Lovely sky in St Cyr tonight :)

Extremely looking forward to going to University College Cork for a book talk--the Irish launch of The Course of Human Events :)

Oh my goodness. Rest in Peace, Jesse Jackson. Saw him speak twice and he was mesmerising (in a good way) 😢

Very much looking forward to this Round Table on "The Declaration of Independence in 1776 and Beyond" at the John W. Boyer Center of the University of Chicago, 41 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris: Monday 23 February, 5pm-6pm. You can register via the link below. www.eventbrite.fr/e/the-declar...

Beautiful weird sky over Lyon tonight.

Off to Oxford tomorrow for UK book launch at the Rothermere American Institute. Long train rides but well worth it.... www.rai.ox.ac.uk/event/the-co...

The BBC coverage is absolutely terrible. It leads on "sharply contested narratives" It has a dramatic skew to the US government It has posted the video but has failed to report on what it shows: it shows the US govt account is untrue

Well, that's toold me. I am noow convoonced that I was wroong.

I am being admonished by Billy for having a bath on #Caturday

I'm doing a course this semester about Thomas Paine and tomorrow I'll be talking about his statue in his birthplace of Thetford. So, obviously, I have meticulously prepared an improvisation about the same town's Captain Mainwaring statue and Dad's Army Museum.

Pope Catholic, study finds.

Snub?

I am declaring that the war on sandwiches is over.

Well, the Christmas tree is down & the decorations are stowed away for another year I always find this moment slightly melancholy as I do really love Christmas. I'd probably be one of those crazy people who eats a Christmas dinner every day if it wasn't for all the cooking & washing-up & whatnot.

Asking for an environmental history friend, does anyone have access to the following? Thomas Oatley, "Energy and the Complexity of International Order, Global Environmental Politics (2021) 21 (4): 20–41. And...

One of the great things about living in France is the New Year tradition and month-long ubiquity of the galette des rois #PieJanuary

#Caturday Banjo

#Caturday Billy.

I did indeed make these stickers. Because when one is casting about for first principles, #footnotes (accountability, transparency, collaborative knowledge production acknowledged!) are right up there for me.

Unspeakable.

Another exodus from the other site, from the sounds of it? If you're looking for the #EarlyModern gang, we've got three starter packs that compile a bunch of them. I can keep adding to the third, just poke. Here's the OG: go.bsky.app/VQeQbbF 1/3

If you’re teaching university-level US history next semester or any after in courses that include the Declaration of Independence, American Revolution, and early republic, this thread is so you can see if my new book is, or if certain chapters in it are, useful to you and your students.

A short thread but very thought-provoking in many ways.

I will take that, yes.

Happy New Year everybody.

David Attenborough [whispering]: “Like a grain of sand in a vast desert, the predator blends seamlessly into its environment, nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.”

R.I.P Brigitte Bardot 1934 - 2025 #HumourDouteux

"... actrice française légendaire, icône féminine des années 1960 et fervente protectrice des animaux..." et.... ?

Make a Bond movie academic Dr No: Reviewer II

stacking up the nonfiction TBR pile for 2026 - featuring some new releases by @stevesarson.bsky.social , @rickbell.bsky.social , and more!

A white Christmas in St-Cyr-au-Mont-d'Or!

Christmas Eve in St-Cyr. Surprisingly Lutterworthy, actually.

It seems my work email has been acting up and I'm not receiving some messages and some people may not be receiving mine. Which is not good. If you've contacted me and I've not replied, that's why, and you can try my personal email instead: [email protected]

If you're still looking for a holiday gift on the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution and the historical origins of the United States (all the way back to Creation). Perfect as the 250 approaches 😉 @uvapress.bsky.social www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10151/

Had great fun this morning recording a podcast on the Declaration of Independence with Lige Gould, Adam Smith, and Emily Williams for the Rothermere American Institute (Oxford University) "Last Best Hope" series. It'll be part of a double-episode on the Declaration released in the Spring.

It's the very fact that physical books with adequate quality control every step along the way are expensive af (especially relative to producing AI slop) that warrants quality.

I'm now on Linkedin, if anyone wants to connect there (not quitting Bluesky, though--Linkedin is extra). www.linkedin.com/in/steve-sar...

Happy Hannukah to all my Jewish friends, colleagues, students, and neighbors.

The fact is no presenter has ever had to leave the BBC for expressing conservative views, or even explicitly endorsing a right-wing party. Was never a problem for Jeremy Clarkson. Was never a problem for Andrew Neil. Was never a problem for Alan Sugar

Don't go changing, Lutterworth.

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

About the Uni of Birmingham. Its previous VC was David Eastwood, a member of the Browne Commission that introduced £9k fees to ensure the long-term financial viability of UKHE.... His B'ham salary reach almost half a million pounds.

I wrote a new article: it’s on the Fallout franchise, & it’s just been published in Games&Culture I’m currently trying to wrap my head around a bigger project on historical video game promotion and branding & this article is a slice (in progress) of that + it’s open access! doi.org/10.1177/1555...

Here we go--the talk is in two hours. Feeling slightly nervous :)

Off to Germany today--John F. Kennedy Institute at the Freie Universtat Berlin--to do my first post-publication book talk on The Course of Human Events: The Declaration of Independence and the Historical Origins of the United States. Thank you, Hannah Spahn! www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/faculty/cult...

Merci Marie at St-Cyr-au-Mont-d'Or.