My academic adventure evolved into a struggle to understand why “change over time” (that’s how historians define history) occurs as it does. That is one of the reasons I created this blog: I was looking for a theory of history.
To some extent I have come up with one.
My late husband and I had a running debate over which force mattered the most: downtown landowners who wanted to keep up rents (Rick’s view) or urban planners (my view). Rick, the economist, may well have been right—especially about the devastation of Boston that goes back to the 1950s—but planners are at fault, too. That’s the subject of this post.
Have you ever thought about the difference between the biblical Jesus who said that the meek will inherit the earth and the Christ in whose name the Crusaders warred against Muslims and Jews?
These examples are, of course, at the extremes of Christianity—Jesus’ love of the least-favored people versus triumphant soldiers who went to war with the cross on their flags. But the image of Christians conducting wars and inflicting pain still jars us, and it is impossible for Christians to approve of those who took over Jerusalem in 1099 and massacred Muslims and Jews in the process.
How did this transformation take place?
We are witnessing one of the greatest ironies of modern history: the population policy of the Chinese government. The state’s coercive one-child policy—complete with forced birth control, sterilizations, late (even caesarean) abortions, and likely infanticide—began...
For nearly 200 years there has been a controversy in the United States over how to teach reading.
The first 300 years of Christianity were troubled times. As Christians, inspired by their new faith, created churches all over the Roman Empire, they were persecuted and often cruelly executed because they refused to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. The persecutions were not continuous, and some Roman governors made a point of tolerating Christians, but the threat was always there.
One threat they did not face, however, was persecution by other Christians. Christianity was such a fledgling religion that it had no clear hierarchy or even ruling group immediately after the Apostles died. It had no orthodoxy and no political power in those early years.
That would change.
“Infantry wins battles; logistics wins wars.” This statement is attributed to World War I commanding general John J. Pershing (although I have yet to find the source). Military logistics means getting soldiers and equipment in place for battle or replacing causalities and destroyed equipment.
Postcard above shows Biltmore Estate in 1915. From the Karl Larson Photograph Collection (PhC.205), courtesy of the State Archives of NC. It makes a good story. In the late 1800s demand for wood was insatiable—for houses, for ships, for fuel, for railroad ties....
You’ve probably heard that Henry Ford II resigned from the board of the Ford Foundation because it had veered far away from its donor’s intent. In his 1976 resignation letter, Ford (grandson of Ford Sr.) wrote: “In effect, the foundation is a creature of capitalism—a...
My last post, “Land Grants or Land Grabs,” revealed that most federal land that started land-grant universities had been taken from Indians. I received some constructive pushback. But that feedback reminded me of a question, Why did the Europeans invade the New World in the first place and conquer Native Americans, rather than Native Americans invading Europe and conquering Europeans?