The 1619 Project: An Oversimplified Explanation
Casual critics of the 1619 Project usually focus on its basic conceit: the idea that the true founding of the United States occurred when the first African captives arrived in…
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US History
15 posts
White People and the Conversation About Race
It is always saddening when reasonable, thoughtful people fail to understand each other’s point of view in important conversations. It is even more unfortunate when they fail to respect each…
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The Politics of Pride and Shame: Integrating 1776 and 1619
Americans’ sense of national identity is in trouble. There is now a steady drumbeat of dread from the commentariat across the political spectrum, lamenting that we Americans are more politically…
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Is Liberalism Worth Saving?
Often, a political ideology can be justified on the basis of its principles, despite its many failings in practice. This is how Francis Fukuyama and Patrick Deneen’s interpretations of liberalism…
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The Fifth Great Awakening May Be Nigh
“Nietzsche had foretold it all. God might be dead but his shadow, immense and dreadful, continued to flicker even as his corpse lay cold.”—Tom Holland, Dominion The United States of…
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Secularism and American Pluralism
In this 2018 article, Shadi Hamid discusses the importance of a “modest” American pluralism that can accommodate the fact that “there isn’t a common good to be found; that, because…
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The Tyranny of Fragility: How Alexis De Tocqueville Foretold the Rise of Victimhood Culture
I know of no country in which, for the most part, independence of thought and true freedom of expression are so diminished as in America … In America, the majority…
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Bleeding Kenosha: 2020 Echoes of the Conflict that Preceded the Civil War
While black America continues to endure the impact of racism and violence, the fight against racial injustice and brutality is being fought both through the ballot box and in the…
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¡Bienvenido a los Estados Unidos! A Case for a Bilingual America
In elementary schools across the United States, children have been taught that post-indigenous America began with the arrival of the Mayflower. A simple and unbroken narrative beginning on the eastern…
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The Return of Revivalism: The American Roots of an International Crisis
By all appearances, the United States of America is descending into chaos. There are so many examples of this—police brutality, riots, military patrols, hollow political theater, and rising numbers of…
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The Decline of American Optimism
I know very well that much is wrong with our Western society. But I still have no doubt that it is the best that ever existed. And much that is…
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When “The News” Was New
The American news media has spent the past four years in a state of highly public soul-searching about its much vaunted role in maintaining a democratic society. Recent editorial conflicts…
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“A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn
Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States considers the history of the US from the perspective of the underdog: the lower classes, workers, women, immigrants, African slaves and their…
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The Head Start Myth: What We Get Wrong About the Racial Wealth Gap
Photo by Matt Lee In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, shortly after describing the abhorrent treatment of black laborers by white landowners in the late 1800s, W. E. B.…
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The Vicious Cycle Of Racial Polarization
If it weren’t already obvious from the recent mass protests and riots across America and the world in response to the gruesome police killing of George Floyd, race is one…
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