A recent New York Times article claimed that poetry is “dead.” The argument is not new, but since last month marked the 100th anniversary of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” the modernists thought they would reiterate themselves. “We stopped writing good poetry because we are now incapable of doing so,” wrote the article’s author, Matthew…
Can We No Longer Trust the Keepers of the Past?
When Michael Bellesiles’s book “Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture” came out in 2000, it was widely praised as groundbreaking and a corrective to how Americans viewed the Second Amendment. Bellesiles’s career was launched to critical acclaim and was awarded the Bancroft Prize, the prestigious prize awarded for works on American history….
Profiles in History: Floyd Gibbons: The Adventurous Reporter
Floyd Gibbons (1887–1939) loved to write about his experiences because his experiences were often exhilarating. Growing up at the turn of the 20th century, Gibbons was born at the perfect time for great adventures. In a way, he hastened the approach of his adventures when he was expelled from Georgetown University. Failing to obtain his…
Against the Tide: Historian Paul Johnson
“Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?” These words, alternatively attributed to King George III and the Duke of Cumberland, make mocking reference to Edward Gibbon and his massive work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” One wonders what these gentlemen might have thought of some historians of the 20th century. Along with his…
Montaigne and La Boétie: A Perfect Friendship
Personal tragedy can often be a catalyst for change and growth. While we don’t envy people who experience it, we admire those who bear it well and are able to transmute their pain into something good or beautiful. For example, “The Divine Comedy” exists because Dante suffered the double misfortune of losing his beloved Beatrice…
Profiles in History: Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man Who Understood Sea Power
January 21, 2023
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Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was born in West Point, New York, and was the son of a professor of civil and military engineering at the U.S. Military Academy. Despite his proximity to the military academy, it was the Navy that transfixed the young Mahan. After attending Columbia College in New York City, he was recommended…
Gene Autry: How ‘America’s Favorite Singing Cowboy’ Exemplified the Unique Entrepreneurial Spirit of America
January 19, 2023
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Gene Autry’s life story reads like a great American novel. Known as “America’s favorite singing cowboy,” the country star paired his entrepreneurial spirit with his love of entertaining audiences and became one of the country-western genre’s most unique and beloved figures. After amassing an audience with a slew of performances throughout the 1920s, he signed…
History Off the Beaten Path: Slice of Life
While traveling last summer from the East Coast to Montana and back in our 1969 restored Shasta camper, my husband and I spent hours playing a history trivia game. One of the questions was, “Who invented sliced bread?” Neither of us knew, but we learned that a man named Otto Rohwedder was behind the machine…
The Sheriff Who Cleaned Up Deadwood: Seth Bullock
Seth Bullock was not a well-known frontiersman prior to the 2004 HBO television series “Deadwood,” which featured him as its main character. However, historians before and since the show’s brief three-season run have always recognized the sheriff as fascinating. Portrayed on the show as a decent man whose inherent goodness was often contradicted by a…
Ernie Pyle: The G.I.’s Buddy
A monument stands on Ie Shima (now known as Iejima), off the coast of Okinawa’s main island, honoring a man who fought in World War II with a pen rather than a rifle. His name was Ernie Pyle, a U.S. journalist who found his calling as the preeminent war correspondent of World War II. Pyle…
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