First, a bit of good news. Today I learned that my essay, “Black Confederates Out of the Attic and Into the Mainstream” has been accepted for publication in The Journal of the Civil War Era. I suspect I will have to wait some time before I see it in print. I argue that as historians [...]
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Just a quick note to let all of you know that I am no longer featuring advertisements on the blog. The two remaining ads on the sidebar will be allowed to expire over the next few months and that will be it. I want to take the design of the site in a different direction. [...]
Just arrived home from a wonderful 10-day trip to Germany. My wife and I spent time with family in Bremen before moving on to Bonn/Koenigswinter and Frankfurt. This was my first trip to Germany during Christmas and I have to say that this Jewish kid from New Jersey was impressed. There really is something special [...]
You will notice that I am giving the Disqus commenting platform another try. I’ve been using Disqus over at the Atlantic and I have not had any problems. In the past the biggest drawback was the speed with which comments loaded, but that does not seem to be any longer an issue. The interface has [...]
I am spending the day putting together maps for an animated video that will cover westward expansion and slavery from the passage of the Northwest Ordinance through to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Along the way I came across this wonderful map that was produced for Congress in 1888. This is a wonderful example [...]
Over the years I’ve come to consider a small number of you as part of my online family. I read your comments with great interest and I’ve learned a great deal as a result. Our online communities are all too often shaped by the worst elements in our society such as ignorance, hatred, and dishonesty. [...]
I love writing for the Atlantic, but I have learned to hate the comments section. My last post on changing attitudes surrounding the public display of the Confederate flag is now pushing 300 comments, but I would venture that 98% of them are worthless. It should come as no surprise that the post has been [...]
Jim Downs’s new book, Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction, is making somewhat of a splash in the mainstream media. Articles have recently appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian Observer, and Daily Mail. I am reading it now and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It [...]
A good friend of mine recently set up a Facebook page for her forthcoming book on the role of Christianity in shaping the concept of race in early Virginia. She asked friends on Facebook as well as her Twitter followers to go ahead and “like” the page and within a couple of days had reached [...]