Ever since reading, in 2006, The National Dream and The Golden Spike, Pierre Berton’s books about the building of the Canadian railroad, I’ve been interested in the Chinese railroad workers.…
This post has been half-written and sitting in drafts for many months. Days after an armed mob tried to violently subvert the results of an election seems like a good…
Like many writers, especially those of us who grew up before the digital age, I keep a notebook. I use it to capture ideas, capture thoughts about I’m reading, take…
Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse is exactly what the subtitle says: a history and analysis of the rise, decline, and…
The statement If you are exposed to any bigoted, right-wing media or social media — whether by misfortune, sport, or a delusion that you must counter their arguments — and…
By Mercedes Peters One of the first things you’re taught when you’re training to be a historian in Canada is that Canadians have a memory problem. It can be a…
I believe that History matters. History matters because it teaches us how to be better. History provides us with the very best and worst lessons of what people are capable…
The propaganda is hitting Goebbels level, it is getting that obvious and stark. The elite are losing the propaganda war – hence, the increasingly shrill and panicked, desperate measures. Keep…
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: Donald Trump is the single greatest gift the Democratic Party could ever hope to receive. The Democrats have finally achieved their most…
(Comment below after listening to the most important three minutes of info you are likely to hear in decades, or have likely ever heard. Noam Chomsky on The Crisis Of…
It is common practice to look back and conflate the events of the past with those of the present, seeking parallels, resonance, and answers from previous events that help explain…
In the entire history of human beings on this planet, has there ever been a criminal enterprise more devastating — to as many people, over as long a period of…
It is a perennial questions in homeschool circles, whether one should read the Little House on the Prairie books with one’s kids or whether the racism in it makes those…
I thought Black August was something newly created by Black Lives Matter, but it turns out it has existed since the 1970s. I’m sorry I haven’t heard about it sooner,…
Revolutionary thought of the day: Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will be socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation. It…
What is historical truth? To get at the truth of history, we must know it and we must understand it, and these are two very different things. We can know…
Who are the CIA? This will tell you everything you need to know. Here’s where things really started to go wrong: 1947, the National Security Act, which created the National…
What a sad and moving coincidence, that two great freedom fighters died on the same day. I chose these photos as a reminder that doing the right thing may involve…
This Place: 150 Years Retold, foreward by Alicia Elliott. In keeping with my posts about political graphic nonfiction, here is a quote from This Place. The book is an anthology…
Medieval Society – Then and Now
“You’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.”- John Lennon Great short video, linked below, but the view of medieval peasant life is too one-sided – as is…