If you know anyone not vaccinating their kids, make sure they read this story. Effective and nauseating use of the second person.

Right, another key thing that historians do is working with important records that have not been digitized. And the vast majority of the world’s records *have not been digitized* and thus do not exist in any format that LLMs/AI can work with.

Please, please get a colonoscopy. The prep kind of sucks, but it's the best sleep you'll ever have. And it could save your life.

AI simply cannot stand in front of a classroom, gesticulating wildly and writing semi-illegibly on chalkboards, both of which are key to building rapport and convincing your students you are worth learning from

In our most recent blog post, JCB Library Director Karin Wulf discusses the central image in the exhibition "1776 Across the Americas" promotional materials. Read on: jcblibrary.org/news/english...

The David McCullough Essay Prizes Contest is open! Join us at our online workshop “How to Write an Interpretive Essay“ on Thursday, February 19 at 7pm ET to prepare your essay and learn strategies for strong research and writing! Register: https://ow.ly/7BLB50Y5CvU

Friends, can I ask you to spread the word that we have a THREE-YEAR postdoc in American history at Cambridge up for grabs - ANY field, but applications are due March 1 so don't delay - apply, apply, apply! networks.h-net.org/jobs/69790/u...

I assumed it would be a top-line pitcher who would get injured the first week of Spring Training. Shows what I know.

Historian friends, I'm trying to organize an AHA panel that uses haunting as a way to think through issue of the dead's consent to have their memories repurposed. Do you have material that might work? If so or if you want more info, message me!

So I think everyone knows what Chuck E. Cheese is but for non-parents who don't know what LifeTouch is, it's the company that for decades has had a near-monopoly on school pictures.

I wrote a book about how Americans have remembered, forgotten, and fought over George Washington and slavery for the past 250 years. It comes out on April 7—but you can win an advance copy and read it before anyone else by entering this giveaway on Goodreads! Please share.

If you want something done right the first time…

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW: “.. In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it.” hbr.org/2026/02/ai-d...

I’m beginning every panel I chair for the rest of my career with this frontal attack…

Bad Bunny opening halftime performance by moving through sugarcane highlights colonial history that binds US, Puerto Rico & the larger Caribbean. Sugar everywhere in the performance - drinks, wedding 🎂, etc. Labor, desire & pleasure tied to the land.

Data about adjunct employment requested!

Now online and accepting applications. The 2026 AAS Summer Seminar in the History of the Book— “Paper Relations: Hisrories and Futures of Indigenous Print Cultures” Led by Katie Walkiewicz and Kelly Wisecup. Deadline to apply is April 3!

*new* from me: As pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, three front office staffers spoke to me about helping Latino baseball players and their families navigate an America ravaged by ICE raids. They say guidance from MLB has been “minimal” so their teams are getting creative.

True story! Has there been a better year to talk about history & journalism? A year long project that begins this evening with @jamellebouie.net. Will I get to even half the questions I want to ask?! Unlikely! Hope you'll join us & share -- registration info to join the webinar ⬇️

I need a gif of William Daniels in 1776 saying “Saltpeter!” in exasperation and the internet has failed me.

Hey historians, what should I read on the history of U.S. masculinity in the second half of the twentieth century?

Bad Bunny’s performance began in the plantation, featured broken electric poles, and ended by centering a hemispheric understanding of “América”—among many other things—and some Anglo journalists are like “his performance wasn’t political.” This is why we need to be telling our stories.

I had totally forgotten until I was looking something up, but apparently Kid Rock was a guest performer in the 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” Super Bowl halftime show and that feels darkly funny given where he ended up this year.

The end of media literacy

We'll pick it up from here. Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic are right around the corner!

Unidos somos América.

Svedka just made my kids into lifetime teetotalers so there’s that.

madame tussaud’s dunkin’ commercial is going to give me nightmares.

“Was this commercial just regular terrible or AI slop?” is the conversation in our house and also a great sign for the advertising industry.

Sports betting has already ruined so many things, and now it’s ruining Super-Bowl commercials.

My 16yo asked to have the Super Bowl on during dinner. I was a little disappointed because we just don’t watch football. But all three kids, and especially my daughters, are spending their time trash-talking football as a sport and also the AI commercials. So at least I’ve done *something* right.

another year of us not running a super bowl ad

Planning for #America250 has been ongoing for a decade, so even in the most generous interpretation, “Freedom 250”—created only in December 2025—would be a slapdash project. But it’s also unmoored from America’s past and likely a site of corruption for access to the Trump administration.

Today I'm offering the complete bibliographical essay from the backmatter of "The First Tycoon" to assist historians working on the 19th-c United States. What I describe could not be done by AI. It's not just reading undigitized pages. It's judgment, interpretation, consultation—all creative acts.

I've written about the overarching post story, causes, underlying pattern. But the failure of Lewis or Bezos to even show up, literally or figuratively, on a day of devastating cuts epitomizes the profound lack of character and accountability that is so common place today within the American elite.

Will Lewis, CEO of the Washington Post, resigns. [gift link] www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/t...

They want you to become an automaton. 🤖 A radical thing you can do is affirm human dignity. 🤗 Make eye contact. Talk to people in public. Say hello. Don't hide in your phone or wear headphones. 😃 Be human in public, not an automaton. 💯

I'm sorry the guy changing the rules on the fly is named what

road trip 🥒 @katytelling.bsky.social @sethrockman.bsky.social @katejewell.bsky.social @jmadelman.bsky.social

Thank you for contacting the void. How may we direct your scream?

1965 founding legalistion of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Title 20 U.S. Code. Chapter 26. Section 951. "The Congress finds and declares the following: The arts and the humanities belong to all the people of the United States." (cont'd.)

One month from today, I will be discussing my book Canal Dreamers at @amantiquarian.bsky.social in Worcester, MA. It is a hybrid event so distant folks can join the fun! March 5, 7-8 PM. Here's the registration link: www.americanantiquarian.org/programs-eve... @uncpress.bsky.social #skystorians 🗃️

If you were ever a tween/teen girl you probably got unwanted sexual attention and you’re thinking ugh it’s just me but then you find out the country is run by literal pedophiles and every other girl got it too and I’m sitting here wondering HOW MANY PEDOPHILES ARE THERE??? Makes you feel insane!

“How dare they get rid of this classic icon of frozen foods?!” I ask as I try to remember whether I’ve bought any juice concentrate in the current century.

Every time you hear that such and such major is being eliminated because it isn't popular or it doesn't make money or it doesn't serve the streamlined mission of the institution, you should think about the WaPo cuts. What is a paper without books and sports? A college without history and languages.

And before leaving his acting position, Rubio illegally appointed Byron to serve as Archivist. Also, Byron remains CEO of the Nixon Foundation, "on leave." bsky.app/profile/info...

Perfection

I'm quoted (and my book is mentioned!) in this excellent piece by Jennifer Schuessler about the President's House site in Philadelphia and our broader fight over George Washington and slavery. My first time ever having my name in the NYT, pretty excited about it. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/a...