I’m having a satisfying evening leaving rave reviews of my favorite history books on goodreads

"The Centrality of Slavery" arrived today. www.pennpress.org/978151282842...

My book about the cotton and sugar revolutions in Louisiana. It begins with the crisis of the 1790s (related to the French and Haitian Revolutions) and ends with the German Coast Insurrection of 1811, probably the largest slave rebellion in the US. www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5665/

PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS! Do not ask me how my writing is going.

It’s officially pub day for Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America‘s First Opioid Crisis! Available at a bookshop near you. Thanks to everyone who made it possible to bring this research to life! 🗃️ @uncpress.bsky.social uncpress.org/978146968953...

The publication date for my book on the history of policing American slavery has been moved up a month! Now available May 12, 2026! Thanks so much to those who have preordered! The Press is offering 30% off with the code, 01UNCP30 uncpress.org/978146969484...

In May I knocked on a door in Brooklyn. Thrilled to see that adventure become a New York Times article in print this weekend.

It's Harrison Ford's birthday today, thus we are contractually obligated to point you to this ridiculous classic from our archives.

Check out a @nytimes feature from John Harris, author of The Last Slave Ships, a history of illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States 

I enjoy mazey bookstores (Edisto Island SC)

Absolutely incredible graphic from 1880 tracing the history of political parties in the United States.

Grateful to the New York Times for covering my research. I am referred to as a potential “nut case” in the first paragraph, which is also pleasing. The Brooklyn Allergist’s Office That Was Once Home to a Spy www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/r...

Trump says the U.S. military has just attacked three Iranian nuclear sites:

Revealing to read these “universities partner with AI companies” articles and discover that faculty are nowhere to be seen, either in the articles or, apparently, in the universities’ decision making process. The faculty; you know, the folks who do the educating www.thestate.com/news/local/e...

Today's complaint about the AI in education discourse: Too much of it is framed around a future that is going to happen to us, as opposed to seeing the future as something we may have some agency to shape. I reject the deterministic view of AI, particularly genAI. It's a tool, not our master.

i just find this so bizarre. searching through texts and doing the reading for myself is how i actually think through ideas! trying to put together a sentence is how i figure out what i actually want to say!

PUBLICATION DAY! _I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti's Fight for Freedom_ is now available from @yalepress.bsky.social To celebrate, I am going to post some of the most extraordinary Dessalines quotations below! yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Got a call from the New York Times today. Something cool coming, hopefully this week…

3,000+ at No Kings in Greenville SC

The situation at historic preservation offices is growing more dire. The nation is turning away from its 60-year commitment to preservation not through elected reps, but through OMB's intransigence. Still can't get anyone to bite on my piece about this issue! preservewa.org/advocacy-ale...

At a time when early studies are showing that AI weakens student learning outcomes like critical thinking, it feels like universities that go all in on AI are cheapening their product.

Less than 6% of college students in the US are international students. I don’t see that as a major problem in higher ed. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/o...

Do Irish if you can swing it

THE DRIVER'S STORY (@pennpress.bsky.social) has won the Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for World History. 🎉

The Center for Brooklyn History does not disappoint!

Update: Got a house tour from the Horace Greeley descendants - several of whom are named … Horace Greeley. It was Horace mania inside! Very cool to see where my subject (Sanchez) lived & to briefly walk in his footsteps. Got a sense of his living situation / stylistic interests (Italianate) /1

Update: Got a house tour from the Horace Greeley descendants - several of whom are named … Horace Greeley. It was Horace mania inside! Very cool to see where my subject (Sanchez) lived & to briefly walk in his footsteps. Got a sense of his living situation / stylistic interests (Italianate) /1

I was at a conference this morning in NYC where we heard about the impact of the elimination of the National Weather Service and of the privatization of weather info. Grim predictions: Paid access for weather forecasts and little info for rural communities bc fewer subscribers.

Publication day! A four-year voyage comes to an end as *Freedom Ship* sails into port. Published by @VikingBooks. Thanks to all of you for your interest along the way. Available for purchase here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566407...

Some sad confirmation from @bcgl.bsky.social while I was at UW last week—the National Digital Newspaper Program—which builds Chronicling America—has been shut down Historical newspapers are probably the archival material most used by the general public—for genealogy, local history—it’s such a loss

Today I was in Brooklyn and cold-called the old home of Emilio Sanchez, an undercover agent who tried to stop the illegal transatlantic slave trade out of NYC in the 1850s / 1860s. I’m writing his bio. It turned out to be a wild ride /1

Historians in Brooklyn. Great to finally meet @unlawfulentries.bsky.social in person and to hear about her forthcoming book on early American immigration and much more. Excellent restaurant choice too - as expected!

Jari Honora, the genealogist who made the Creole - Pope Leo connections for the world, works at the Historic New Orleans Collection and is just superb. He has dug out some great stuff for my current book in progress. All praise to him! www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/u...

My love of reading is strongly link to this man…

Question for college profs: which department is your social studies major located in? Ours is in history and political science but the education department wants to take it.

Something I've wanted more of for a long time are "Easterns" - movies set in the 1860s-1890s but in the Eastern United States. We have like 50,000 Western movies and 3 Eastern movies. It's a great and fascinating time period in America!

Do you know “many Irish worked the dicks” in New Orleans? Me neither. Meant to write docks. #editing

Roszman on Scanlan’s new Irish famine book

If your small college was moving from a decentralized system of academic departments to one with schools and deans with departments organized within those schools, what questions would you have / red flags would you watch out for?

The New Orleans chapter of my next book on illegal slave trade spy Emilio Sanchez is drafted. Herein Sanchez •Works for the Spanish consulate, possibly as a mole •Falls and fails in love •Becomes an enslaver (despite fighting the slave trade) More to come…

I love walking into my local independent bookstore @booksandbooks.bsky.social and seeing my book alongside so many other amazing titles. Visit your local independent shop today — you might even find a signed copy or two by your favorite local authors!

I have a close connection with an FBI agent and they are aghast by how sloppy ICE are with warrants - and pretty much everything. The average agent - yes, conservative - is also pissed that Bondi and Kash are dragging them into deportation efforts and away from what they see as their core mission

Here is an excellent review of our latest graphic novel, *Revolution by Fire: New York’s Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741, A Graphic Novel*. The review is written by Hank Kennedy and was published in *Comics Journal*. www.tcj.com/reviews/revo...

What in the counterfactual history and bad thinking is going on here?

It's really real! We have a pre-order link for my new book, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America's First Opioid Crisis, forthcoming in October from @uncpress.bsky.social 🗃️ Please consider requesting a copy for your library! uncpress.org/book/9781469...

Y’all! My book is available for pre order now from @uncpress.bsky.social So excited! uncpress.org/book/9781469...

This is still very clearly the climate story of the week, and possibly the year.