American History Now

Powerfully obscure

2013-05-06T09:50:00Z

In The Forgotten Presidents: Their Untold Constitutional Legacy , Michael J. Gerhardt, tries, not altogether successfully, to make people like Franklin Pierce and Calvin Coolidge interesting The following review has been posted on the Books page of the...(read more)

Record profits

2013-05-02T12:33:00Z

In Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century , Alex Sayf Cummings traces churning tides of freedom in the business of distributing music The following review has been posted on the Books page of the...(read more)

All about the Benjamins

2013-04-29T10:28:00Z

The Horace Chronicles, #6 September 30 Dear Maya, Today Mr. Smith told a story. I recorded it on my phone (I've been doing this lately; he says it's OK). "So I want to tell you about two people," he said about halfway through class about the fights between...(read more)

One messed-up poem

2013-04-24T15:01:00Z

The Horace Ch ron icles, #5 September 22 Dear Maya, For the past couple days we’d been learning about slavery. Mr. Smith had us read about stuff like the Triangular Trade. He explained how slavery was different in North America than it was in South America...(read more)

Shortcomings

2013-04-19T12:59:00Z

The Horace Chronicles, #4 September 15 Dear Maya, I paid a visit to Mr. Smith's office on Friday morning. We had a DBQ -- a Document-Based Question -- to write an essay about. All the documents (they were more like little pieces from bigger documents)...(read more)

Pouring

2013-04-16T14:27:00Z

The Horace C hronicles, #3 in which we see a t eacher make an opening move September 5 Dear Maya, The first day of school was really long, because it was really hot. By the end of first period I could feel the sweat trickle down the back of the new Beatles...(read more)

Spiral

2013-04-12T14:02:00Z

--> The Horace Chronicles, #2 in which we see two people trying to balance their books August 27 Dear Maya, When I got home after my last shift at the pool, I was surprised to find my dad sitting at the dining room table. He had his laptop open and a...(read more)

Starters (a new series at this blog)

2013-04-08T10:42:00Z

The Horace Chronicles, #1 August 2 0 Dear Maya, I guess the first time I remember thinking much about Mr. Smith was at the end of last summer when I ran into Sean Catalano at the pool. My shift at the front desk had just ended and I headed over to the...(read more)

Picking up 'Signal'

2013-04-04T16:47:00Z

In The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail -- But Some Don't , statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver argues for the value of calculation The following review has been posted on the Books page of the History News Network . This one that...(read more)

Clean execution

2013-04-01T16:29:00Z

In How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia Mohsin Hamid captures the green light -- again. The following review has been posted on the Books page of the History News Network . How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia solidifies Mohsin Hamid's claim as a major...(read more)

2013-03-27T12:18:00Z

Jim is observing Spring break in the less-than-tropical climes of Massachusetts (where beaches of books beckon). In recent weeks he's been listening to more new popular music than usual, in part because pop music has taken a turn in his (more melodic)...(read more)

Little Giant, Big Giant

2013-03-23T14:57:00Z

In Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism: Lincoln, Douglas and Moral Conflict , a historic debate becomes a living analogy I think of myself as an amateur Lincolnologist who tries to keep up on the latest literature in the field. But I really didn't want to read...(read more)

Treacherous choices

2013-03-19T13:21:00Z

Benedict Arnold, great traitor The following is the second of two posts on loyalists in the American Revolution (the first "The Price of Loyalty," is below). Perhaps no one shows how difficult it was to choose sides in the American Revolution, and the...(read more)

The price of loyalty

2013-03-15T10:38:00Z

The founding of the United States was an ordeal for those unsure of which side to choose The following is the first of two posts on loyalists in the American Revolution So: You happy about the way the American Revolution turned out? This probably strikes...(read more)

On bitching

2013-03-12T10:31:00Z

The following remarks were delivered at an assembly at my school last week which dealt with the word "***" and what place it has, if any, in common discourse. Though I’ve been known to use such terms for pedagogical purposes – usually to try and capture...(read more)