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Myth and Modernity: A Review of Persecution and Toleration

A new take on the origins of our ideas about religious liberty.
by Cameron Harwick via Liberal Currents on July 1, 2019

James Madison Understood Religious Freedom Better than Jefferson Did

One emphasized the freedom to think; the other, in effect, the freedom to pray.
by Steven Waldman via National Review on May 20, 2019

We Hold These Ideas to Be Self-Evident

Michael Kimmage considers "The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History" by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen.
by Michael Kimmage via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 29, 2019
Painting of the Roman Senate.

Rome's Heroes and America's Founding Fathers

Why the statesmen of the Roman Republic had such an influence on the patriots of the Revolutionary era.
by Paul Meany via Journal of the American Revolution on October 23, 2018
"Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky," a painting by Benjamin West (ca. 1816).

Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will

Why French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt.
by Kevin Duong via The Public Domain Review on November 9, 2017
Benjamin Franklin

A “Thorough Deist?” The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin

Historian Thomas S. Kidd examines the tension between Benjamin Franklin's deism and his frequent religious rhetoric.
by Thomas S. Kidd via Age of Revolutions on June 5, 2017

Jefferson: Hero or Villain? It’s Complicated.

An interview with Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf.
by Annette Gordon-Reed, Richard Kreitner, Peter S. Onuf via Boston Review on May 19, 2016
The all seeing eye reveals that the American flag is melting.

America’s Broken Commonwealth

The nation’s founding myth was based on faith and solidarity – but it also contained the roots of today’s democratic crisis.
by Rowan Williams via New Statesman on May 22, 2025
Scene of prehistoric game hunters.

Prehistory’s Original Sin

We need more than genealogies to know who we are, and who we ought to become.
by Connor Grubaugh via The Hedgehog Review on May 6, 2025
Person sitting on the ground, head in hands.

Still Pursuing Happiness

The United States fares badly on the World Happiness Report. Who cares?
by Reuven Brenner via Law & Liberty on April 22, 2025
A woman holding her head in distress, and a naked woman sitting on an illustration of a toy car pulled by string.

Frog-Free

The demystification of pregnancy.
by Erin Maglaque via London Review of Books on April 17, 2025
An eagle in its nest of the American flag, which holds eggs representing the states.

From Woke to Solidarity

On two new books that critique identity politics and seek a new vision of political culture.
by Michael S. Roth via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 24, 2024
Headlights on the road and a forest fire on the horizon.

Meaning in Decline

The surprising influence of premillennial eschatology on American culture.
by Daniel G. Hummel via Comment on September 5, 2024
Lithograph of George Washington on his land with people he enslaved.

What, to the American, Is Revolutionary?

The colonial rebellion we celebrate every July 4th doesn’t fit the definition.
by Kellie Carter Jackson via The Emancipator on July 2, 2024
The first Congress in prayer.

The Bible in Revolutionary America: A Guide to Human Nature and Human Government

While Enlightenment philosophy may have influenced the wealthy Revolutionary elites, it was the Biblical worldview that prompted widespread resistance.
by Guy Chet via Starting Points on June 3, 2024
Alexander Hamilton

The Federalist No. 1: Annotated

Alexander Hamilton’s anonymous essay challenged the voting citizens of New York to hold fast to the truth when deciding to ratify (or not) the US Constitution.
by Alexander Hamilton, Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 30, 2024
Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

How Christianity Influenced America’s Notions of Equality

'All men are created equal' coexisted with the understanding that not all were meant to be treated equally in life.
by Darrin M. McMahon via TIME on November 15, 2023
Painting Romania Unchained.

Where Identity Politics Actually Comes From

Nationalism, not postmodernism, is the fount of today's politics of recognition.
by Jason Blakely via The Chronicle of Higher Education on October 3, 2023
Layered collage of an eye over the portrait of Thomas Jefferson, against the backdrop of the Declaration of Independence.

Who Really Wrote ‘the Pursuit of Happiness’?

The voice of Doctor Johnson, archcritic of the American Revolution, was constantly in mind for the Declaration of Independence’s drafter.
by Peter Moore via The Atlantic on July 4, 2023
Andrea Casali: The Personification of History Writing on the Back of Time, early 1760s

Ego-Histories

The more that historians make their own experiences an explicit part of their work, the harder it will become to let the sources speak clearly.
by David A. Bell via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
18th-century map of Madagascar by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin.

The Hidden Treasures of Pirate Democracy

In his final book, David Graeber looks at an experiment in radical democracy and piratical justice in Madagascar.
by Marcus Rediker via The Nation on March 21, 2023
Painting of 19th century British schoolgirls walking in a group

Hearts and Minds

What we fight about when we fight about schools.
by Paul Tough via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 31, 2022
The front cover of Peter Manseau's new book, featuring a photo of Jefferson's bible.

Doubting Thomas

Is Jefferson's Bible evidence that the Founding Fathers engaged with scripture to birth a Christian nation? Or that they sought to foster a new secular order?
by Ed Simon via Los Angeles Review of Books on November 6, 2022
Illustration depicting a man with a sword drawn confronting a man and woman standing in a doorway in pajamas.

Family, Liberty, and Vermont: The Allegiance of Ethan Allen in the Revolutionary Era

He held multiple allegiances during the Revolution, all of which were connected or stemmed from the importance he placed on familial self-preservation.
by Benjamin Anderson via Commonplace on May 1, 2022
Statue of Jefferson in front of white columns of building facade

The Decline of Church-State Separation

The author of new book explains the fraught and turbulent relationship between religion and government in the U.S.
by Steven Green, Eric C. Miller via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on April 26, 2022
1827 Finley Map of the Western Hemisphere

Land that Could Become Water

Dreams of Central America in the era of the Erie Canal.
by Jessica Lepler via Commonplace on April 5, 2022
Protester in a march, holding a sign that reads "Bank on the future."

The Way We Talk About Climate Change Is Wrong

The language of “sacrifice” reveals we’re stuck in a colonial mindset.
by Priya Satia via Foreign Policy on March 11, 2022
Henry Louis Gates Jr.

How Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Helped Remake the Literary Canon

The scholar has changed the way Black authors get read and the way Black history gets told.
by Henry Louis Gates Jr., David Remnick via The New Yorker on February 19, 2022
Line of forest fire volunteers in Siberia

A Deranged Pyroscape: How Fires Across the World Have Grown Weirder

Fewer fires are burning worldwide than at any time since antiquity. But in banishing fire from sight, we have made its dangers stranger and less predictable.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The Guardian on February 3, 2022
Black and white lithograph depicting the Founders signing the Declaration of Independence.

Have Americans Got George III All Wrong?

George III was a model monarch, whose reputation finally deserves rehabilitation a quarter of a millennium later.
by Andrew Roberts via The Spectator on November 18, 2021
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