Tracy Campbell— In his first fireside chat after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt urged Americans “to reject all rumors,” noting that “these ugly little hints of complete disaster fly thick and fast in wartime.” By summer 1942, FDR knew that executive admonishments had failed to curb the avalanche of false information
Stephen Taylor— He was a patriot who took up arms in the Revolution against the Crown. Jacob Nagle was aged just fifteen when he set out from his Pennsylvania home in 1777 to join his father in Washington’s army. Once independence had been won, however, Nagle had no difficulty in
Just because we can’t travel doesn’t mean our minds have to stay put. Here are some books to satisfy your wanderlust from the comfort and safety of your own home. A writer for whom the journey has always mattered reinvents the very form itself in this inviting collection of in-the-moment
Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn— Recently a United States Senator, reflecting on the terrible crisis we all now face, recalled an earlier time when the nation confronted an existential threat to its governing institutions. Said Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts: “I do think there’s an FDR moment.” Presumably what he meant was
Mary Stockwell— The statue of Anthony Wayne that looks out over the Maumee Rapids where he won his battle for America on the morning of August 20, 1794, is a beautiful one. It is a far more fitting tribute to him than the simple phrase that Captain Bissell pounded into
J. H. Elliott— Family and hierarchy were the twin pillars supporting the social structure of Early Modern Europe. The ordered family, under the control of the head of the household, patterned the state in microcosm, just as the state, under royal government, was a microcosm of the divinely ordered universe
Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro— Since the 1960s, powerful movements across the democratic world have pursued reforms meant to bring politics closer to the people. Many political parties have adopted primaries, local caucuses, and other decentralized ways of choosing candidates. Districts have been redrawn to ensure selection of racial
Leslie Woodcock Tentler— The streets of my suburban childhood were peopled by two religious tribes—the Catholics, who were in the majority, and the Protestants, a quasi-tribe to which every non-Catholic belonged. (This was back in the 1950s, when suburban Jews generally settled among their own and “nones” were an endangered
John G. Turner— One of the best parts of being a historian is spending time with hard-to-read sources. Admittedly, it’s terrible for the eyes, but we slow down and pay attention to documents that we might otherwise skim too quickly when handwriting is difficult to decipher. A few years ago,
Greil Marcus— The following advertisement appeared in Elite Traveler, Spring 2013: The Trump International Hotel & Tower New York pays homage to The Great Gatsby—the film adaptation of the iconic novel coming out this May—by inviting guests to plunge into the Roaring Twenties with their very own Great Gatsby experience.