History Archives - Page 11 of 78

Activism

The Power of Black Feminist Pragmatism

Why the Black Lives Matter movement is the best alternative to the anti-democratic, white supremacist, authoritarian capture of the United States

January 20, 2022 • by Deva Woodly

The Black Lives Matter movement is not a “new social movement” that focuses on cultural transformation while eschewing policy intervention, nor is it fashioned after “old style,” “traditional” social movements that attempt to move policy while deemphasizing the need for deep changes in public understandings of the problems facing polities ...

Activism

On Coming to Terms

What form should a “post #BlackLivesMatter” movement take?

January 19, 2022 • by Christopher Paul Harris

BlackLivesMatter” world, it won’t be one where the current constellation of movement organizations simply disappear or become ineffective in their attempts to bring Black people closer to liberation....

Activism

The Promise of Black Lives Matter

How to sustain a popular movement that can dismantle structural racism in America

January 18, 2022 • by Maneesh Arora

How can BLM activists and other allied individuals and organizations capitalize on the outrage they are precipitating by bringing first-time protesters into the fold? Moreover, how can they help people who are concerned about racial inequality—motivated to do something about it and already thinking structurally—to also act structurally? ...

Activism

We Are a Reckoning

Deva Woodly introduces her new book, Reckoning: Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements

January 17, 2022 • by Deva Woodly

This nation is mine. Mine to claim. Mine to hold to account. Mine to participate in reshaping. So I tell an American story because it is my story to tell....

Film

Puerto Rican History Deserves More Than a Musical

West Side Story displaces the true story of the Young Lords Organization’s civil rights struggle

December 15, 2021 • by Jacqueline Lazú

For many, West Side Story is simply an iconic musical with catchy tunes. For me, however, it became a critical entryway into political consciousness about when and how Puerto Ricans matter in United States history, and why popular representations are instrumental to that....

Puerto Rican History Deserves More Than a Musical

Democracy

The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change

In an excerpt from Rethinking American Grand Strategy, Beverly Gage examines how statecraft and social movements intersect

December 8, 2021 • by Beverly Gage

Means and Ends As other essays in this collection demonstrate, the idea of “grand strategy” emerged out of the world of military affairs. Under the famous rubric identified by British historian B. H. Liddell Hart, “strategy” was what generals did, while “grand strategy” fell to politicians and statesmen, charged not only with winning ...

The Blob and the Mob: On Grand Strategy and Social Change

Democracy

Navigating the World of Grand Strategy with Christopher McKnight Nichols and Andrew Preston

The two historians talk to Public Seminar about Rethinking American Grand Strategy

December 8, 2021 • by Gregory Coleman, Christopher McKnight Nichols and Andrew Preston

Award-winning historians Christopher McKnight Nichols and Andrew Preston spoke (virtually) with Public Seminar editorial intern Gregory Coleman to discuss their new book Rethinking American Grand Strategy (Oxford University Press, 2021). Edited by Nichols and Preston with fellow historian Elizabeth Borgwardt, the collection of curated essays discusses what American grand strategy ...

Navigating the World of Grand Strategy with Christopher McKnight Nichols and Andrew Preston

Politics

What Use Is Fact-Checking Against Fact-Free Politics?

The rise of false histories by real politicians

December 7, 2021 • by Edin Hajdarpasic

In early November, a report to the United Nations written by Christian Schmidt, the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, was leaked to the press. In it, Schmidt warned that the country was in danger of falling apart, with a “very real” prospect for a renewed civil war waged by ...

What Use Is Fact-Checking Against Fact-Free Politics?

Film

Who Should Tell Pauli Murray’s Story?

Why a white documentarian should have stepped aside and created space for a Black filmmaker

December 1, 2021 • by Benje Williams

My hand is trembling as I stick it into the dark air. I wasn’t planning on asking a question. Definitely not this question. But it needs to be asked, and I don’t see any other Black people in this theater in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. “I’m so glad My ...

The Arts

When Diane Arbus Came to Central Park

The New York City story of a latchkey kid and a trailblazing photographer

November 30, 2021 • by Vicky Oliver

For me as a city kid, Central Park was a forbidden Eden. Even though I grew up a stone’s throw from the park, my parents forbade me to walk there, even chaperoned, even in broad daylight. And so, it’s all the more astounding that I recently found myself trotting—no, tearing over—to see ...

Politics

The Politics of Infrastructure

How the Lebanese struggle for public infrastructure is a lesson for all

November 17, 2021 • by Joanne Randa Nucho

Last month, Lebanon’s national electricity grid went dark—and this tiny Mediterranean country, known for its elite educational institutions, tourism and banking, but struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and corruption, found itself in newspaper headlines around the world again. The state’s two power plants had run out of fuel. Having ...

Uncategorized

How COVID-19 Became a Crisis

To understand what went wrong, look at how the problem is framed

November 3, 2021 • by Janet Roitman

We are in crisis. Nothing could be more self-evident: a global pandemic has ravaged the human species. But wait—what does it mean to call an open-ended event that is playing out over a period of years a “crisis"? If humans live with viruses, how is Covid-19, and the diseases it triggers, a crisis for the human species and our ...