This post is an essay by Steven Mintz, published recently in his Substack, which I highly recommend. Here's a link to the original. It's the story of how the 1930s produced a distinct and new American voice. Not in the ornate cadences of the 19th century, nor in the provincial slang of earlier popular culture, but … Continue reading Steven Mintz — The Decade That Discovered a Distinct American Voice
This post is an analysis of alternative theories for explaining the historical development of American schooling. It was published in 2014 in the Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy. Here's a link to a pdf of the original. I wrote it as a way to frame the major theories of schooling for students in my … Continue reading Theories of the Historical Development of American Schooling
This post is a tribute to the Normans and how they came to shape modern Europe. It draws primarily from the book The Normans: From Raiders to Kings by Lars Brownworth and also from an essay in Unherd by Ed West. The Normans were Vikings who in the ninth century conquered a piece of France … Continue reading How the Normans Shaped Modern Europe
This post is a brief commentary on historian Walter Scheidel's book, Escape from Rome. It's a stunningly original analysis of a topic that has long fascinated scholars like me: How did Europe come to create the modern world? His answer is this: Europe became the cauldron of modernity and the dominant power in the world … Continue reading How the Fall of the Roman Empire Spurred the Rise of Modernity — and What this Suggests about Rise of US Higher Ed
What If Napoleon Had Won at Waterloo Today I want to explore an interesting case of counterfactual history. What would have happened if Napoleon Bonaparte had won in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo? What consequences might have followed for Europe in the next two centuries? That he might have succeeded is not mere … Continue reading What If Napoleon Had Won at Waterloo
My new post is an essay by a philosophy professor who has adopted the handle Hilarius Bookbinder for his Substack Scriptorium Philosophia. Here's a link to the original. Why Philosophy Matters Earlier this month Martin Peterson, a very fine philosopher at Texas A&M “University”, was forbidden to teach Plato’s Symposium in his Contemporary Moral Issues class because Plato is all … Continue reading Hilarius Bookbinder — Why Philosophy Matters
This post is a stunning essay by Paul Fussell published in The New Republic in 1981. Here's a link to a PDF of the original. On August 2, we observed the 76th anniversary of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. In light of that, it seems like a good time to revisit the debate about … Continue reading Paul Fussell — “Thank God for the Atom Bomb”
This post is an essay by Marie Newhouse recently published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Here's a link to the original. She is an associate professor of law, philosophy, and public policy at the University of Surrey and a visiting fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. She provides a … Continue reading Marie Newhouse — The Campus Civility Collapse
This post is about, of all things, the Byzantine Empire. Unlike its western counterpart, what is usually called the Roman Empire, it has received little respect over the years. Even the name is a calumny (drawn from the name of the original Greek city of Byzantium that later became the empire's capital, Constantinople), which was … Continue reading The Triumph and Tragedy of the Byzantine Empire — How It Preserved the West and Devastated the East
This post is a chapter from my 2004 book, The Trouble with Ed Schools. Here's a link to an earlier version that was published in 2003 in Educational Researcher. I wrote this in response to my experience teaching doctoral students in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Nearly all of the students … Continue reading Peculiar Problems of Preparing Educational Researchers
