#ScholarSunday Thread 222

Published on April 27, 2025

In a few days it’s gonna be May, but right now it’s gonna be my 222^nd #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, share widely, & enjoy, all!

Starting with a few pieces to commemorate Patriots’ Day, the New England-specific holiday that we should all be thinking about right now—including William Benzon for 3 Quarks Daily on “Why I Am a Patriot: Vietnam, The Draft, Mennonites, and Project Apollo”:

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/04/why-i-am-a-patriot-vietnam-the-draft-mennonites-and-project-apollo.html

I really loved Clint Smith for The Atlantic on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture and what it means to tell the truth about America:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/smithsonian-executive-order-nmaahc/682512/?gift=JORs3BlPb0E7W_6BAebCaOBb6SbQAQfkOpebgJ1OLjk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

& for my latest Saturday Evening Post Considering History column, I highlighted some critical patriotic figures from Concord history that we should commemorate alongside the Revolutionary Minutemen:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/04/considering-history-concord-protest-and-patriotism/

Turning to other great public scholarly writing from the week, here’s Saffron East for History Workshop on South Asian political Blackness in 1970s Britain:

https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/black-history/south-asian-political-blackness-in-1970s-britain/

Really interesting stuff from Benjamin Taub for IFL Science on how the world’s oldest mummy is rewriting millennia of Native American history:

https://www.iflscience.com/spirit-cave-man-how-the-worlds-oldest-mummy-rewrote-10000-years-of-native-american-history-78885?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/archaeology

Danny Robb wrote for JSTOR Daily on how Robert FitzRoy’s distribution of barometers to fishing communities empowered sailors:

https://daily.jstor.org/robert-fitzroy-and-the-laws-of-storms/

Here’s Lucy Wray for the Women’s History Association of Ireland’s Emerging Scholar Blog on the “lost” photographs of turn of the century artist Mary Alice Young:

https://womenshistoryassociation.com/whai-emerging-scholar-blog/the-lost-photographs-of-mary-alice-young/

Two excellent essays for the London Review of Books to share this week, including Tom Crewe on Paul Frecker’s Cartomania & our obsession with celebrity faces:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n07/tom-crewe/the-face-you-put-on

& Gazelle Mba wrote for the LRB on Hakim Adi’s important African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n07/gazelle-mba/some-beneficial-influence

A trio of pieces from Saturday Evening Post colleagues to add to my own new column this week, including Tanya Roth’s latest Women’s Work on the women behind the Nuremberg Trials:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/04/womens-work-building-justice-the-women-behind-the-nuremberg-trials/

Bill Newcott wrote for the Post on America’s forgotten capital city, Texas’s quirky Washington-on-the-Brazos:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/04/americas-forgotten-capital-city/

& here’s Erich Hatala Matthes for the Post on our need for more stewards who can help us preserve what things are most worth saving:

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2025/04/our-world-needs-more-stewards/

Turning to current events, Camille Walsh wrote for the History News Network on the long history of promises of a more “efficient” federal government:

https://www.hnn.us/article/how-to-succeed-in-government-without-really-trying

For NICHE Canada’s ongoing series tracking the current US government’s environment effects, Claire Campbell shared the view from the 18^th century:

https://niche-canada.org/2025/04/23/what-comes-next-the-view-from-the-eighteenth-century/

Important open-access article for the Cornell Law Review from Anthony Michael Kreis, Evan D. Bernick, & Paul A. Gowder on the new Dunning School of anti-birthday citizenship legal historians:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5162760

Phenomenal essay in Harper’s Bazaar from Celeste Pewter on all the women she met in jail when she was imprisoned for resisting her domestic abuser:

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a64577728/domestic-violence-law/

Two gift links to New York Times articles to share this week, including Yarimar Bonilla on blackouts & the collapse of Puerto Rico’s colonial bargain:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/opinion/puerto-rico-blackout.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Bk8.V_w1.pUwiiH4s_98m&smid=url-share

& here’s a gift link to Jessica Grose’s excellent Times op ed offering historical contexts for RFK Jr.’s ugly comments on autism:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/opinion/kennedy-autism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.B08.cpk2.y3sxNzPXzg4R&smid=url-share

Important work from Frankie de la Cretaz for Out of Your League on how the Boston Marathon became a case study in anti-trans media hysteria:

the boston marathon: a case study in an anti-trans media hysteria

Speaking of such hysterias, Jay Willis wrote for Balls and Strikes on the inclusive children’s books that the Supreme Court is so afraid of:

https://ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/mahmoud-v-taylor-childrens-books-uncle-bobbys-wedding/

Hakeem Jefferson interrupted his public writing hiatus to share this excellent column for The Stanford Daily on what DEI really threatens:

https://stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/what-dei-threatens-isnt-merit-its-monopoly/

Taking the importantly broad view on the Trump administration, Alexander Stille wrote for The New Republic on Trump’s resemblance to Mussolini:

Which Past Fascist Does Trump Most Resemble? The Incompetent One.

Three thoughtful essays for Liberal Currents to share this week, including Toby Buckle on what Trump “alarmists” got exactly right:

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/trump-alarmists-were-right-we-should-say-so/

Here’s Samantha Hancox-Li for Liberal Currents on how the present crisis reflects the end of the constitutional consensus of the long ‘90s:

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-present-crisis-and-the-end-of-the-long-90s/

& here’s Alan Elrod for Liberal Currents on whether & how America can come back from who we’ve become:

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/inherent-vice-can-america-come-back-from-who-weve-become/

Gonna end this section with a handful of hopeful pieces, including the AAC&U “Call for Constructive Engagement” that has now been signed by hundreds of university & college presidents:

https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-call-for-constructive-engagement

Speaking of constructive engagement, two excellent American Historical Association Perspectives pieces this week also made the case for it, including Laura Ansley on op ed writing as activism:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/speak-up/

& outgoing AHA Executive Director James R. Grossman wrote one more column for Perspectives, arguing that we all need to find our soapboxes:

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/find-your-soapbox/

Finally, for those looking to engage through digital scholarly projects, the new H-Net Spaces platform seems like it’ll be a great option:

https://networks.h-net.org/group/announcements/20066546/new-service-announcement-build-manage-and-preserve-digital-projects-h

Speaking of digital scholarship, lots of great new podcast episodes this week, including the latest Drafting the Past featuring Emily Herring on her first book & shift to full-time writing:

https://draftingthepast.com/podcast-episodes/episode-64-emily-herring-listens-for-the-rhythm/

The latest episode of the Midwestern History Association’s Heartland History podcast features Willa Hammit Brown on the myth of the American lumberjack:

Civics & Coffee’s new episode is a deep-dive into First Lady Julia Dent Grant:

https://www.civicsandcoffee.com/julia-dent-grant/

While episode 53 of Waitman W. Beorn’s Holocaust History podcast features Michael S. Bryand & John J. Michalczyk on Mein Kampf:

I’m excited to share the first episode of what should be a vital new podcast on the 1985 MOVE bombing, The Philadelphia Inquirer & The Logan Center for Urban Investigative Reporting’s “MOVE: Untangling the Tragedy”:

https://www.inquirer.com/move-bombing/

Also a handful of excellent YouTube conversations to share this week, including Julia Rose Kraut joining Lawfare Daily to talk ideological exclusions & deportations:

For Primary Source Media, hosts Lynn Price Robbins & Isaac S. Loftus were joined by Surekha Davies on the history of monsters:

The awesome folks at the Omohundro Institute interviewed Catherine Dann Roeber, Rebecca Parmer, & Jason Heppler, co-founders of the Denig Manuscript Project:

& I enjoyed this compelling short piece for the AHA’s Teaching with Integrity series, featuring German American high school social studies teacher Katharina Matro:

Four excellent pieces for Time’s Made By History to share this week, including Shaun S. Nichols on how we over-emphasize domestic manufacturing’s ability to create “good jobs”:

https://time.com/7273168/domestic-manufacturing-isnt-key-to-good-jobs/

Christopher M. Bellitto wrote for Made By History on history’s reminders that we should expect the unexpected from a Papal Conclave:

https://time.com/7263529/expecting-the-unexpected-from-papal-conclave/

Here’s Thomas J. Knock for Made By History on how Food for Peace showed how foreign aid can benefit both the US & the world:

https://time.com/7275593/food-for-peace-showed-foreign-aid-benefit-both-us-and-world/

& finally for Made By History, Michael Overstreet shared the history of tariffs & protesting French farmers:

https://time.com/7277947/history-of-protesting-french-farmers/

Over at the AAIHS’s Black Perspectives blog, I really enjoyed Gayle F. Wald on Ella Jenkins’s sonic civil rights pedagogy:

https://www.aaihs.org/ella-jenkins-and-sonic-civil-rights-pedagogy/

Lots of important new books published this week, including Krista N. Dalton’s How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles & Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity from Princeton University Press:

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691266763/how-rabbis-became-experts

Also out this week is Shaun Richman’s We Always Had a Union: The New York Hotel Workers’ Union, 1912-1953 from University of Illinois Press:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p088537

Now available as well is Mary Ziegler’s long-awaited Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction from Yale University Press:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/personhood-the-new-civil-war-over-reproduction-mary-ziegler/21692901?ean=9780300273045&next=t

Also just published is Adam Becker’s timely More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, & Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity from Hachette:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-becker/more-everything-forever/9781541619593/

Likewise out now is Quentin Skinner’s Liberty as Independence: The Making & Unmaking of a Political Ideal from Cambridge University Press:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/liberty-as-independence/3309A4BD2E0FDC722DF8CEDC05C7E0A2

& for an open-access new book, check out Matthew Siôn Lampitt’s Literary Culture in the Medieval Welsh Marches: Networks, Places, Politics from Oxford:

https://academic.oup.com/book/59910?login=true

I enjoyed Allison Lichter’s Matriarchy Report interview with Mona Eltahawy on her revisionist new book on menopause, Bloody Hell:

Interview: Everything you thought you knew about sex after menopause is wrong

Two forthcoming UNC Press books now available for pre-order to share this week, including Jonathan S. Jones’s Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans & America’s First Opioid Crisis:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469689531/opium-slavery/

& also now available for pre-order is Kylie M. Smith’s Jim Crow in the Asylum: Psychiatry & Civil Rights in the American South:

https://uncpress.org/book/9781469689203/jim-crow-in-the-asylum/

Lots of great book reviews this week too, including the latest USIH review, Steven P. Remy on Michael Soffer’s Our Nazi: An American Suburb’s Encounter with Evil:

https://s-usih.org/2025/04/steven-p-remy-on-michael-soffers-our-nazi-an-american-suburbs-encounter-with-evil/

For Contingent magazine, Josthin Amado reviewed Aimee Loiselle’s Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican & Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class:

https://contingentmagazine.org/2025/04/26/framing-resistance/

For The New Yorker Adam Gopnik reviewed two new books on Lincoln & the Civil War, Jay Winik’s 1861: The Lost Peace & Michael Vorenberg’s Lincoln’s Peace:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/28/lincolns-peace-michael-vorenberg-book-review-1861-jay-winik

For Commonplace, Max Chapnick reviewed Todd Carmody’s Work Requirements: Race, Disability, & the Print Culture of Social Welfare:

https://commonplace.online/article/the-making-of-the-american-culture-of-work/

& for the Mid-Theory Collective, Kazuo Robinson reviewed Edwin Frank’s Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel:

https://mid-theory.com/2025/04/14/in-their-time-a-review-of-edwin-franks-stranger-than-fiction-lives-of-the-twentieth-century-novel/

Want more scholarly books to check out? Here’s Selbi Durdiyeva’s Clio & the Contemporary reading list of five books on decoloniality:

https://clioandthecontemporary.com/2025/04/21/decoloniality-for-beginners/

Gonna end with a ton of excellent newsletters & blog posts from the week, including Karen Attiah for her Golden Hour newsletter on how she’ll be offering her canceled Columbia course on race & media:

Columbia Canceled My Course on Race and Media. I'm Going to Teach It Anyway.

Here’s Keith Harris for his website on the frustrating return of book banning:

https://keithharrishistory.com/keith-harris-history/banningbooks

For his Can We Still Govern? newsletter, Don Moynihan wrote about what will be lost is the federal government’s partnership with universities is destroyed:

Are universities too dependent on federal support?

Taking the broader view was Thomas Zimmer for his Democracy Americana newsletter on how despotism rises & a Republic falls:

How the Republic Falls

For her Feminist Giant newsletter, Mona Eltahawy wrote about how the US is coming to resemble the Egyptian dictatorship she fled:

Essay: I left behind an authoritarian state to move to the US. Now I see my new home falling to the same dark forces

Really moving stuff from Radley Balko for his The Watch newsletter on how we must have the courage to resist by being decent:

The courage to be decent

& speaking of necessary courage, great stuff as usual from Kevin M. Levin for his Civil War Memory newsletter, this time on the conversations that need to happen at historical sites this summer:

The Conversations That Need To Take Place at Historical Sites This Summer

Looking beyond current events, for his A Sea of Words newsletter Lincoln Paine highlighted Jeff Forret’s The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, & Reparations Before the Civil War:

The Price They Paid: Slavery, Shipwrecks, and Reparations Before the Civil War

Pamela Toler’s blog is fascinating as ever, this time on Grace Drayton, the turn of the 20^th century illustrator who created the American icons known as the Campbell Soup kids:

https://www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/04/21/grace-drayton-illustrator-and-creator-of-an-american-icon/

Ditto Jann Alexander’s blog, this time on the life & legacy of America’s first female Cabinet member Frances Perkins:

https://www.jannalexander.com/post/woman-behind-new-deal

I always enjoy Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American newsletter, but especially love when she goes beyond our current moment, as she did with a wonderful Earth Day installment:

April 22, 2025

For her continuing, wonderful Review Roulette series on what we can learn for our moment from returning to Capra-corn, Vaughn Joy reviewed Mister Deeds Goes to Town:

Part IV of Corn: Make Way for Odd Little Ducklings

Speaking of timely films, Dion Georgiou has generously made his December 2024 piece on Conclave free for all readers (but do subscribe to The Academic Bubble!):

Conclave

Gonna end with a trio of pieces on the year’s best film, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, including the great Outlaw Vern’s glowing review:

https://outlawvern.com/2025/04/25/sinners/

For his History Can’t Hide newsletter, the Gen-Z Historian Kahlil Greene offered a historical guide to all (or at least a whole lot of) the references in Sinners:

Everything You Missed in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners—COMPLETE Historical Reference Guide

& for the Historians at the Movies podcast, special guest Zandria Robinson made the case for Sinners as the best movie of the 21^st century:

Finally, before the weekend is over, make sure you follow Maris Kreizman’s excellent advice for LitHub & celebrate Independent Bookstore Day:

https://lithub.com/something-good-in-the-world-lets-celebrate-independent-bookstore-day-this-weekend/

PS. I’m sure I missed plenty as ever, so before you head to the bookstore, add more public scholarly writing, podcasts, new & forthcoming books below. Thanks, happy reading, listening, & learning, & see y’all in May!