News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Life
Culture & Art
Hobbies
News
Entertainment
Science & Technology
Culture & Art
Hobbies
![](https://cdn.contenting.app/assets/images/default-site-icon.png?width=64"){kind=icon}
Society for US Intellectual History Blog - History
29 | Follower
Kevin Vallier on Caleb Wellum’s Energizing Neoliberalism | Society for US Intellectual History
Caleb Wellum’s Energizing Neoliberalism offers a new interpretation of how the 1970s energy crises reshaped American political culture. Most historians treat the crisis as a problem of oil shortages or Middle Eastern politics. Wellum sees it differently. He argues that Americans constructed the energy crisis through culture, media, and politics. The crisis was not a
Jennifer Keishin Armstrong on Jennifer S. Clark’s *Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women’s Liberation* | Society for US Intellectual History
Women’s presence behind the scenes of the U.S. television industry in the 1970s fundamentally changed the way the medium worked, pushing it toward a more feminist agenda. This is what Jennifer S. Clark argues effectively in Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women’s Liberation. Clark takes readers beyond the glitz of Hollywood and
The Media Raiders: The FBI, Hoover, and the Catholic Left | Society for US Intellectual History
While all anti-Vietnam War activities eventually put a spotlight on reactions by law enforcement, in reading Michelle Nickerson's Spiritual Criminals I was surprised at the extent the Camden 28 action involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Historians who work on the 1960s already know about COINTELPRO and how it targeted
Author Meets Critics: Response by Dan Wickberg, Modernism as a Category in American Intellectual History | Society for US Intellectual History
I want to begin with a few comments about Kunal Parker’s The Turn to Process, and especially its relation to my own book, and then turn to some of the thoughtful comments and criticisms from Paul Murphy, Casey Eilbert, and Angus Burgin. My goal is to identify what I think the strengths of my book
Author Meets Critics: Response by Kunal M. Parker | Society for US Intellectual History
Immense thanks to Paul Murphy, Casey Eilbert, and Angus Burgin for their thoughtful engagements with Daniel Wickberg’s A History of American Thought, 1860 – 2000: Thinking the Modern and my own The Turn to Process: American Legal, Political, and Economic Thought, 1870-1970. In this response, I set forth what I hoped to accomplish in The
Author Meets Critics: Angus Burgin, “Whatever Happened to American Thought? Comments on Kunal Parker, The Turn to Process and Daniel Wickberg, A History of Modern Thought, 1860-2000” | Society for US Intellectual History
Kunal Parker’s The Turn to Process and Daniel Wickberg’s A History of American Thought are unusual in the breadth of their scope, offering accounts of the rise and fall of modernism that match the sweep and ambition of some of the great synthetic works from the heyday of American intellectual history. As such, their joint
Author Meets Critics: Casey Eilbert, “The Making of Modernism: Comments on Kunal Parker, The Turn to Process and Daniel Wickberg, A History of Modern Thought, 1860-2000” | Society for US Intellectual History
In these recent works in U.S. intellectual history, Daniel Wickberg and Kunal Parker offer readers thorough histories of the major developments in modern American thought, valuable interpretations of the modernist paradigm and its consequences, and excellent material for thinking about ideas, the contexts that give rise to them, and the processes of ideological change. Daniel
Author Meets Critics: Paul Murphy, “What Are We Talking About When We Talk About Modernism?: Comments on Kunal Parker, The Turn to Process and Daniel Wickberg, A History of Modern Thought, 1860-2000” | Society for US Intellectual History
In 1903, the conservative critic Paul Elmer More noted that two hundred years previously truth was “something fixed and unalterable.” “Religion had been established once for all by a perfect revelation; and as in religion so in culture, the forms of art and literature had received their final form.” However, such certainty existed no more.
Gregg Lee Carter on Alexandra Filindra’s *Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture* | Society for US Intellectual History
This is an important and well written book on the history and ideological development of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and how the organization has impacted, and ultimately distorted, the proper role of guns in American society. On its face, the NRA’s current ideology might seem critical for both keeping contemporary Americans safe and keeping
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: S-USIH 2025 PRIZES | Society for US Intellectual History
Hello, scholars! We are proud to sponsor several prizes honoring your scholarship in U.S. intellectual history. Please see below for the 2025 awards and note that all submissions are due by 1 March 2025. Should you have any questions, please contact us at susihistory@gmail.com. Thank you. S-USIH 2024 Annual Book Award The Society
Fort Worth Blues, 11/14-15/2024 | Society for US Intellectual History
Months before, when I bought the tickets, I was concerned about the dates and how I would feel. The first was for T Bone Burnett at a local listening room in my Dallas neighborhood called the Kessler Theater, and the second the next night for Leon Bridges and Charley Crockett at Dickie’s Arena, where they
Kevin J. Mumford on Jennifer Dominguez Jones’s *Ambivalent Affinities: A Political History of Blackness and Homosexuality After World War II* | Society for US Intellectual History
Over the past several decades, the field of LGBTQ studies has exploded beyond far beyond what anyone had expected or even thought possible. Queer studies has established itself and produced numbers of critical interventions and excellent scholarship. If there is a point of lag or conceptual fault, it is the failure to address the problem
Priscila Dorella on Cecilia Márquez’s *Making the Latino South: A History of Racial* | Society for US Intellectual History
The history of the southern United States is so deeply defined by racial conflicts between whites and blacks that the social, political and economic importance of Latinos, a population that has grown dramatically in the region over the last seven decades, has often been overlooked. Cecilia Márquez, assistant professor of Latino Studies at Duke University,
Catholic Troubles with Feminism: Pro-life Politics, the Erotics of Activism, and the Camden 28, Entry #2 | Society for US Intellectual History
The next time that feminism arises in the index of Spiritual Criminals is related to abortion and the aftermath of the Camden 28 trial (p. 189). In the penultimate and final chapters, Nickerson begins to take a broader view of everyone and every institution involved. She writes: A split between feminists and the Catholic vanguard
Derek G. Handley on James Walvin’s *A World Transformed: Slavery in the Americas and Origins of Global Power* | Society for US Intellectual History
James Walvin’s book A World Transformed provides a wide overview of the transatlantic slave trade and of the nations that benefited from it. The scope of this book is massive in covering over 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade and how European countries amassed vast riches from it. Walvin demonstrates how “enslaved African labor
Catholic Troubles with Feminism: Gendered Activism, Insubordination, and the Camden 28, Entry #1 | Society for US Intellectual History
Today’s reflection is a necessary follow up to my last post on Catholic masculinity. Michelle Nickerson covers how feminism affected the trajectory of the Camden 28 draft board action. In fact, there is no way to fully understand the lead up, action, trial, and fallout of the Camden 28 story without a deeper consideration of
Hooper Schultz on Neil J. Young’s *Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right* | Society for US Intellectual History
As Republican politicians such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis support and pass legislation that curtails LGBTQ+ rights it is worth asking: are there any gay people in the Republican Party or on the Right in the U.S.? Neil J. Young’s Coming Out Republican traces the fascinating history of conservative and libertarian gay figures in United
Ang Li on William Gow’s *Performing Chinatown* | Society for US Intellectual History
William Gow’s Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community is an in-depth examination of Chinese American history in Los Angeles. Drawing from an interdisciplinary approach and extensive primary sources that include oral interviews, archival collections, and family materials—this book is a powerful record of Chinese American lived experiences. [1] Such
Ang Li on Arthur Dong’s *Performing Chinatown* | Society for US Intellectual History
Arthur Dong’s Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community is an in-depth examination of Chinese American history in Los Angeles. Drawing from an interdisciplinary approach and extensive primary sources that include oral interviews, archival collections, and family materials—this book is a powerful record of Chinese American lived experiences. [1] Such
“Beware the Stories We Tell About Food”: Ben Stanley on Aaron Eddens, *Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa* | Society for US Intellectual History
The Green Revolution is not only a constellation of technologies and economic relationships. It is also, crucially, a story. So Aaron Eddens argues in the persuasive monograph Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa (University of California Press, 2024). While many books have critiqued the Green Revolution, Eddens offers both
Catholic Masculinity—Or Sexism and The Patriarchy in the 1960s | Society for US Intellectual History
In Spiritual Criminals, Michelle Nickerson relays an obvious but salient fact: the development of the Catholic Left in the 1960s “overlapped with the feminist movement as well as the civil rights movement” (p. 49). My prior posts in this series have touched more on the civil rights movement than feminism. In any discussion of Catholicism,
Austin McCoy on Katherine Rye Jewell’s *Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio* | Society for US Intellectual History
Except for those who listened to college radio or worked as DJs as students, many who attend college might never listen to the local station, especially now that we live in the era of streaming music and podcasts where we can access full record catalogs and human- and AI-generated playlists. I was one of those
White Christian Privilege: A Case Study | Society for US Intellectual History
At two points in her story on the Camden 28, Michelle Nickerson takes on a thorny topic: racial privilege. It is indexed in Spiritual Criminals as “white privilege.” In the historical circumstances of the book, and in the larger context of the Catholic-Christian faith, let’s call it ‘white Christian privilege’. Framing it this way helps
Debating to Persuade, a Challenge for Democrats: The William James Guide to Modern Politics | Society for US Intellectual History
These essays in the form of letters to the powerful and struggling suggest that understanding about contrasting views emerging from historical and intellectual contexts can gain votes for those politicians ready to pause in the fighting long enough to listen. The first open letter, “Democrats in Power to Protesters in Streets: Mutual Prods to Peace,”
“Food Power Politics: The Weaponization Of Food In The Fight For Survival In The Delta”: Nia Raquelle Smith on Bobby Smith II’s *Food Power Politics: The Food History of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement* | Society for US Intellectual History
In his debut book, Food Power Politics: The Food History of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, Bobby Smith II vividly recounts the story of the slow but continued and covert weaponization of food. This historical narrative, deeply rooted in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, serves as a powerful connection to the past, shedding light on
David S. Koffman on Rebecca Clarren’s *The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance* | Society for US Intellectual History
Rebecca Clarren’s The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance is perhaps the single best articulation of a puzzle so many Americans and Canadians are now trying to solve: how do I come to terms with the broadly horrifying repercussions on Indigenous peoples of my ancestors’ decisions to move and thrive here
Kollin Fields on Daniel Wickberg’s *Thinking the Modern: A History of American Thought, 1860-2000* | Society for US Intellectual History
Carl Becker told his fellow historians in 1931 that we are not dissimilar from “bards and story-tellers and minstrels, of soothsayers and priests, to whom in successive ages has been entrusted the keeping of the useful myths.”[1] Historians do indeed tell stories, and as Becker reminded his audience, whether story or myth, narratives often prevail
Dorothy Day’s Spiritual Leadership: Against Capitalism, Imperialism, & War | Society for US Intellectual History
Dorothy Day is a central character in Spiritual Criminals in terms of what some might call ‘spiritual formation’. The index entry for her looks brief (just 12 pages noted), but her shadow looms large over the actors behind the Camden 28 action. Day was in no way a material causal agent, per se. In fact,
“Don’t Mind Me: Andrew S. Lea on How We Think about Brains and Algorithms and How It Changed How Medicine Works” by Alex Sayf Cummings | Society for US Intellectual History
In a classic 1996 episode of Seinfeld, Elaine Benes finds herself in a doctor’s office and manages to take a peek at her chart. Her medical history is all there, but what she notices immediately is another physician’s comment that she’s a “difficult” patient – based on an encounter four years earlier. Typically, Elaine cannot
Catholic Social Teaching: Its Historical Arc in the United States | Society for US Intellectual History
Last week’s discussion of Michelle Nickerson’s Spiritual Criminals focused on a concrete historical character: Cardinal Francis Spellman. This week I want go larger. An animating theme in the book is something called "Catholic Social Teaching"---or “CST” for short.[1] This theme touches every historical activist and actor in Spiritual Criminals. Beyond the book, because CST is
Francesco Landolfi on Matthew Guariglia’s *Police & the Empire City: Race & the Origins of Modern Policing in New York* | Society for US Intellectual History
Through the extensive use of primary sources consulted at numerous archives and libraries, author Matthew Guariglia addresses the decades-long racialization theme of the New York Police Department (NYPD) from its origins to the late Progressive Era. In the history of the United States, the process of cultural assimilation by an ethnic community also passes through
Cardinal Spellman’s Cold War Patriotism | Society for US Intellectual History
In the first full narrative chapter of Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial, Michelle Nickerson sets up the contextual train of teaching and ideas in the United States, Catholic and otherwise, that allowed the “Camden 28” to come into being. Her goal is to explain how a Catholic Left,
Tom McCarthy on Marc J. Selverstone’s *The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam* | Society for US Intellectual History
If President John F. Kennedy had lived, would he have committed U.S. ground forces to Vietnam, as his successor Lyndon B. Johnson eventually did? Few historical “what ifs” have haunted the minds of Baby Boomer Americans more than this one, a generation for whom the Vietnam War became the great defining historical event of their
New Blog Series: On Spiritual Criminals by Michelle Nickerson – Introduction | Society for US Intellectual History
If I am recalling correctly, Professor Michelle Nickerson and I first became acquainted in early 2016. She had already been teaching in the History Department at Loyola University Chicago for several years when I wrote her about participating in an S-USIH Blog roundtable on Andrew Hartman’s 2015 book, A War for the Soul of America.
Robert P. Watson on Osamah F. Khalil’s *A World of Enemies: America’s Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden * | Society for US Intellectual History
In this timely, thorough, and quite readable book, Osamah F. Khalil, an associate professor of history at Syracuse and frequent media commentator, reexamines a topic that has rightly attracted much attention in recent years; that is, the use and extension of US military power in modern times. Yet, with a critical eye, a wide array
The Poppy Acts: the agency of the non-human in Amitav Ghosh’s *Smoke and Ashes* | Society for US Intellectual History
Once in a while, even in works of popular history, an author will raise the prospect that what happened twelve thousand years ago, during the so-called Agricultural Revolution, wasn't that humans domesticated plants but that plants domesticated humans. From a Richard Dawkins ‘selfish gene’ perspective, this makes a kind of sense. To ensure the survival
Seth Chalmer on Daniel Schulman’s *The Money Kings: The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America* | Society for US Intellectual History
Ah, Jew-spotting!—a pastime beloved equally to antisemites and Jews. If you see someone constantly updating their social media feed with lists of famous or influential people that you might not have known are Jewish, then that someone could be the late and infamous Holocaust denier David Irving, but it could just as easily be the
dann j. Broyld on Andrew K. Diemer’s *Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad* | Society for US Intellectual History
Andrew K. Diemer's Vigilance is a must-read for those interested in Underground Railroad and African American history. It highlights the dynamic story of William Still “the Father of the Underground Railroad” who helped freedom seekers from slavery in the American South move further northward via Philadelphia. Diemer carefully tells the family history of William Still, starting with the
David Weinfeld: A Century of Cultural Pluralism: How an Unlikely American Friendship Should Inspire Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | Society for US Intellectual History
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, some of the largest and most controversial issues in American politics concern legal and illegal immigration, refugee policy, and the security of the country’s borders. Americans are concerned about who gets in, who stays out, and what those determinations mean for the future of the United States. It’s an
How to Think about Robert Caro | Society for US Intellectual History
The official website of Robert A. Caro isn’t shy about quoting the Sunday Times (UK), which calls him “the greatest political biographer of the modern era.” Even as readers await the fifth volume of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, the claim cries out for perspective and comparison. Admittedly no such incontestable primacy is possible