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Six Months After the End of the World 
For many, the devastation created by the Palisades Fire felt like the end of the world. Six months later, most of the fire debris has been removed, but stark reminders of the damage remain, as residents and local governments...
The Fire Followers 
As communities struggle to rebuild and recover from the devastation of the Palisades fire, nature is also in the process of regenerating.  When Topanga Canyon Boulevard reopened at the end of May, drivers were met not with bare hillsides...
Amusement Piers 
A pier is a folly, a highway to nowhere. Whether lined with fishermen or filled with the cries and clattering of a roller coaster, whether thick with the aromas of hotdogs and fries or freshly gutted fish, they are...
California Mustard: Beauty or Bane 
A beautiful but unwelcome tide of golden blossom is sweeping over the Santa Monica Mountains this year. The late—and light—rainy season has resulted in few native wildflowers but an abundance of mustard, an opportunistic invasive that thrives even in...
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Flying Fish 911 

The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.* Mankind has transformed the...
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The Agora 

My mother is a clinical psychologist who began her academic work a bit later in life than is typical; which is to say, I was raised by a woman practicing to practice psychology. Since she will likely read this,...
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MCMLXXIV 

In August 1974, when I was 14 years-old, Richard Nixon resigned as president of the United States under a cloud of lies and malfeasance. The next month, I began my journey from Cincinnati, Ohio to Southern California under no...
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Some Friends of Mine 

As an introverted and not-yet-so-famous historian, it amazes me that I have been able to develop surprisingly intimate friendships with Absaroka County, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire; Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett; Iberia Parish, Louisiana Detective Dave Robicheaux; LAPD Homicide...
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1942 

“In a 2018 poll, over 60 percent of respondents in a citizenship survey could not identify the nations that the US fought in World War II.” —Tracy Campbell In The Year of Peril: America in 1942 (2020), social historian...
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Caravan 

In Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence. And the Roots of Migration (2021), Latin America historian Aviva Chomsky makes the clear case that immigration problems on the United States’ southern border are a direct consequence of an aggressive foreign...
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Bob Lee 

In Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, historian Ty Seidule knocks Confederate General Robert E. Lee off his high horse. Seidule is a retired US Army Brigadier General and current...