The sudden death of the historian Gordon Wood, just weeks before the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, is one more mark of the closure of a golden age of the historiography of the Revolutionary era. It's an occasion to reflect on the uniqueness, ...
Most times when I'm invited to speak at a conference, someone introduces me by reading the short bio provided. But this past week at the Southeastern Writers' Association Conference, my friend, the Georgia judge and novelist Lori Duff, introduced me. She started off by warning she might ...
Writer and philosopher Ayn Rand was often accused of inventing cartoonish villains. Rogues like Ellsworth Toohey in "The Fountainhead" would scheme to seize the global economy's commanding heights in pursuit of a distorted sense of justice. But the people who hold such ideas don't just ...
The World Cup is kicking off here in the United States and for the next five weeks will bring the rest of the planet to our doorstep. They are already arriving. Germans, Spaniards, Egyptians, Australians, every continent but Antarctica is showing up and something is happening that ought ...
Last year Microsoft Research reported on the 10 jobs most threatened by artificial intelligence. Should I, dear reader, be running scared? Historians are No. 2 on the list. The report says 91% of what historians do is pretty much covered by AI queries. Uh-oh. I majored in history in ...
One of the more revealing political developments of recent years has been the Democratic Party's growing concern about its declining support among male voters. After years of watching men drift toward the political right, many Democrats have begun asking a simple question: Why are men ...