Historical thinking is inherently anachronistic, is it not? The past cannot be encroached upon, no matter how much we seek to understand it. And yet, anachronistic is something historians seek to avoid being labeled, so we steer clear of blatant forms of anachronism, such as describing the First Barbary War as part of the Global War on Terror (to use the first ridiculous example that came to mind). So what then is to be done when our very object of study is an obvious anachronism? Here, of course, I refer to the “culture wars,” the topic of the book I Read more