22 Posts Found

Reagan Republicans fully understood the political risks of dismantling more than 50 years of public policy, yet—more effectively than any of their predecessors—they succeeded in manufacturing the popular consent needed to do precisely that. The key to this achievement was a simple but devastating insight: The most effective way to discredit liberal social policy was to starve it of resources and then point to its … [ Read more ]

Author: Heather Ann Thompson | Source: The Atlantic (January2026) | Subjects: America, History, International, Politics & Public Policy

Anthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era.

Author: Wade Davis | Source: Rolling Stone (August 6, 2020) | Subjects: America, Excerpts, History

Understand how the world’s most controversial conflict — between Israel and Palestine — has intensified over the last century

Subjects: History, International

A prominent historian ponders the long-term legacy of the elusive Bush Doctrine.

Author: John Lewis Gaddis | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2008) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, History, Politics & Public Policy

Here are two interesting videos produced by Vox covering the history of the Democratic and Republican parties.

Source: Vox | Subjects: History, Politics & Public Policy

In November 1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina, a mob of 2,000 white men expelled black and white political leaders, destroyed the property of the city’s black residents, and killed dozens — if not hundreds — of people.

For decades, the story of this violence was buried, while the perpetrators were cast as heroes.

Source: Vox (June 20, 2020) | Subjects: History, Race Relations

Society is of its nature oligarchical, and the power of the oligarchy always rests upon force and fraud. [James] Burnham does not deny that ‘good’ motives may operate in private life, but he maintains that politics consists of the struggle for power, and nothing else. All historical changes finally boil down to the replacement of one ruling class by another. All talk about democracy, liberty, … [ Read more ]

Author: George Orwell | Source: Polemic (May1946) | Subjects: Excerpts, History, Politics & Public Policy

All evidence to the contrary, we continue to believe, deep in our hearts, that the Founders’ “We the People” meant all the people, not just the propertied white men.

Authors: Brooke Allen, Jill Lepore | Source: The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn2012) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, History, Politics & Public Policy

Who is responsible for the past eight years of dismal American governance? “George W. Bush” is a decent answer. But we should reserve some blame for the Founding Fathers, who created a presidential office that is ill-considered, vaguely defined, and ripe for abuse. Here’s how to fix what the Founders got wrong—before the next G. W. Bush enters the Oval Office.

Author: Garrett Epps | Source: The Atlantic (January2009) | Subjects: Excerpts, History, Politics & Public Policy

Having moved from political prisoner to cognitive scientist to Chilean senator, this uncompromising philosopher of communication is now educating business leaders for the world of social media.

Authors: Fernando Flores, Lawrence M. Fisher | Source: strategy+business (Winter2009) | Subjects: Excerpts, History, Thought Starters

If you are a fan of Ken Burns documentaries, this is as fine as any of them. It is interesting and educational on so many levels: the environment, biology, economic development, politics, etc. It will also really open your eyes to just how influential one person or a small group of people can be in enacting huge changes and improvements in society. You will learn … [ Read more ]

Author: Ken Burns | Source: PBS (September2009) | Subjects: America, Environment | Sustainability, History, Travel

Frederick Douglass called it “a sacred effort,” and Lincoln himself thought that his Second Inaugural, which offered a theodicy of the Civil War, was better than the Gettysburg Address

Author: Garry Wills | Source: The Atlantic (September1999) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, History

We can identify four “turnings” that each last about 20 years — the length of a generation. Think of these as recurring seasons, starting with spring and ending with winter. In every turning, a new generation is born and each older generation ages into its next phase of life.

Author: Neil Howe | Source: The Washington Post (February 24, 2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Foreign Policy, History, Politics & Public Policy, Sociology | Anthropology

The influential economic theorist looks ahead to a world of virtually free energy and zero marginal cost production, and to a desperate race against climate change.

Authors: Art Kleiner, Jeremy Rifkin, Juliette Powell | Source: strategy+business (Winter2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Environment | Sustainability, Excerpts, History, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

Today’s economic and political upheavals reflect an ongoing misalignment between business and economies (on the one hand) and acceptable societal outcomes (on the other). There is still time to adjust, if we are willing to reexamine some long-held assumptions.

Authors: Blair Sheppard, Colm Kelly | Source: strategy+business (Autumn2017) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Economics | Economy, Excerpts, History, International, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy

As Barack Obama’s time in office drew to a close, I started seeing articles on the man and his presidency. As the country transitioned from the first black president to what is most likely to be one of the most controversial presidencies in history, I decided to collect articles on each for future reference (see my collection of 2017 Trump articles).
Articles

1. In praise

… [ Read more ]

Subjects: History, Politics & Public Policy

It’s unappreciated that for much of history, growth in economic frontiers — what we would call development markets — was actually quite low. The era of modern economic growth got started only in 1870, with the simultaneous advent of the iron-hulled screw-propelled oceangoing steamship, the submarine telegraph cable, and the industrial research lab. It was then that the pace of growth kicked up a notch … [ Read more ]

Author: J. Bradford DeLong | Source: strategy+business (Winter2016) | Subjects: Economics | Economy, Excerpts, History

Theories of international relations
Of the large range of theories that have emerged on how states get along with each other, or not as the case may be, I will draw, in simplified terms, on two leading schools today: liberalism and structural realism.

1. Liberalism
   The basic notion in liberalism is that conflict tends to occur where states have diverging interests. Where these interests are non-trivial, sometimes such

… [ Read more ]

Author: Michael A. Witt | Source: Insead Knowledge (January 2, 2017) | Subjects: Excerpts, Foreign Policy, History, International, Military | War | Peace, Politics & Public Policy, Sociology | Anthropology

The founders envisioned electors as people who could prevent an irresponsible demagogue from taking office.

Author: Peter Beinart | Source: The Atlantic (November 21, 2016) | Subjects: Excerpts, History, Politics & Public Policy, Trump

Here is a small treasury of excerpts from some of the addresses Theodore Roosevelt gave during his lifetime. When you look at anthologies of all his speeches, you find that the themes he hits in these selections were the ones he offered, with only slight alterations, over and over and over again, in every town and city he visited on country-crossing whistle stop tours. You’ll … [ Read more ]

Authors: Brett McKay, Kate McKay, Theodore Roosevelt | Source: The Art of Manliness (November 7, 2016) | Subjects: America, Articles & Links, Excerpts, History, Life & Society, Politics & Public Policy