Coming this week: AMERICAN POWER. For the inaugural issue of Phenomenal World, thirteen essays and interviews on the geopolitical and economic pathologies of the global scene. Join us: phenomenalworld.org

Abigail Spanberger vetoing a bill legalizing collective bargaining for state and local workers shows that she's fine with a government that offers worker benefits but not one that gives workers power, Harold Meyerson writes. prospect.org/2026/05/25/h...

The president of Cornell hit two students with his car, lied about what happened, and got away with it. The story illustrates an under-reported crisis in higher education: administrators and the trustees they answer to are increasingly hostile to the idea of college itself. I wrote about it here:

Reports of fuel riots in Kenya and official warnings in India to prepare for an economic crisis equivalent to Covid reconfirms what we already knew: the damage of war descends preexisting hierarchies, inconvenience in the North is disaster in the South.

H-Diplo has released a roundtable for STATES-IN-WAITING- Many thanks to @emleake.bsky.social @riakapoor.bsky.social @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social @adenknaap.bsky.social, Saima Ashipala, + Bérénice Guyot-Réchard for their insightful engagement with the book!

So excited to see FREEDOM ROUND THE GLOBE out in the world, by my brilliant friend Sarah Pearsall. It's *really* good. But don't take my word for it...

I had fun testifying before members of Congress today! They—and, more importantly, we—don’t have to tolerate an unchecked Court that blows up the Voting Rights Act or allows rank corruption to sap our government.

Today, Dylan Saba (@shaabiranks.bsky.social) argues that the overt gangsterfication of US foreign policy marks the culmination of a dangerous transformation in the nature of American hegemony.

TIL that Belgian French uses "nonante" for "ninety." And was reminded of this meme.

My book — “TROOP MOVEMENTS” — is due out in September. You can see the description & blurbs — on Bookshop, Am*zon, etc-etc. You can *PRE-ORDER* the book. If anyone may want to assign & teach it — or do a review, or an interview, or an event — please do be in touch! www.amazon.com/Troop-Moveme...

Conversations about the future of higher education in the US need to start from the unfortunate, basic fact that both Democrats and Republicans agree with Reagan that government should not subsidize curiosity driven learning and inquiry.

Harvard works because @hgsuuaw.bsky.social does! Solidarity with Harvard Graduate Student Workers as they fight for a fair contract with better wages, workplace protections from harassment and discrimination, and more. One day longer, one day stronger. America’s unions have your backs!

Congrats to Bench Ansfield 🎉! If you want to see what all the buzz is about, check out their interview with Andrew Anatasi on how arson became profitable for landlords, how residents organized to stop it, and what this tells us about the ongoing interplay between property and racial capitalism.

By gutting the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is killing the Second Reconstruction. The first Reconstruction shows how Congress should respond. Me and Daphna Renan in the NYT on the tools we have to save democracy from a hostile Court.

ASU Atomic, a new tool in beta at Arizona State University, takes faculty lectures and chops them into extremely short clips, that AI then attempts to turn into learning materials.

So many Celtics fans are in the 76ers arena that their chants mocking the home team with "we want Boston" chants are audible on tv ☘️

The piker stuff is just running back the Chapo stuff from a decade ago. Eternal recurrence. Structurally meaningless, best read as interpersonal beef among media types who want each other's jobs. Rich kids throwing food at the other table full of rich kids in the high school cafeteria.

In the @bostonreview.bsky.social, nia t. evans interviews Stuart Schrader about how police unions helped catapult cops to new heights of power and impunity.

Why is this not a national scandal? If 1000+ jobs were lost overnight in carmaking or steel it would be pure shock.

Jrue Holiday is one of the very best players in the last 20 years of the NBA in the final 30 seconds of one-possession games. Every Celtics and Bucks fan knows this intimately, and I'm happy for all the Blazers fans who just learned it

Hard to see the Virginia gerrymandering amendment as anything other than a shallow breath for "American democracy" as it slips closer and closer to its death rattle

In my introductory class, "The History of Your Parents' Generation," we read texts by Phyllis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, and Lynne Cheney.

Joe Mazzulla, basketball existentialist, strikes again

I can't wait to open my class on Foucault on Monday with some Ed Mylett YouTube clips. Figuring this out at 10:20pm on a Saturday is elite time manipulation fyi

One of the greatest inventions of all time. Even though it appears to be all wrong in the ice cream to wafer ratio, it is not. It is perfection.

400 dead so far, over 1000 injured, dozens and dozens missing. This is one hour into the massacre. I have no idea what the death toll will be in the end. Also, they have announced “another wave” of attacks coming

If you're as excited as I am about Audiofuturism, let me make some suggestions: •Invite me to your campus to deliver a talk •Suggest me as a keynote speaker for your conference •Host me for a workshop on research profiles.ucr.edu/app/home/pro...

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

"What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today." – C. P. Cavafy "The hour of the barbarian is at hand. The modern barbarian. The American hour." – Aimé Césaire

Waiting for the Americans -- my notes on being here, out of control

BREAKING: Extraordinary scenes as Iranian citizens start forming human chains outside key infrastructure sites. This is Kazerun Power Plant in Fars province, southern Iran (🎥 i24 News)

People are asking

abolish the draft!!!!

As the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon intensifies, I will bring up this hobbyhorse of mine yet again. The Biden administration's decision to accede to Israel's expansion of its genocidal war into neighboring states was a but-for cause of what's happening today.

Thanks to Emily Callaci for this thoughtful review of *The Internal Colony* for @susih.bsky.social: s-usih.org/2026/03/emil...

try and imagine a bigger W as an academic

This is one of the most bizarre posts I have ever read on Bluesky. It is demonstrably false. HCR has received multiple profiles, been elevated and lionized as perhaps the ur-representative of the American historical profession in the age of Trump. The NYT in 2020: www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/b...

Israel blocks Catholic cardinal from Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday www.ft.com/content/ec79... via @ft

I may be mistaken, but I believe I am the first person working off the tenure track to win this award in its half-century existence. I hope this will help put to rest the myth that historians struggle to secure permanent teaching positions because their work is inadequate.

I am extremely excited to share that my book Make Your Own Job received the 2026 Merle Curti Award in Intellectual History from the Organization of American Historians. It is a real honor. www.oah.org/2026/03/26/o...

I do not regret to inform the haters that the Boston Celtics are officially BACK

I'm seeing quite a few liberals using the obviously cynical and antisemitic anti-Israel turn by some far-right influencers to defame anticolonial, pro-Palestinian rejections of Zionism. This will get much worse over the next 2.5 years. It's important to have clarity about you believe.

C'mon now, no one places the start of WWII at September 1, 1939 anymore. We cannot not periodize!

Awesome: @beaubaumann.bsky.social makes the newspaper www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/o...

If Hakeem weren't so criminally underrated he'd be the only person anyone compared Wembanyama to. It's incredibly complimentary to Wemby to say his ceiling is even higher

if there's one conclusion that the study of both labor history and imperialism converge on, it is that the richest people in the world are happy to burn money on control, power, impunity. and the "everything is about profit" version of anti-capitalism does not survive serious contact with either

Oh man, the hit at Ras Laffan has taken almost 20% of output (i.e. roughly 3% of global LNG volumes) offline for *3-5 years*.

I absolutely lost it at "Heinroch Pocklock Krockpock"

Remarkable. www.npr.org/2026/03/17/n...