U.S. History

In this week’s Friday Philosophy, Dr. David Gordon takes a hard look at philosopher Omri Boehm’s fixation with John Brown and his commitment to violence in the name of ending slavery. 

The Continentals and other paper monies only temporarily retained some value largely because of an initial promise of future redemption in gold and silver—a monetary “bait-and-switch.”

The partisan rhetoric of the post-Civil War period was unique to its historical moment, yet not unique as a political tactic.

American journalists and academics have invented a fairy tale in which “free market orthodoxy” has dominated political thinking in America for the past forty years. This is not even slightly true, but pundits repeat the lie again and again.

It was at the height of the Cold War that the CIA and the American government began subsidizing Protestant missions, mostly of Pentecostal denomination, with the intent of diluting Catholic presence and preventing the spread of Marxist ideals through religion.

Only a couple years ago, climate change was a major political issue. Now it’s strangely absent from public discourse. Why did this happen? Because, at least for now, it stopped being the most useful way for elites to justify their power grabs.

Through the most bloody war in American history to date, Lincoln unleashed an inchoate “secret constitution” that began to bring the US into closer alignment with equality and democracy, which many view as a good thing.

David Beito’s new biography on Franklin D. Roosevelt is not the hagiographic nonsense that has dominated the US history profession. That is a good thing. Americans should know how FDR’s presidency led to one disaster after another.

In the new Ken Burns documentary, an old myth—held by the left and right—is repeated: that chaos led to the need for the Constitution and a stronger national government.

Americans like to think of themselves as peace-loving people. However, our nation’s war record since the American Civil War points to the US government’s affinity for unleashing total war.