Judge Peter
I met Judge Peter Ney late in his life; shortly after he had completed his autobiography: Getting Here: From a Seat on a Train to a Seat on the Bench. Peter’s son Rick and I have been friends for...
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...
Connecting the Dots
The best history is intimately connected to our own lives and serves in our quest to understand the world we live in. Throughline, a weekly podcast from National Public Radio, lives up to the standard; with the explicitly stated...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
On Poverty in America
America’s social welfare programs are geared to providing a safety net for those who fall on hard times. What if we directed our efforts to prevent falling into the net in the first place? I think of this now...
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