Over the past couple of months I’ve been spending a lot of time with Joan Didion.  In addition to re-reading her collected nonfiction, I made my way through Tracy Daugherty’s Read more

I went to high school in central California in the 1980s.  My sophomore English class was formative, foundational.  I had a brusque, gruff, outstanding teacher who taught me more about Read more

I am at the OAH 2022 conference in Boston this weekend. Yesterday I was so pleased to attend the USIH-solicited roundtable on the life and work of Charles Capper—“Charlie” to Read more

Last August, I ordered a used book from a bookseller in the United Kingdom:  John H. Gleason’s 1950 study, The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain.  I knew I would Read more

Like so many people around the world, I am closely following developments in Ukraine, where it seems that both the Ukrainian Army and civilian volunteers are proving much more of Read more

Don’t ever believe an academic who claims to be perplexed, never mind thirty-eight of them who sign a letter professing as much. “We are perplexed…” Nonsense.  Passive-aggressive nonsense. When an Read more