The past is never dead. It's not even past
In January of 1856, a prolonged period of frigid temperatures in northern Kentucky—the coldest in sixty years—froze the Ohio River creating a bridge to freedom for enslaved people daring enough to cross it. On Sunday, January 27, 1856, Margaret Garner and seven members of her family made the arduous eighteen-mile journey that separated their lives […]
Two young Guatemalan soldiers abruptly pose for the camera. They rush to stand upright with rifles at their sides. On a dirt road overlooking an ominous Guatemala City, they stand on guard duty. This snapshot formed the title page of an exhibit at the University of Texas at Austin’s Benson Latin American Collection in 2018. […]
by Mark Atwood Lawrence Originally published as “Studying the Vietnam War: How the Scholarship Has Changed” in the Fall 2017 issue of Humanities magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities.” Editors Note: The Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War premiered on PBS last Sunday, September 17. Mark A. Lawrence, Associate Professor […]
By Aden Knaap, Harvard University The protagonist-narrator of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel The Sympathizer has a thing for squid. (Think less calamari, more American Pie.) The bastard son of a Vietnamese maid and a French priest, he discovers at the age of thirteen that he has a peculiar fetish for masturbating into gutted squid, […]
During the summer of 2016, we will be bringing together our previously published articles, book reviews, and podcasts on key themes and periods in the history of the USA. Each grouping is designed to correspond to the core areas of the US History Survey Courses taken by undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.
During the summer of 2016, we will be bringing together our previously published articles, book reviews, and podcasts on key themes and periods in the history of the USA. Each grouping is designed to correspond to the core areas of the US History Survey Courses taken by undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin. Andrew Villalon offers […]
Today we often associate hybrid or genetically modified corn with agricultural monopolies, big business, and capitalism, in the early Cold War some feared that the rise of hybrid corn would sow the seeds of Communism in the United States.
The on-going legacy of the War in Vietnam.
Hailed as a pioneer of conservatism by some and reviled as an enemy of the middle class and a supporter of dictators by others, Reagan’s legacy has largely been shaped by debate between partisan pundits. Gradually, however, a limited body of more moderate of “Reagan revisionism” has begun to emerge.
Henry Wallace, according to Oliver Stone’s Showtime series, Untold History of the United States, was a true American hero, a lover of peace, and a gentle soul whose leadership could have saved the world from the Cold War. While no one has ever accused Stone of historical accuracy, his past work did not lay claim to documentary status. So how well does Stone’s interpretation comport with the historical record?