if i were running for office i would absolutely call my volunteers “the wide awakes,” i would hand out wide awake pins and stickers and hats for people to wear and campaign events would have wide awake banners

Epic thread. 🥪⚖️

"All along, this effort has been absurd; there is no way to kill someone without some element of torture, either psychological, physical, or both. " Horrifying. The world, and this country, is so cruel.

Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!

Let me state this as clearly as I can: It is not the job of a historian to make you feel good about your nation’s past. We need to print this on t-shirts and bumper stickers.

Assassin's Creed pulls planned game about the Civil War, apparently because having a black protagonist fighting the KKK would offend too many Americans www.polygon.com/assassins-cr...

Thank you @thetattooedprof.bsky.social for this important piece!! Those who push back against uncritical AI boosterism are not Luddites— and sometimes the Emporer does not have any clothes.

Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air after our government threatened a private company with retaliation, marking a dark moment for free speech in our nation. More than 400 artists across our nation signed on to say: We refuse to be silenced by those in power.

We're now offering free digital subscriptions to @theatlantic.com to all U.S. public high schools! If that's you, you can sign up here: accounts.theatlantic.com/products/fre... More info here: www.theatlantic.com/press-releas...

🗃️ Historians of the American Civil War and Reconstruction: There are still 2 weeks left to submit your 2025 books to the OAH Civil War and Reconstruction Book Award! www.oah.org/awards/book-...

I might need to go to LA this fall. Fascinating article about remixing monuments. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/a...

“Nations reel and stagger on their way; they make hideous mistakes; they commit frightful wrongs; they do great and beautiful things. And shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this, so far as the truth is ascertainable?” W.E.B. Du Bois

Crimes I Have Witnessed as a Resident of Washington, DC www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/cri... Some of these should result in banishment.

DC statehood is now an imperative. No more dicking around. Next Dem majority, get it done immediately.

Speechless. But incandescent with rage. 🗃️ wapo.st/3HhfyxU

IMPORTANT: “‘At many public universities, syllabi are considered intellectual property. As such, professors are not required to share their syllabi in response to public records requests. Check your university policy prior to complying advance.’" www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

RIP to the soundtrack of my childhood.

"I am the punctuation equivalent of a cardigan. . . I am the punctuation mark of human frailty. I am the writer’s block, resolved mid-sentence." I love the em dash www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

“We wanted to rid ourselves of the fashions of historiography,” Burns summarized at one event, “and make a film that simply shows what happened.” That’s not how history works though. You’re making an argument about what happened & what mattered even if you don’t realize you’re doing it. 🗃️

The world is a hellscape, but it is not without small joys.

A decent number of Union memes still have force and impact today, by virtue of the facts that: (1) our doughy seditionist Vice President loves him some Confederates; and (2) he goes by the very same initials as Jeff Davis

when oral exams go wrong

Right on schedule

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice may not sleep forever." This keeps rattling through my brain as a response to the tremendous cruelty and inhumanity of the current administration.

With the dumb take on AI from a historian doing the rounds, bumping @davehitchcock.bsky.social's more interesting take presented @qmcbs.bsky.social: hitchcockian.medium.com/this-is-the-... Our skills as historians are all the more valuable, lets champion them rather than throw them out #SkyStorians

my immigration policy paper: youtu.be/hc-v8CFJzu4

False panic here. I could just delete this 🧵, but instead will explain what I learned after speaking with a colleague who works there. This was a messaging error. The only policy change was no longer allowing buses and cars to drive up to the building. There is no change to research access.

The data is undeniable: •15 of top 16 states with the highest rates of infant mortality are red states that deny/ban repro access. •12 of top 13 states with the lowest rates of infant mortality are blue states that protect repro access. Why is this even a debate? www.qasimrashid.com/p/three-year...

My very smart colleague and friend on 18th century birth rates -- She comes on at about 40 minutes in!

I'm sorry, but if you don't want to research, don't want to read, don't want to organize information, and don't want to write, you don't actually want to be a historian. If you think a machine can do better work than you, just quit. 🗃️

Lots of commentary on this piece already, all of which I agree with. For historians, research is a fundamental part of writing. To farm it out to AI changes the nature of this intellectual process in fundamental ways. And as Stacy Schiff points out, it also takes all the fun out of it.

"We are all here because we love the Smithsonian. As long as I’m in this chair, I’m with you. We will continue to be the institution the public deserves and the public needs. And I cannot tell you enough — you’re going to make me cry — thank you."--Lonnie Bunch www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

If you have published your first book in women's or gender history in 2023 or 2024, please do consider putting it forward for the Women's History Network Book Prize. It's open to all who live in the UK or are affiliated to a UK university. womenshistorynetwork.org/whn-annual-b...

Historian @marthasjones.bsky.social & @katemasur.bsky.social, a member of the Historians Council on the Constitution, filed a brief against the birthright citizenship executive order. History contradicts the administration's claim that the 14th Amendment applies only to “newly freed slaves.”

WAS YOUR GRANT CANCELED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP? The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Democratic Staff, is surveying the impact of the Trump Administration’s cancellation of federal research awards. Fill out the form here: forms.office.com/pages/respon...

🗃️

I'm happy to have contributed a short piece on #coffee in the #CivilWar South to The Recipes Project's Spring 2025 issue on Food and War. Many thanks to @jesspclark.bsky.social and @vanesamiseres.bsky.social for editing and pulling the issue together. recipes.hypotheses.org/25470

undefeated

A new Coke ad proudly features a quote from a J.G. Ballard book, only he didn’t write the words and it’s not his book. www.404media.co/ai-powered-c...

I am amused by the framing of this article because you may as well accuse me of refusing to use a flame thrower in my work. I'm not refusing, it is of no use to me because I am a non-fictition writer. That's all.

If you know, you know -- I have tubes at home, at work, in my bag.

Wednesday in Baltimore! Details and tickets at www.ticketleap.events/tickets/prof... @thebaltimorebanner.com @baltimorebeat.bsky.social @baltfishbowl.bsky.social

In a few years (max) when people start asking why we thought AI was a good idea I am creating a record that we did NOT think it was a good idea and the main reason people were ever convinced was billions of dollars of propaganda

Back by popular demand! Political violence in Baltimore 164 years ago....

Another Isaac Chotiner classic:

The conservative movement has turned against reality on every scientific issue of our time, from gun violence to climate change to epidemiology. If campuses are ideologically homogenous, it's not because academia has ostracized conservatives. It's because conservatives have ostracized academia.

This weekend is the 164th Anniversary of the Pratt Street Riot; come hear about it on April 30 in Baltimore!!

Can't believe the @bostonglobe.com ran this which is just a version of immigrants are stealing our jobs but aimed at white middle class parents caught up in the overhyped college admissions drama. Dropping it while Trump illegally deports students is a provocation www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/16/o...