One Nation Under God?
An exceprt from Roger Trigg’s book ‘Religion in Public Life’.
Mandela: An Excerpt
An excerpt from Tom Lodge’s critical biography ‘Mandela’
Brown v. Board of Education
Klarman looks at the backlash created by Brown v. Board of Education.
Thoughts on Juneteenth
A closer look at Juneteenth.
The Long Stretch Gene
An excerpt from When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish… about Marfan syndrome.
Lincoln’s finest hour
On August 23, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln wrote the following memorandum and asked his Cabinet members to sign it on the back side of the paper without reading it (to forestall leaks): “This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.”
Black History Month
Frederick Douglass and American History
OUP celebrates Black History Month by taking a closer look at the life of Frederick Douglass.
Biography From the Bottom Up: Part Two
Part two of Biography From the Bottom
Happy Birthday Upton Sinclair!
OUP wishes Upton Sinclair a happy birhtday.
Our Distant Civil War
We too often forget that the generation that fought the Civil War lived in a world very different from our own. In our attempt to personalize the past, which all too often leads us into a romanticization of that past, we see the elements of human experience that unite us with the Civil War generation—how they, as individuals, loved and lost, laughed and cried, lived and died—but we tend, in the process, to overlook how these same people spent their lifetimes in a world that, upon closer inspection, seems like an alien planet.
The Importance of History
by David Brion Davis I’m concerned with the erosion of interest in history — the view expressed by even some leading teachers and intellectuals that we should “let bygones be bygones,” “free” ourselves from the boring and oppressive past, and concentrate on a fresh and better future. I’m passionately committed to the cause that distinguishes […]
Lincoln vs. George W. Bush
by Richard Striner How will historians eventually rate our incumbent president as a wartime commander? A comparison of George W. Bush and the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, is instructive. Putting aside the issue of civil liberties in wartime —— an issue that people of good will could debate almost endlessly —— Lincoln was a […]