Hacktivists tried to find a workaround to Discord’s age-verification software, Persona. Instead, they found its frontend exposed to the open internet, and that was just the beginning. www.therage.co/persona-age-...

New anxiety unlocked: does my discussion of financial disasters in the past make me look like Thanos?

From the Journal of the Civil War Era: I have a piece on how the "diploma divide" & the manipulation of new media - then & now - shaped elections. Mostly I am fond of this dig at Elon Musk & the dad he wants everyone to forget. Issue: muse.jhu.edu/issue/56406 My piece: muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/artic...

Linear Algebra Medieval France and Spain Hegel 19th c. Russian Literature Programming the 6502 (talk about a dog's breakfast)

Remember entering a room full of workstations and having to babysit them for 3 hours while they updated? I do. Thanks, Jeffrey. • The Register share.google/mWuY6oajBa2R...

This IS indeed very much worth reading. [Gift article] www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/o...

POV: you are A.P. Hill on July 2, 1863, and you could have sworn you just heard someone say “I don’t plan to let you do that” in a Minnesota accent

Essential read from @pkrugman.bsky.social on the tech bros media scheme: paulkrugman.substack.com/p/maga-the-b...

Friends in African-American history. Come be our colleague at UGA! careers.historians.org/jobs/2180454...

holy goddamn

lol

It is now clear that average tariffs on August 1 are set to be higher than they were on "Liberation Day." Only a fool would look back to the chaos of early April and conclude that the problem was that the announced tariffs were too small. If you're not worried, you're not paying attention.

Just a reminder as Netanyahu bombs Tehran to the Stone Age, that most of "western civilization" (including writing, higher math, brass, wheat) actually came to us from North Africa via Persia

Look at the cover of the Ukrainian translation of my book! #booksky #WhatsHistory www.instagram.com/p/DI1ok8gN4Y...

Not true. I see you're a luxury watch dealer. I'm also interested in watches. Let me show you how free and easy migration has allowed you to earn a living. 🧵

Elon Musk's DOGE sacked 10% of EPA officials just as Musk's xAI was spinning up. What is xAI's powerplant? 35(!) huge gas-powered generators in Memphis, all without permits, all discharging uncontrollably ... Colossus indeed www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJT...

Its amazing that a thing i never even heard about five years ago is 78% of ocean plastic, literally everywhere e360.yale.edu/features/tir...

Wow, & straightforwardly implying why Owen was removed too: "CBS's parent, Paramount global is trying to resolve the [Trump] suit as it completes a merger that needs government approval."

Actually. How the US benefitted from outsourcing its research interests to experts in universities.

One of the worst effects of successive govts' rhetoric on Higher Ed is that it's 'training for a job'. So 18yos get themselves (and are pressured) onto narrow technical courses. Yet employers are crying out for ppl who can read, think, write, speak! I've never met an employer who said different.

"Since the 19th century, US government actions have led to drastic changes in international trade and finance," @nelsonhist.bsky.social writes in #AHAPerspectives. "And in all four cases, the result was not recessions but depressions." 🗃️

Radical changes in US tariffs have led to 4 US depressions, but carry on believing a rich guy who ought to know financial history, but apparently doesn't foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/11/t...

Here's my piece in Foreign Policy about how we've seen radical changes in tariffs or trade rules in the past (1819, 1837, 1890, 1930) & it ain't pretty. foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/11/t...

Creating their own security forces, you say? Glad there's no horrifying historical precedents for this

This morning Wall Street will watch the result of a dead cat bounce. Historians will be here to tell you the crash that followed when Congress surrendered power to Pres. Andrew Jackson, aka Captain Ahab www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-0J...

Also, in case you want to know more about how tariffs caused the 1893 depression & how Eugene Debs responded using the social media of the day to build a progressive movement: academic.oup.com/illinois-sch...

Dear spineless House Republicans: Sep. 1833-6: Andrew Jackson messes w/ intl. trade, esp. hurts 2nd Bank of the US & the 7 sisters (Brit Banking houses) July 1836: Bank of England raises the Bank rate & cuts off the 7 sisters 1837: Depression of 1837 see: Nation of Deadbeats, ch 11

Dear spineless Republican House members who don't know history: 1890: McKinley Tariff of 1890 drastically increases tariff 1891-2: US Treasury loses trust of foreign investors/lenders 1893: Depression of 1893 #history #tariffs see: Nation of Deadbeats, ch. 10

Dear spineless House Republicans: Mar. 1817: Congress passes *huge* tariffs May 1817: Britain makes counter-tariffs Dec 1818: US wheat loses Caribbean mkt, prices drop 50% Mar 1819: Depression of 1819 #wakeup #history #tariff See, Nation of Deadbeats, ch. 4 or www.jstor.org/stable/27105...

Radical tariff changes put the US into depression in 1819, 1893 & 1929. Hasty executive action did so in 1837. Buckle up #NationofDeadbeats

A brief break from our nation's latest dumpster fire: An interview with my mom Carole-Nelson Pond (now 87) about how she broke into broadcasting in Florida, becoming the first anchorwoman in Florida, and possibly the first in the South www.buzzsprout.com/1027078/epis...

Back in 2017 when Trump 1 wanted to zero out NEH I spent half an hour in my office looking for books that got NEH support. These books. These titles. Another 30 minutes & I could’ve reached the ceiling. Now they’ve actually done it.

Seriously, be this kind of Catholic institution instead.

I wish students could experience how interesting writing (and reading!) can be, the sooner the better. The degree to which they've internalized these actions as purely instrumental and for the purposes of proving proficiency to a standard or authority is a problem.

Aber, a W&M alum who investigated Russian spies, found dead under mysterious circumstances. I hate that instead of mourning and waiting for clarity my mind goes straight to “oh so Putin has free reign here now too” www.newsweek.com/jessica-aber...

Next Newberry Capitalism Seminar. Fri., February 28th, 3pm CT @janinegiordano.bsky.social will be sharing her work on schooling, homesteading, & the social contract after the Civil War. Comment by @nelsonhist.bsky.social Register here for the paper and Zoom link www.newberry.org/calendar/jan...

A fellow at Harvard's Warren Center asked me for instructions to get into & out of the economic commodities section, deep in the bowels of Widener Library. I leave this behind for future scholar-adventurers. (NB: you need a Harvard Library card to get in, sigh) youtu.be/fxiBe6BlD2w

The Byzantine Empire lasted 874 years (330 - 1204) before the Doges sapped its resources, gave away its military secrets, & then sacked the capital. This republic may not last 250 years

I’ve noticed a lot of requests from people looking for great books to read in honor of Black History Month. Here are a few recommendations from my library. 💗

Back in the days of punch cards, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and a software patch meant a piece of tape...🦖

Next week 11 UGA honors students are coming to my house to chew over my book Oceans of Grain. I just read over some of the themes the students picked out to talk about next week. Can't wait! #academicsky #skystorians

If you think about it, the very best books are really just extremely long spells that turn you into a different person for the rest of your life

Vlado Chernozemski, who assassinated King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, belonged in his youth to a club that was devoted to a game of regicide. In the game, known as "chess," contestants subtly maneuver into a position that allows them to topple the opponent's monarch.

Not sure who made this & when but fittingly came across it in my downloads folder today:

In a few short years I’ve gone from “Wikipedia is not a reliable online source for your research paper because humans can edit it to say anything” to “Wikipedia might be the ONLY reliable online source because humans can edit it.”

Great letter in this morning's @financialtimes.com

1. The conventional explanation for food deserts—that these places are too poor or too rural to generate enough spending on groceries, or too Black to overcome racist corporate redlining — fail to grapple with a key fact: food deserts didn’t used to exist. My new piece in The Atlantic.

New post, “A Large Language Model Walks Into an Archive…” explores how historians can use off-the-shelf LLMs to work with primary sources 📜 cblevins.github.io/posts/llm-pr...