political history

• 
• SOURCE: Politico Magazine
  2/13/19
  

  The Dark History of Anti-Gay Innuendo

  by James Kirchick

  The accusation that Lindsay Graham is susceptible to blackmail is historically groundless, predicated upon the same flawed assumption most people held about gays at the height of the Cold War: that they would commit treason in order to avoid being outed.  

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/13/19
  

  Christian student challenged a school history lesson on Islam and lost in court

  As a high school junior, Caleigh Wood refused to complete a history lesson on “The Muslim World” that she said forced her to embrace Islam in conflict with her Christian faith — and the Constitution.

• 
• SOURCE: Jezebel
  2/11/19
  

  Historian Kathryn Olmstead on The Long History of the Red Scare as an American Political Tactic

  "It had such a broad and long-lasting impact on American politics that it’s just impossible to overstate."  

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  2/11/19
  

  The Democrats’ dilemma: two parties in one

  by Niall Ferguson

  In their eagerness to recruit a new generation of young voters, the Democrats have — not for the first time in their history — admitted a faction of radical ideologues into their midst.

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  Accessed 2/12/19
  

  Eugene V. Debs and the Endurance of Socialism

  by Jill Lepore

  Half man, half myth, Debs turned a radical creed into a deeply American one.

• 
• SOURCE: History Extra
  2/11/19
  

  A history of United States government shutdowns

  Like so much else, it’s all the fault of the founding fathers.

• 
• SOURCE: Town and Country
  2/8/19
  

  Before Jeff Bezos, Alexander Hamilton Outsmarted His Blackmailers with the Reynolds Pamphlet

  In 1797, he published scandalous details about his own affair.

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  2/9/19
  

  Democrats are drowning out Trump's tweets

  by Julian Zelizer

  Democrats finally have a bully pulpit of their own: the House of Representatives.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  2/7/19
  

  America’s Original Identity Politics

  by Sarah Churchwell

  The good news for anyone feeling perturbed is that it simply isn’t true that identity politics represents the end of America or of liberal democracy. 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/7/19
  

  Why Won’t Blackface Go Away? It’s Part of America’s Troubled Cultural Legacy

  by Wil Haygood

  For more than 180 years, racist stereotypes have been used to entertain.

• 
• 2/10/19
  

  What I'm Reading: An Interview with Urban Historian Carl Abbott

  by Tiffany April Griffin

  "We understand our lives and world by the stories we tell about how we—and things in general—got to be as they are."

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  2/6/19
  

  A Racial Reckoning for Democratic Leaders in Virginia

  by Jelani Cobb

  In disavowing his yearbook photo but admitting to wearing blackface on another occasion, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam implies that he is being castigated for the wrong instance of minstrelsy.

• 
• SOURCE: WHYY.org
  2/5/19
  

  Why we keep looking at the Northam photo

  by Johnathon Zimmerman

  Because we all know — in our hearts — that racism is America’s original sin. 

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  2/4/19
  

  Eric Lott on Ralph Northam and the History of Blackface

  by Isaac Chotiner

  In an interview, Eric Lott discusses the subject of blackface and its historical role in American politics, culture, and racism.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/7/19
  

  Why it’s shocking to look back at med school yearbooks from decades ago

  by Elizabeth Evans

  They offer jaw-dropping examples of the sexism and racism that shaped professional cultures.

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  2/6/19
  

  President Trump Used the State of the Union to Call for an End to Investigations. So Did Nixon

  “I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough!”

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  2/4/19
  

  Don’t Let Democrats Become the Party of War

  by Trita Paris and Stephen Wertheim

  The gambit to out-hawk Trump is a dangerous one.

• 
• 2/5/19
  

  State of the Union: How Can We Assess Donald Trump’s First Two Years in Office?

  by Michael Nelson

  For all his decline in effectiveness, Trump has not become less influential.

• 
• 2/4/19
  

  What Historians Are Saying: Ralph Northam, Blackface, and the KKK

  Historians contextualized the Virginia governor's yearbook photos--and had a lot to say. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/2/19
  

  The troubling history behind Ralph Northam’s blackface Klan photo

  by Rhae Lynn Barnes

  How blackface shaped Virginia politics and culture for more than a century.