The past is never dead. It's not even past
Standing in the outskirts of western Huehuetenango, Juan Gonzalez described to me the fields which surrounded his childhood home during the 1970s. “Our family used to raise a few cows in this area,” he said softly, “I used to tend to one named Membrio.” The bull’s hair was tan and tough on the outside, like […]
Questions of race have complicated histories in Russia and the Soviet Union, where a commitment to anti-racist and internationalist ideology often disguised racialization and racial conflict. The strong negative reactions to Black Lives Matter in Russia in 2020 have given these questions new attention and urgency. One factor in this history that is routinely overlooked is […]
Not Even Past is proud to partner with This is Democracy, a groundbreaking podcast that brings together thoughtful voices from different generations to help make sense of current challenges and propose positive steps forward. This is Democracy Reading Lists are designed to accompany the podcast interview and to provide additional, curated readings for anyone interested in the topic under […]
By Jeremi Suri (with comment by Daniel Immerwahr) From the Editors: This article is accompanied by a comment from Daniel Immerwahr (Northwestern University) who specializes in twentieth-century U.S. history within a global context. Such comments are a new feature for Not Even Past designed to provide different ways to engage with important new work. One […]
Simone de Beauvoir would not be surprised by #metoo. After all, she wrote the book that laid out just how profoundly women’s position as the subordinate Other warped sexuality, intimacy, and even love . The Second Sex, Beauvoir path-blazing 1949 work of feminist theory, did not mince words on what Kate Manne in Down Girl […]
In 2020-21, the Institute for Historical Studies will convene a series of talks, workshops, and panel discussions centered on the theme “Climate in Context: Historical Precedents and the Unprecedented”. As part of that, we are delighted to publish this roundtable discussion consisting of three reviews focused on Carolyn Merchant’s The Death of Nature, a classic […]
Not Even Past is proud to partner with This is Democracy, a groundbreaking podcast that brings together thoughtful voices from different generations to help make sense of current challenges and propose positive steps forward. For Episode 120 of This is Democracy, Jeremi and Zachary Suri hosted Professor Hannah Gurman and Professor Kaeten Mistry to discuss […]
By Yoav Di-Capua On Monday evening, September 28, 1970, Egyptian radio and television abruptly began to broadcast recitations of the Quran. It was a familiar sign that something of great significance had gone horribly wrong. Egyptians had heard it before – when they lost the June 1967 war and again, eighteen months earlier, when a […]
History professors often look for ways to use the past to inform present debates. With long-past events, that sometimes requires some acrobatic leaps over centuries or millennia, but in my own courses on violence in American history, the connections are often pretty obvious. Every day, a stream of new or ongoing violent events invite historical […]
From the Editors: This article is accompanied by a comment from Jeremi Suri, the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Such comments are a new feature for Not Even Past designed to provide different ways to engage with important new work. This week marks the […]