Just got my author copy of Black Atlantic Worlds! I’m honored and delighted to be a part of this volume. www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978088...

Meanwhile Wikipedia, as of this writing, as well as GOOGLE AI, still have it as the 10th. For how long, no one knows! Of course in my NYT piece I cite January 9, 1776, as the publication date of COMMON SENSE.

The first great American 250th anniversary date of the year arrives this Friday: the publication of Thomas Paine's COMMON SENSE, which occurred on January 9, 1776. Many sources have the date as January 10, 1776. This is incorrect. But what accounts for the confusion???? Friends, follow me.

This is the execution of an aspect of The Great Society.

The core problem with large language model AI programs like Chat-gpt or Grok or Gemini is that their “hallucinations” are a normal part of how they work. Such hallucinations reveal that they have no concept of truth and by definition cannot place value on it.

This *should* be obvious to anyone who's spent two seconds thinking about how they work, but apparently it's not. Many thanks to the author of the linked article and everyone else trying to get the message out.

If any media outlets want to talk about the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I'm currently writing the official history of public meeting for the CPB and Current, and I'm available.

all this is both foolish and unnecessary

all of this

Emily Doucet, Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts - @dukepress.bsky.social, April 2026 www.dukeupress.edu/inventing-na...

I have nothing exceptionally profound to say about the possibility of ever expanding U.S. imperialism re: Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat), except to note that it is an Indigenous homelands for Inuits and we ought not to forget that. Denmark is great and all, but Greenland has already been colonized.

We could regulate these things but it might prevent all this innovation.

on this sunday-est of sundays, syllabus-ing for a new term you're not alone against the oligarch agenda of cognitive deskilling, data capture, surveillance, and bias: we've got assignment ideas, memes, recommended readings, o' captain speeches, syllabus policies, and so much more against-a-i.com

There are a thousand things Dems could be collectively doing ahead of the reconvening of Congress. American legislators: <huffy social media post> Korean legislators:

Donald Trump has multiple indictments in the United States for crimes against the US government. And also pardoned top drug dealers.

I want to help make a government that isn’t evil and works so well that you don’t really think about it

Okay fine. Term starts in 2 days but we're shaking up the schedule! What books do I need to read for lecture prep on US intervention in Latin America? (Preference for the readable end of scholarly)

Yknow I’d like to say that the U.S. isn’t supposed to go around invading countries (and it’s not), but I’m a citizen of a Native Nation of THIS land, and this country is BORN of invasion. This is standard practice for this country, yall. And yes, I’m still mad as hell about Venezuela.

If one is interested in the historical antecedents of the current situation, it's important to remember the 1856 Guano Islands Act. The US has always been extractivist and imperialist. When thinking of better futures, we must be honest about the deep roots of our problems. (Open access article)

I know we have bigger first to fry but this sucks so fucking bad. Location: Midtown Hotel Boston

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

I just wanted 2026 to be a nice little year with some fun history conferences about the American Revolution

Seen at an anti-war protest in Manhattan today.

Also, when reporters start talking about the chatbots this way, it is imperative to remind them they are basically asking a toaster for comment. They should be a lot more embarrassed about this than they currently are. “Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.

Your regular reminder that marginal income, capital gains, & wealth taxes are too low, & this poses an existential threat to 🇺🇸 democracy

if the tech was half as broadly useful and innovative and smartly deployed as they claim there wouldn't be all this sad desperation about what people call it, the innovation would mostly just be inherently recognized

this is lucky timing indeed, as I want big tech to stop *producing* AI slop in 2026

This is why they want us talking about day care scams.

📣 We are thrilled to announce that the Winter 2025 issue of Renaissance Quarterly (vol. 78.4) has been published online. You can view it here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #RenTwitter #earlymodern #Renaissance @universitypress.cambridge.org

There seems to be a lot of confusion between “lots of professors who lack merit are being hired” (false) and “lots of people with merit are unable to find jobs as professors” (true).

Thomas Paine began 1776 with _Common Sense_ and the call to reject monarchy, and ended with _The American Crisis_, warning that "these are the times that try men's souls." Like many in my field, I've spent the last dozen years preparing for 2026, sure that the fullest histories serve us best. 1/

They're going to *throw out* one-of-a-kind NASA archives?! Not even a year since the Inauguration & we're already at the 2nd-time-as-farce version of the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

the rich people pushing AI on everything are going to be the same rich people who will brag they can afford to send their kids to a school with human teachers

The reason this Harvard history professor decided he was done with one of the best and most privileged jobs in the world was, in his own words, because he was forced to lecture in a mask during peak Covid. I’m not making this up.

Aside from the sheer entitlement of a man who had a FORTY year career in Harvard and is whining about things changing, there is something about how much the pandemic has radicalized so many people. Simply being asked to mask seems to have broken some people’s minds entirely.

@brdemuth.bsky.social's essay in @grantamag.bsky.social on time spent in the Yukon piecing together oral histories of the Russian empire. Read it to the end; no spoilers! granta.com/where-the-la...

What is a short(ish) piece of writing (any genre) that you most appreciated reading this year?

As a scholar of things pre-1700, I find presentist bias in academia (and culture) to be an evergreen thing.

This is an important point, though I think there is a distinction to be made between what is becoming the fate of the premodern “West” (an object of right-wing capture) and the premodern global, including less insular and less traditional framings of European history (objects of right-wing attack).

Today’s the day! Find your copy wherever books are sold!* * preferably an independent bookstore somewhere between Cleveland and western Nebraska www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p0...

Happy Pub Date to LINGERING INLAND: A Literary Tour of the Midwest edited by @andyoler.bsky.social, with a foreword by @joseolivarez.bsky.social! www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p0... #LiteraryStudies #Midwest

A useful political test: whether you value books and reading or not. Pretty simple, pretty telling.

I’m not joining the discourse today, but I’ll just say the fact that that guy begins with “mild” (?) COVID denial is the perfect setup for everything that follows.

THIS THIS THIS. ALL OF THIS THIS is why faculty resist technological strategies for teaching. There is no engaging with Edtech without this context

"There is no sense calling for independent or solitary action by something called “the humanities” when that category has been so thoroughly absorbed by concerted attacks on democratic governance, due process of law, rights to privacy, security, assembly, and expression. We are all humanists now."

Work from (family) home holiday edition!

What a quote.

I wasn’t sure they were going to publish this. So good for them.

Disappointed to see Jon Stewart & co joke about masking in public. I do it for my medically fragile daughter (Batten Disease). People not masking properly led to her getting pneumonia, which led to her being on life support, which led to me getting price quotes on her cremation just in case.

Our government’s priorities are entirely backward. And purposefully so.