Good popular history combines the rigor of academic historical scholarship with accessible, lively prose. Good popular history is about telling a story with heroes, villains, drama and resolution. Popular historians can situate their subjects within broader historical questions. Most importantly, good popular history takes a complicated story and renders it in human scale. Popular history…
Author: davidpotash
Commencing a Rethink
Late spring the season higher education celebrates and sends forth its graduates, usually with pomp, circumstance and oration. The commencement address, often given by an honorary degree recipient and friend of the institution, figures prominently in this ritual. It has long been a fixture of academia, with commencement addresses taking place in the United States…
Clio, Ares and Hestia
In Civil War Wives, Carol Berkin sketches the lives and times of Angela Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis and Julia Dent Grant. This is solid women’s history, close to the sources and closely attuned to opportunities and constraints these well-known women faced. Weld was married to abolitionist Theodore Weld. Davis was the spouse of the…
What Sort of Justice is Possible?
Few forms of injustice incite our sense of outrage more than the abuses of power. Power can often have a corrupting influence and unchecked power provides predators opportunities to hurt the weak. And when evil occurs under these conditions, right-thinking people call out for equity and demand justice. In early 2002 the Boston Globe published…
No Escaping the Real World
Ask a group of traditional college students – late teens and early twenties in age, seeking the baccalaureate and living in a residential hall/dormitory – what higher education is preparing them for and they will shout out the response in unison: “The Real World!” They are not talking about MTV, either. Their belief that the…
The Nabe Back In The Day
Many people live in cities, but what allows an urban citizen to claim that they live in an urban neighborhood? Knowing your neighbors? Giving a neighbor a key to your place while your away? Being recognized by the guy at the deli, the woman and the market, and the other local trades? Participating in local…
Making Higher Education Relevant
The past few months have witnessed a proliferation of important news, from the earthquake and its aftermath in Japan, to the explosion of democracy in the Middle East, to the massive restructuring of the world economy. These are events worthy of historical study. Exciting and important things are taking place on a massive scale around…