Category: History and Historiography

Ukrainian SS Memorials UK

On 22 September 2023, former Ukrainian SS soldier Yaroslav Hunka received two standing ovations from MPs. In a follow up to my original video ‘Ukrainian SS in Britain’ made 3 months ago, here we discover that the 14th SS ‘Galizien’ is also honoured in modern Britain. Dr. Mark […]

The Second Nakba

Sponsored by Liveright In the Review’s October 19 issue, David Shulman writes about Nathan Thrall’s A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. The book, which Thrall expanded from an article he wrote for NYR Online, recounts a 2012 accident in the West Bank, […]

A Marx for All Seasons

In the Review’s September 21, 2023, issue, Ben Tarnoff reviews two recent books on the history of Silicon Valley, where “money begets money with an ease that would make Andrew Carnegie weep.” His essay ends with a reflection on the “neurotic character” of most of the region’s capitalists, who champion […]

Why They Hate Us

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2023 People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have. For example, the freedom of thought. Instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation. – Søren Kierkegaard HORNBERGER’S BLOG September 12, 2023 Why They Hate Us Given that yesterday was the anniversary date […]

The Other 9/11

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2023 To inflame a mild republic with the spirit of war is putting all its liberties to the utmost hazard. – David Dodge, reflecting on what he saw around him in the U.S. during the war of 1812 HORNBERGER’S BLOG September 11, 2023 The Other […]

A Day that Never Ended

America thought it left the War on Terror behind, but the emergency never stopped expanding Matt Taibbi Sep 11, 2023 Twenty-two years ago jet planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York. Within two hours they fell, starting fires that still burned eight days later, on September […]

American Slave Traders

Sponsored by Reaktion Books James Oakes Ships Going Out In American Slavers, Sean M. Kelley surveys the relatively unknown history of Americans who traded in slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Erin Maglaque An Overabundance of Virtue The scholar James Hankins has argued that the revival of ancient virtues […]

When the Whole World Was Watching

Sponsored by Stanford University Press Eric Foner Seeing Was Not Believing A new book identifies the 1968 Democratic convention as the moment when broad public regard for the news media gave way to widespread distrust, and American divisiveness took off. Fintan O’Toole Paradise Lost In spreading lies about the […]

Guardian of Memory

Sponsored by Basic Books Fifty years ago this month, Augusto Pinochet, the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, led a US-backed military coup to overthrow Salvador Allende, the democratic socialist president of Chile who had been elected just three years earlier. Among Allende’s staffers who fled from La Moneda, […]

Chuuk Lagoon’s Skull Problem

Back in action after what feels like an eternity with many new seasons to share. Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Austria, Japan and Peru, plus a few others along the way. Enough for over a year and a half uninterrupted, I think. Today’s episode is the first in our Micronesian […]

Barbie in Birkenstocks

Sponsored by Reaktion Books Lauren Michelle Jackson Humorless Barbie Greta Gerwig’s Barbie finds its comedy in the inflexibility of plastic and modern womanhood. Jill Lepore The Everyman Library When my father died I inherited his library: tiny books, held in one hand, all bound in cloth, and smelling of Briggs tobacco. […]

The Invention of the Jewish Nose

Namwali Serpell Morrison Hall A recent exhibit of Toni Morrison’s papers raised the question: How do you mourn a monument? Lucy Scholes A Riot of Color In the 1930s, the British photographer Yevonde made herself synonymous with the vibrant new color photography process Vivex. Ursula Lindsey Lebanon’s Chernobyl […]

Robbie Robertson

Sponsored by Harvard University Press Fifty-four years ago today Richie Havens, substituting for the band Sweetwater, who were stuck in traffic, opened the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. While The New York Review of Books did not send a correspondent to the muddy dairy farm in Bethel, New […]

Round-Table #87: “Why America will Have its French Revolution” a review

I will be joined by Keith Preston, Swithun Dobson and Terminal Philosophy to do another review of an insightful video by WhatIfAltHist: https://www.youtube.com/@WhatifAltHis…. He recently did a video entitled Why America will Have its French Revolution”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yuZp…. Tune in for a great show! My contact info: Locals: https://praiseoffolly.locals.com/ […]

Lyceum Round-Table #86: “The Secret History of the 20th Century” a review

I will be joined by Keith Preston, Swithun Dobson and Terminal Philosophy to discuss WhatIfAltHist’s video The Secret History of the 20th Century”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD53t… My contact info: Locals: https://praiseoffolly.locals.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PoFPodcast Telegram: t.me/PraiseOfFolly_1511 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PraiseOfFoll… BuyMeACoffe: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/PraiseOf… Subscribe Star: https://www.subscribestar.com/PraiseO… Substack: https://substack.com/profile/40985862… Thumbnail’s courtesy of Censored Anon: For […]