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We are several days out from Black History Month. Since it has been at least a hundred years, and perhaps more, since we've had a U.S. presidential administration signal such clear intent to discriminate on racial terms--even going so far as to bring actual Nazi sympathizers into its close orbit--I may be forgiven for a premature post. The Trump administration's attack on what it labels diversity initiatives, critical race theory, and "woke" is being advanced in the name of American meritocracy. But while the proponents of those initiatives are bad-faith actors who surely know better, I still have hope that much of the public support for the racist backlash they represent derives from ignorance rather than unalloyed malevolence. The anti-CRT/DEI/"woke" advocates claim to be defending American values against a stultifying intellectual dogma. In fact what they are railing against is American history itself. In my ongoing hopes to generate a greater level of intellectual and historical honesty among readers who may have only a passing grasp of the racism inherent in that history, I offer the following:
Several years ago I attempted to visualize for classroom use how racism and discrimination function in American life and throughout American history. It is of necessity a crude attempt to render such a complicated topic in a single visual format. But nevertheless I present for my readers’ consideration the following graphic:
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 And now for something completely different: In honor of the GOAT’s birthday, one day early, I present a list of the top fights in Muhammad Ali’s career, ranked. Highly subjective justifications follow. My criteria, such as they are, center on Ali’s greatness writ large, and not solely for his boxing acumen, significance as an activist, or humanitarian greatness. I remain inspired by the Greatest of All Time, no less in these trying days. Comments and counter-takes welcome!:
 As a historian of modern America, I am naturally certain that Americans do not know nearly enough about key developments that shaped the world in which they live, notably the civil rights movement, the New Deal, and the Cold War among them. As a historian generally, I wish more Americans knew even a little quality history about the Founding period, about race in America, and certainly women’s history. However, if I was forced to choose one period or topic exhibiting the greatest disparity between what we should know and what we actually do (or don't) know, I would have to choose Reconstruction, the period directly after the Civil War ended in 1865 and which lasted, by all accounts, only until 1877. Ignorance about Reconstruction has been poisonous to American civic life.
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AuthorI am an editor and historian of US history, diplomacy, and international relations. Archives
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Why empire?This blog presents new scholarship on American empire, places the American experience in a broader and global imperial context, explores imperial habits throughout American society and culture, uncovers the imperial connections between the foreign and the domestic, and develops “empire” as a critical perspective.
At least two features in the American experience are clarified through the lens of American empire: First, we better understand persistent social inequities in a nation professing a fundamental commitment to equality. Second, even a cursory glance at American history makes plain the chronic violence at the center of US foreign policy, which frequently mounts or supports bloody military conflict abroad. Empire helps us recognize how and why the United States seems to be constantly at war--including often with itself--with all the foreign and domestic consequences thereof. |
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