What was it like going to school a half century ago? Or maybe a century ago? My brother graduated from Georgia Tech seventy years ago in 1952. And for you all who like ancient history, my grandfather was born before the Civil War. I mentioned that to some undergraduate students a few years ago and […]
December 24, 2021
In the past five to ten years the University of Alabama has abandoned its dedication to the basic elements of higher education in the country: namely, placing excellence and freedom of speech (or academic freedom) as the twin principles that have helped place Alabama among the top 500 universities and colleges in the nation. Programs […]
November 4, 2021
This is the third or fourth column this autumn on our basic history. I forget how many we have done over the years just like I forget how many times I entered a classroom or seminar room at UA for over forty years and taught a course. Hundreds? Thousands? Goodness, what a question, probably since […]
August 9, 2021
Over the past few weeks, we have taken a look at the origins of the critical race theory now so popular among some sectors of the American population, pundits, and politicians among them. Today let’s tackle the theory itself. We are taking a look at the theory largely because it is based on an interpretation […]
July 27, 2021
A few weeks ago we ventured into the mine field of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project which supports it. We did this as a professional historian might, by an examination of both the facts and the hypothesis or interpretation of those facts. Today let’s examine what other historians have said about CRT and […]
July 27, 2021
Last summer, the Pandemic Summer of 2020, I took up two subjects that have now come to dominate the political discourse in our country. Everyone seems to have an opinion on CRT and the 1619 theory and how they impact the nature of our country’s history. I thought I’d revisit these from the perspective of […]
July 27, 2021
First of all, we—the United States—are a big and complex country. There is no one philosophy, one political expression, one economic truth or any other large label to explain what we are, no matter how loud people shout the “truth.” Some will always challenge a generality, and that particular virtue—the right to challenge and question […]
July 10, 2021
The Way We Were A few weeks ago I turned to the war channel, channel 112 or whatever we call it today, and watched the build up to Pearl Harbor, especially focusing on the Japanese ambitious empire-building over Asia, and, among other atrocities, the rape of Nanking, China in 1937. I had forgotten how brutal […]
May 4, 2021
Slavery was abolished by the Emancipation Declaration of 1863 and uprooted by the final military victory of North over the South in April 1865. There followed a century of conflict largely in the South to free truly the ex-slaves and give them all the rights of all citizens, like the right to vote, to have […]
April 12, 2021
This is part 1 of a two-part Port Rail on the history of the Americas, North, Central, and South, and the current immigration crisis or challenge or whatever you want to call the open border policy the Biden administration has put into place with respect to the border and immigration. If it hasn’t become perfectly […]
January 22, 2022
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