Blog

As part of the process of tackling “great ideas,” we’ll be doing a certain amount of meta-talking—talking about what we’re talking about, and why we’re talking about it in the first place, or why we’re […]

Back in May, I posted a couple of section’s from Bolton Hall’s Things as They Are: an essay, “The Delivery from Bondage;” and three “fables” featuring Snap, the Philosopher Dog. I finally got a chance […]

Much-overdue props to Robert P. Helms for launching deadanarchists.org, an anarchist history site with current emphases on Voltairine de Cleyre and anarchist history of the Philadelphia area. Robert contributed a profile of Hugo Bilgram to […]

Only one more of Alfred B. Westrup’s major pamphlets to track down and scan—I think. . . The Financial Problem (3rd ed., 1891) is now available in pdf format. As I mentioned in an earlier […]

I’ve had occasion in the past to reference the Melungeons, “tri-racial isolates” of the southern US. Reports of these groups, and others such as the “Tribe of Ben Ishmael,” made up an important part of […]

With Laundry Day fast approaching, I’m getting down towards the bottom of the t-shirt pile, so yesterday I wore the one with the peace sign. Honestly, it’s always towards the bottom of the pile, mostly […]

[I posted an earlier version of this yesterday, but a computer glitch devoured a couple of hours of bibliographic work. Here is an complete version, with the lost material restored and some additions.] Slowly but […]

I’m happy to say that I’m on track to posting considerably more than the 3000 original pages that has been my goal for 2006’s scanning and archiving initiative. Looking ahead to 2007, I’m hoping to […]

I’m teaching another online section of Great Ideas this fall. This time around, my students and I will be comparing current events with those in colonial America, and exploring questions about the limits of liberty […]

The only required textbook for the course is the first volume of Vernon L. Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought—The Colonial Mind, 1620-1800. (Check Bookfinder for cheap copies.) Parrington’s work is, in its own right, […]