Journalist – Historian – Speaker
Yesterday I wrote on the Endrew F. v Douglas County decision from the Supreme Court. It’s powerful and could make a real difference in special education in this country. In the meantime, though, even as the decision was being handed down, ADAPT (a direct action disability rights group) was occupying the Capitol Rotunda, chanting, and …
Emmett Till was a disabled black boy murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman. An author has found the white woman, interviewed her, and in a widely shared Vanity Fair piece, told a reporter that the woman admitted she lied. This is not a shock that she lied, it is useful that she admits it, …
On Friday afternoon, one of Playboy’s editors asked me to write about the gun violence and policing we’d seen over the past few days. My piece is here (Warning – it’s Playboy, so while there’s no nudity, there’s plenty of reference to sex on the site): In the piece, I tried to lay out some of …
So Leicester City won the British Premier League title, which is very exciting for people it excites! I noted in the preview last weekend in the New York Times that there’s an interesting touch of history and nostalgia in their narrative: April 4, 2015 Sitting in last place with nine games to go, it seems certain …
Charles Pierce has a piece on the many victims of the Cold War in Latin America. It’s being raised as an issue versus Sanders (and will be used to hammer him in the general, if he gets there, because much of America remains afraid of “socialists” and “Communists”). History in public!
I’ve been caught up in my disability journalism lately, but don’t want to neglect some of my other passions – medieval history and helping academics share their expertise with wider audiences. Over the past few weeks, a number of outlets have passed around research – just a working paper really – that argues women rulers …
The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia. – Barack Obama, State of the Union 2016 I’ve been thinking about conflicts around the globe. While many of them occur in similar places as conflicts in the past, and while superficially conflicting …
An Islamophobic hate-rally was held in Prague last weekend, featuring Neo-Nazi songs, chants of “Burn down all the mosques,” and, interestingly to me, people in Crusader costumes. Here’s some images: Dressed as Crusaders to hear Neo-Nazi singer: Czechs march for president, against refugees https://t.co/cqKpMRIQuQ pic.twitter.com/thQhKrDOtw — Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) December 16, 2015 So this is a …
Thomas Madden, one of my mentors, has a new piece in the Washington Post on ISIS and the Crusades. In it, he rehearses the ways in which the memory of the Crusades was carried by Western European people into the colonial era and thus brought the European ideas about the Crusades into the Islamic world. Modern …
The Twitter account @HistOpinion (Curated by historian Peter Schulman), has been posting historical poll data about the refugee crisis of the 1930s. Some examples: US Apr ’39: If in Congress, would you support a bill to open US to larger number of European refugees? By Religion. pic.twitter.com/pWsqyRXZoW — Historical Opinion (@HistOpinion) November 17, 2015 US Dec …