Party System

… current party system? A brief tour of national political history suggests two insights on this question, one obvious, … charismatic and entertaining unforeseen events in American history: Theodore Roosevelt. The split he created in the … majority of significant third-party candidates in American history came from disgruntled portions of the existing party …
French soldiers overrun Chinese troops during the 1860 campaign in the Second Opium War.

The Second Opium War

… more important to their imperial interests, including the Crimean War (1853-1856), Anglo-Persian War (1856-1857), and … substances in circulation today. Such careless misuse of history is a powerful argument for recalling the events of …
Government of National Unity in 2009. Left to right: Arthur Mutambara, Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, and Thabo Mbeki.

A Lesson for South Africa? Zimbabwe’s Path to Multi-Party Rule

… Change (MDC). Now the country might learn from the history of its northern neighbor, which has tried to balance … collapsed in 1994. This was a watershed moment in the history of South Africa as  the first democratic, … 1999, marking a historic turning point in the political history of Zimbabwe. It was a formidable opposition party …
Advertisement for DDT featured in Time Magazine, June 30, 1947. This image illustrates the rosy reputation that pesticides enjoyed before the publication of Silent Spring.

A World Drenched with Pesticides: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

… and Wildlife Service publications in 1939 and wrote popular books on ocean life. These works illustrated the connections … University Press, 2005.  Davis, Frederick Rowe. Banned: A History of Pesticides and the Science of Toxicology. New … of Kansas, 2015.    Nash, Linda. Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge. Berkley: …
The Prima Porta Statue shows a powerful and youthful Augustus making an address

Celebrating Roman Emperor Augustus

… On August 19, 14 CE, the most influential man in Roman history died. Augustus began his career by fomenting a civil … fondly for reigning over some of the most famous writers in history, a wealthy and expanding empire , and a time of … Instead, we tend to view him (and so many people of ancient history) as we do characters from epic tales or plays, like …

Dry Days Down Under: Australia and the World Water Crisis

… have been experiencing perhaps the worst drought of their history, the "Big Dry," as they're calling it. The drop in … nation—has long been considered the worst in Australian history. By 1902, Sydney's water supply was running out, and … Fleet sailed into Sydney harbor in 1788. Through their history, Australians have often been, in the insightful …

The Alpha and Omega of the Greek Debt Crisis

… seen, but what is not debatable is the long and complicated history that led Greece on a trajectory to the crisis … would be to misunderstand the country’s complex financial history. Economic troubles began with its creation and were … Crisis ;  1989: The Year That Changed It All ;  The Fate of Crimea ;  Memories of the Great War ; and  Armenians, Turks, …
Man Celebrating Repeal Day with a banner that says "Good Old Days Are Back Again!"

Celebrating Repeal with a Drink, Not a Joint

… weekday, after all—but by briefly examining the regulatory history of our closest modern-day analog to Prohibition: the … Fruit and the Tree of Knowledge: An Inquiry into the Legal History of American Marijuana Prohibition,” Richard Bonnie … than whites. Bonnie and Whitebread wrote that the legal history of alcohol prohibition in the United States …
President Carter shakes hands with General Torrijos of Panama after signing the Panama Canal Treaty

The Missing "Third" of the Third World

Review of Latin America and the Global Cold War, by Thomas C. Field, Jr., Stella Krepp, and Vanni Pettinà (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020)
… World properly situated in its Cold War context. It is a history of how the geopolitical atmosphere dominated by the … this collection of essays reexamines Latin American history from a “Third Worldist” perspective, defining the … the fields of Latin American, Third World, and Cold War history points the way toward much future research. With …

The Hajj and Europe

… involvement in the hajj and its role in shaping the modern history of this sacred Islamic ritual. Crowds travel to the … And in a new twist last year, after annexing  Crimea  from  Ukraine , Russia offered Crimean Tatars … under European influence and control for the first time in history. From its eighth-century beginnings after the birth …
NASA marks Earth Day’s 50th anniversary.

“Give Earth a Chance”: Earth Day and the Politics of Modern Environmentalism

… our current environmental crisis. Thinking about the history of Earth Day provides perspective on both the … chronicled the ill effects of postwar consumer abundance. Books such as The Quiet Crisis (1963) by Stuart Udall, Ralph … to action catalyzed the largest demonstration in American history to date. On April 22, 1970, over 20 million people …
Marshall "Major" Taylor was a professional African American cyclist

(Bicycle) Wheels of Change

Review of The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890s, by Evan Friss (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015)
… to Chicago to San Francisco - The Cycling City presents a history of cyclists and how they shaped a place for …

Refugees or Immigrants? The Migration Crisis in Europe in Historical Perspective

… of refugees and most violent forced migrations in human history, especially as a result of the First and Second … is perhaps one of the oldest routes of contact in human history, going back to the Iron Age and the great empires of … current refugee crisis is but one moment in the much longer history of refugees, immigrants, and displaced persons in …
Habana Lions Baseball Players 1946-47

Baseball Without Borders

Review of Havana Hardball: Spring Training, Jackie Robinson, and the Cuban League, by Cesar Brioso (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015).
… in the National League, was a critical year in the history of Cuban baseball as well. Brioso frames his … of organized baseball, Brioso does little to provide a history of baseball in Latin America or Cuba.  Although he offers tantalizing insights into the history of Cuban baseball, such as José Marti's interest in …
man with a gun in a holster

Top Ten Origins: Gun Regulation

… prevented Congress from enacting federal legislation. The history of gun control predates the nation itself. American … “gun rights” and “gun regulation,” both sides rely on history to make their case. So here is a review of ten crucial moments in the history of gun regulation in the United States. Student …