Tag Archive

Kevin Mattson

Intellectual History for Complicated Times: Lessons from the Labyrinth, Part 2

In my last installment, I outlined how a few colleagues, a couple of podcasts, and a book (pictured) have helped revitalize my identity as an intellectual historian. Deep training and habits as a historian helped me survive strong personal setbacks in 2018. But I needed other sources to help me turn a fresh stream of thought on how I think about myself, in particular, as historian in the field of ideas. Those sources, and American Labyrinth in particular, have reinstalled a sense of solidarity that had been missing. The book’s lessons have enabled a personal revival. However complicated our personal Read more

Change and Continuity

If you have not yet read Kevin Mattson’s thoughtful response to my criticisms of his work, please do so right away. It is a wonderful thing when a scholar that Read more

The Sensibility of Historians

By L.D. Burnett What gives Andrew Hartman the authority to eschew (some of) the methodological commitments of Richard Hofstadter or Daniel Wickberg?  The same thing that gives Daniel Wickberg the Read more