John Hope Franklin (1915-2009)

Today one of the truly gifted historians died at the age of 94.  John Hope Franklin, however, was always more than a historian.  He understood that the present and the past are closely interwoven and that the study of history is always the first step to addressing present injustices.  Duke University has set up a [...]

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White Southerners Have Always Loved Lincoln

Ihighly recommend Barry Schwartz’s new book, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2009).  There is an interesting section on the image of Lincoln during the Depression, which is a moment where, according to Schwartz his reputation had peaked only to decline following WWII.  Schwartz [...]

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Thinking About the Survey Course in a Post-Modern America

It’s that time of the year when I take a good hard look at how my classes are progressing or not progressing.  For the past two years I’ve been experimenting with a new approach that replaces the standard textbook with different types of secondary sources such as biographies, social and political histories, etc.  Overall, the [...]

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Civil War Monuments and Virginia Politics

There is an interesting article in today’s Washington Post on the place of Civil War statues in a changing Virginia political landscape.  It’s a fairly balanced look at how these sites are interpreted by different constituencies and it directly addresses the connection between political power and how our public spaces are used to remember the [...]

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“Is This the Union That Lincoln Was Trying To Save?”

I’ve been playing around with an elective idea on conspiracy theories in American history.  It provides an opportunity to explore issues of epistemology in historical studies as well as the ease with which myth and outright lies can be disseminated and, in some cases, become part of our cultural lexicon.  One of the projects that [...]

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Civil War Memory Reviewed in America’s Civil War

I hope you don’t mind a bit more tooting of my own horn, this time in the pages of the latest issue of America’s Civil War[May 2009, p. 69] which includes a very nice review of Civil War Memory by Kelvin Holland: Aside from a new address and a clean new theme, the newly overhauled [...]

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Making a Difference

Itry to keep the tooting of my own horn to a minimum, but I think you will understand why I feel a need to share this recent email.  It’s from an acquaintance who teaches history at Elon University and it made my day. We’ve met before, most recently I think at last summer’s SCWH conference [...]

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“We Always Saw Lincoln as the Great Emancipator”

In his speech yesterday in the Lee Chapel at Washington & Lee University, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted that Abraham Lincoln is his favorite president.  Do you think he realized how inappropriate that comment was as he stood just a few feet from the final resting place of Robert E. Lee?

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