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What Is the Value of a Scenic View?

What is the value of a view? I was reminded of this question in a recent article in The New York Times entitled “Regulate the Skyline? What’s Your View? (Michael Kimmelman, October 26, 2023). Note the play on words in asking for view/opinion and asking for your view/what can you see. The subtitle is “It’s […]

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Blind Side, Remember the Titans, Hidden Figures: Hollywood Truth

Blind Side has been in the news lately. Blind Side is the story of Michael Oher, a left tackle in football. The term “left tackle” comes from the offensive linemen who protect the quarterback. Most quarterbacks are righty so when they turn to throw, their back is to the left side of the field. Hence […]

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Where Is the African Connection for African Americans?: I Have an American Dream

“What Black intellectuals said over a century ago [about capitalizing Negro] remains true today—semantics will not “solve the race problem.” (Elise Mitchell, “Black and African American,” Journal of the Early Republic 43 2023:85) With this post, I continue my investigation into the demise of the term “Negro” and the origin of the term “African American.” […]

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Education in New York Summit: Where Were Local and State History?

On August 17, City & State held a New York State education summit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan. The opening keynote was delivered by Dr. Betty A. Rosa, Commissioner of Education & President of the University of the State of New York. The presenters on various panels included among others: John […]

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American Revolution 250th: What’s Going On?

What is going on in the world of the American Revolution 250th? What follows is by no means a comprehensive report. It is a review of items that happen to cross my email by being a member of various lists. I present them in terms of scope starting at the national level NATIONAL Hi Peter, […]

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Barbados, American Slavery and Racism

Barbados was the feature of a seven-page article in the July 24, 2023, issue of Time Magazine (print). That is a fairly substantial article for the mostly weekly magazine. The subject of the article as the subtitle stated was “How the tiny island of Barbados became a leader in the global push for reparations.” True […]

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Trying to Keep Up with Indian Scholarship: The Comanche Empire

Back in December, 2022, I wrote a blog about scholarship related to the Comanche Empire. It had crossed over from the academic arena to the public one due to press coverage back in September 2022 in The New York Times (Peoples of Agency or Victim-hood?: Africans and Indians December 13, 2022). The reason for the […]

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Indigenous Swedes: Lessons for American Culture Wars

What can Americans learn from indigenous Swedes? In the recent issue of American Historical Review (127:4, 2022), there was an article entitled “Atlantis Restored: Natural Knowledge and Political Economy in Early Modern Sweden” by Carl Wennerlind. Although the article is, in fact, about early modern Sweden, there are lessons to be learned from it for […]

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New York State History Advocacy: The American Revolution 250th

Add the American Revolution 250th to the list of advocacy items in the event the New York History Community ever advocates.  This is in addition to the previous topics recently raised about The State Historian The State Museum State-owned historic sites. Now we turn to a national issue, the American Revolution 250th addressed in two […]

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Education and the American Revolution 250th

In this blog, I wish to continue the discussion on the current situation regarding the American Revolution 250th by switching to education. 1. What can be taught in the k-12 classroom? 2. How can the national history organizations help? I begin by carrying on from the previous blog with its focus on Virginia and the […]

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