Millennials and Historical Revision

Call it Hubris if you will…   The younger,  “woke,”  generation wants to rebuild the United States on their own delicate sensibilities. The original Founding was at best flawed, most of these cereal box revolutionaries call it “evil.”   These judicious, young stewards are enlightened far beyond their 18 or 19 years and clearly understand

Review: The Flight Girls

Originally posted on Amy's Scrap Bag: A Blog About Libraries, Archives, and History:
The Flight Girls by Noelle Salazar Mira, 2019.  Paperback, 384 pages. Opening in 1941 on the lush shores of Oahu, The Flight Girls shows how pioneering some women were in flight before the WASPS (Women’s Air Force Service Pilots) entered service.…

Woodrow Wilson and the Suffragettes

Originally posted on Presidential History Blog:
Woodrow Wilson liked women – and he liked intelligent women. WW: A Boy and His Family Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) grew up surrounded by three doting women: his mother, Jessie Woodrow – and two older sisters. A younger brother didn’t come along until “Tommy” was ten. Woodrow bonded with…

Caution with Constitutional Amendment

Routine teaching about the US Constitution… instructs students that its genius is found in the fact that it can be changed.  This dogma can be traced to the influence of Charles Beard’s contention that it was purely an economic document, and well timed amendments rescued our republic from new world feudalism.  Such orthodoxy perfectly defines

TR: Marching With Kings

Originally posted on Presidential History Blog:
Thousands of people watched the funeral parade of King Edward VII. The POTUS and the King President Theodore Roosevelt The nearly eight years Theodore Roosevelt spent as President coincided with the reign of Edward VII (1841-1910) of England. TR was only 42 when he became POTUS; The King acceded…

Review of “James Madison: A Life Reconsidered” by Lynne Cheney

Originally posted on My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies:
Lynne Cheney’s “James Madison: A Life Reconsidered” was published in 2014, about a year after I read four biographies of the fourth president in my quest to uncover the best biography of Madison. Cheney is the author of more than a dozen books, including several…

Book Review- “Most Blessed of Patriarchs”

Peter Onuf, Annette Gordon-Reed, Most Blessed of Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of Imagination, New York, Norton & Co., 2016  ISBN-13: 978-0871404428   Two intellectuals dabble in history to satisfy their personal desires which radically alter the public’s view of history to advance present day human rights.    Professor Peter Onuf occupied the position

Review of “American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant” by Ronald C. White

Originally posted on My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies:
Ronald White’s “American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant” was published in 2016, two years after I spent eight weeks reading six other biographies of Grant. White is a well-known historian and the author of nine books (including one of my favorites on Abraham…

Abraham Lincoln and Smallpox

Originally posted on Presidential History Blog:
Abraham Lincoln suffered from variola (smallpox) when he was in the White House. November, 1863 Almost as an afterthought, President Lincoln had been invited to make “a few appropriate remarks” at an event in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In July, a massive three-day battle had been fought at the tiny town…

Is it the Fourth?

Can we endure without the man who gave us our creed? Americans, largely through the efforts of a lewd media, used the Fourth of July 2019… to denigrate and trivialize Thomas Jefferson’s memory.  Salacious accusations disguised as legitimate archaeology and scholarship dragged the author of our Declaration of Independence down into tabloid scandal-mongering.  We have