Blog

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, […]

Let’s begin with a first reading assignment. Please read the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence. Read them carefully. These are founding documents, marking the beginnings of new societies. What ideas are emphasized in […]

Hi, folks. Here’s a bit of personal information about me: I was born in the Redwoods, in northern California. My dad worked for our favorite Uncle Sam, as a wildlife refuge biologist with the US […]

In working through Alfred Westrup’s New Philosophy of Money, I’ve encountered a number of interesting writers with whom I was previously unfamiliar. One of these is Lewis H. Blair, a southern anti-protectionist, currency reformer and […]

Radical historians have their guilty pleasures too, and Michael J.Schaack’s Anarchy and anarchists has to rank right up there in my top ten list. Subtitled “A history of the Red terror and the social revolution […]