America

The Deep Politics of the 14th Amendment

By Elvin Lim
In 2004, the Republican’s hot button political issue du jour was same-sex marriage. 11 states approved ballot measures that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Last week, a federal judge struck down California’s Proposition 8 (passed in 2008) because it “fails to advance any rational basis for singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.” However, Republicans politicians are not taking the bait to revisit this hot button political issue, despite Rush Limbaugh’s encouragement.

Struggling for the American Soul at Ground Zero

By Edward E. Curtis IV
Like Gettysburg, the National Mall, and other historic sites, Ground Zero is a place whose symbolic importance extends well beyond local zoning disputes and real estate deals. The recent controversy over a proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks away from the former World Trade Center shows it clearly: the geography of Lower Manhattan has become a sacred ground on which religious and political battles of national importance are being waged.

Remembering Hiroshima

Today, it is 65 years since the United States first dropped the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” on Hiroshima. Soon after, on August 9th, 1945, the United States released “Fat Man” over Nagasaki. The aftermath, of course, was predictably horrific.

Politics & Paine: Part 4

Welcome to the final installment the Politics & Paine series. Harvey Kaye and Elvin Lim are corresponding about Thomas Paine, American politics, and beyond. Read the first post here, and the second post here, and the third post here. Kaye is the author of the award-winning book, Thomas Paine: Firebrand of Revolution, as well as […]

Politics & Paine: Part 3

Welcome back to the Politics & Paine series. Harvey Kaye and Elvin Lim are corresponding about Thomas Paine, American politics, and beyond.

Kaye is the author of the award-winning book, Thomas Paine: Firebrand of Revolution, as well as Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. He is the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Social Change & Development and Director, Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. Lim is author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, and a regular contributor to OUPBlog.

Politics & Paine: Part 2

Welcome back to the Politics & Paine series. Harvey Kaye and Elvin Lim are corresponding about Thomas Paine, American politics, and beyond. Kaye is the author of the award-winning book, Thomas Paine: Firebrand of Revolution, as well as Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. He is the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Social Change & Development and Director, Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay. Lim is author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, and a regular contributor to OUPBlog.

Let the Decision Fall

By LeeAnna Keith
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas took dead aim at Supreme Court tradition in his recent concurring opinion on gun control in the city of Chicago. McDonald v. Chicago, named for an African American plaintiff, raised the question of whether the 2nd Amendment’s guarantee of the right to bear arms imposed limitations against the states. A plurality of justices insisted

Politics & Paine: Part 1

Earlier this month, Harvey Kaye led a discussion of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings at the Bryant Park Reading Room. It got me thinking: what is the influence of Paine on Americans today? Who among us are the devotees? Are we over-quoting, over-citing, over-appropriating his politics?

So, I decided to introduce Harvey Kaye to Elvin Lim, and ask if they wouldn’t mind corresponding about this matter. They readily agreed. Below is the first of four installments of this conversation; the second of which will appear tomorrow.

Military Strategy at the Battle of Bull Run

Donald Stoker is Professor of Strategy and Policy for the U.S. Naval War College‘s program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His most recent book is The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War, and in the original post below, he dismantles a common myth about the Battle of Bull Run–the first major land battle of the Civil War–which was fought 149 years ago, today.

Racism, the NAACP and the Tea Party Movement

The NAACP was doing its job when it accused the Tea Party movement of harboring “racist elements,” but it didn’t necessarily go about it in the most productive way. All it took was for supporters of the Tea Party movement like Sarah Palin to write, “All decent Americans abhor racism,” and that with the election of Barack Obama we became a “post-racial” society, and the NAACP’s charge was soundly “refudiated.” Or, as Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell put it to Candy Crowley on CNN on Sunday, he’s “got better things to do” than weigh in on the debate. He was elected to deal with real problems, not problems made up in people’s heads. Case closed.

The War on Poverty

Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History, pieces together oral history interviews with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his team of advisers as they undertook the Great Society’s greatest challenge. This excerpt is taken from an interview with Robert J. Lampman, a staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) from 1962 to 1963 who worked in the Kennedy Administration along with Walter Heller, chairman of the CEA. The Saturday Group, called so because of their Saturday “brown bag” lunches, would meet informally (at first) to discuss how they could approach the problem of poverty and solutions that could be brought about with assistance from the government. Their luncheons were the beginnings of a social movement that would become pivotal in giving assistance where it was needed. Their work is still seen today, in the forms of public assistance that we once never had an option of choosing when survival was the only thing that was of importance.

Revising Our Freedom

In a list of the colonies’ grievances against King George III Jefferson wrote, “he has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-subjects, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property.” But the future president, whose image now graces the two-dollar bill, must have realized right away that “fellow-subjects” was the language of monarchy, not democracy, because “while the ink was still wet” Jefferson took out “subjects” and put in “citizens.”

The Meaning of Independence Day

Americans celebrate Independence Day on July 4, the day the words of the Declaration of Independence were set on parchment. John Adams had famously predicted that this day “ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Because these celebrations have become annual rituals, we have stopped thinking about exactly what it is we are celebrating.

The Fourth of July and the Separation of Powers

Donald A. Ritchie is Historian of the Senate and the author of Our Constitution, The Oxford Guide to the United States Government, Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, and most recently The U.S. Congress: A Very Short Introduction. In this original post, he reflects on the legacy of the Declaration of Independence on the U.S. Government.

The Unsung: Lost Stories of New York Urban Renewal

Samuel Zipp is Assistant Professor of American Civilization and Urban Studies at Brown University, and author of Manhattan Projects: The Rise and Fall of Urban Renewal in Cold War New York. In this original post, Zipp moves beyond the well-known personalities of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, profiling another cast of characters who molded and shaped the city we know today. For fun facts, media bites, and more about the evolution of New York City, check out the Manhattan Projects Facebook page.

Natural Relationships and Supernatural Relationships

Matt J. Rossano is head of the Psychology department at Southeastern Louisiana University. His new book, Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved, presents an evolutionary history of religion, drawing together evidence from a wide range of disciplines to show the valuable adaptive purpose served by systemic belief in the supernatural. In the excerpt below, Rossano reminds us of the comfort of believing in things that may be irrational.