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.
US Survey Course: Cold War
The Seldoms Bring LBJ and the 1960s Into the Present in Their Investigation of How Power Goes
In the contemporary dance theater work Power Goes, which arrives at McCullough Theatre on the campus of the University of Texas on September 16th and 18th, courtesy of Texas Performing Arts, the Briscoe Center for American History, and the LBJ Presidential Library, the Chicago-based dance ensemble, The Seldoms, propose that we can dance our way deeply into the historical past.
Presidents Past
Thinking about the future POTUS, with the first debate of the 2016 campaign on TV tonight? Read up on Presidents of the past in articles we have posted here on Not Even Past. Let’s begin with Jack Loveridge’s review of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72: “Thompson, author of Hell’s Angels and Fear […]
Charleston Shooting Exposes America’s Pro-Apartheid Cold War Past
In the wake of the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the United States has undergone a deep soul searching. Images of the confessed shooter posing with the Confederate Battle Flag have launched a long-overdue national debate about the meaning of Confederate imagery. But they have quickly overshadowed the shooter’s use of two other symbols: the defunct standards of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and apartheid South Africa.
Age of Fracture, by Daniel T. Rodgers (2011)
In Age of Fracture, the 2012 winner of the Bancroft Prize, Rodgers argues that, between 1970 and 2001, a key intellectual and cultural shift took place. The dominant tendency of the age, Rodgers contends, was toward disaggregation.
Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice, by David Scott (2014)
by Lauren Hammond On October 19, 1983, members of Grenada’s People’s Revolutionary Army assassinated Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada and seven of his associates, triggering the sequence of events that led to the sudden end of the Grenada Revolution. With the prime minister dead, the hastily established ruling military council unsuccessfully attempted to restore […]
What’s Missing from ‘Argo’ (2012)
Argo is the story of the Americans’ ordeal and their relatively miraculous escape—and in this it delivers. It is unfortunate, however, that the film presents these dramatic events against a simplified backdrop that diminishes the complexity of the Iranian political scene at the time.
Narco-Modernities
Drug trafficking - especially as it pertains to Mexico - has been a main fixture in today’s news for some time now. But UT graduate student Edward F. Shore argues that the violence, disorder, and political, social, and economic instability associated with the drug trade has a long history, and one that has had international repercussions.
The Strangest Dream – Reykjavik 1986
College freshmen have no personal knowledge of the Cold War. Born after the Berlin Wall’s fall and the Soviet Union’s collapse, the threat of nuclear Armageddon seems far removed from their experiences, a relic of a bygone age. Yet, today, more countries than ever hold weapons whose scale of destruction can dwarf that of every bomb used in World War II.
Re-Reading John Winthrop’s “City upon the Hill”
The city upon the hill that Winthrop sought to create in New England is a different world from that of his alleged ideological heirs. For Winthrop, the stakes of getting the city right were high (and they continue to be). To build a lasting “city upon the hill” the Puritans needed to create a society held together by charity, mercy, and love.