Sitemap - 2024 - A User's Guide to History

Ballad of the Presidents: Van Buren to Tyler

25 for 25. Reagan and Gorbachev at Reykjavik (1986)

Ballad of the Presidents: Jackson

Five ways bots beat people

25 for 25: Watergate (1972)

Ballad of the Presidents: Monroe and Quincy Adams

Ballad of the Presidents: Madison

Warriors and priests

When do your delusions become my problem?

25 for 25. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act (1964)

Ballad of the Presidents: Jefferson

Liberalism and its discontents

Ballad of the Presidents: Adams

Ballad of the Presidents: Washington

25 for 25. Interstate Highway Act (1956)

In praise of partisanship

Is carbon the new slavery?

Petroleum Nasby to Taylor Swift

25 for 25. Jackie Robinson takes the field (1947)

25 for 25. Social Security (1935)

House, A.I.

Like Ike?

25 for 25. The Jazz Singer (1927)

Dutch disease

Samuel Slater and the purloined IP

How long is forever?

The missing Mississippians

One more question

From Lenin to Trump?

25 for 25. Wilson’s stroke (1919)

The wrong road to rights

From 1850 to 2025

25 for 25. Model T (1908)

25 for 25. How the Other Half Lives (1895)

The secret life of alliances

25 for 25. Geronimo surrenders (1886)

The day Truman was shot (at)

25 for 25. Standard Oil Company (1870)

The most powerful president ever

When Ford pardoned Nixon . . .

25 for 25. Sherman takes Atlanta (1864)

25 for 25. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

25 for 25. Morse’s telegraph (1844)

A social contract for nations?

25 for 25. Jackson pays off the debt (1835)

The hardest words

25 for 25. Webster’s dictionary (1828)

Can we handle the truth?

As others see us

25 for 25. Erie Canal (1817)

Charming Betsey and the clutches of Uncle Sam

25 for 25. Cotton gin (1793)

Peacocks and pols

Henry Clay learned a lesson. Can we?

25 for 25. Louisiana Purchase (1803)

Paradise lost

25 for 25. Shays’ Rebellion (1786-87)

25 for 25: Snapshots from a quarter-millennium

The next 250: Cultural clout

Love it or leave it

The next 250: America’s wars

Perilous promises

Catalog of clever ideas: Walls

10th law: It’s not about you

9th law: You can’t fix the past

The next 250: How big can government get?

Information, knowledge, wisdom

There are no heroes (only people who sometimes do heroic things)

The next 250

Theology’s loss, philosophy’s gain

Catalog of clever ideas: Insurance

Axioms of choice

Odd hominem

Old glory

A master class in command

Even monsters sleep well

Thinking the unthinkable

Knock knock

The Constitution isn't broken

Does democracy scale?

Wanted: A system that runs by itself

Immigrants' kids in the White House

Pay now or pay later

The most important thing about America

The overhead of life

Don't throw me in the briar patch!

From Achilles to the Donald

Never a good war or a bad peace

Identities and elections

Biden at the pearly gates

When Clemens set the Sierra alight

The promise (?) of the warbots

Thinking and language

American exceptionalism

Taking the 25th

Rules and rules

Less is more . . .

From Plessy to Trump

How many two-term presidents should have settled for one?

Pity the passenger pigeon

Out of their league

Where's TJ when we need him?

Our first post-democratic president?

A republic, not an empire

Use it and lose it

The wounds that never heal

No digitization without representation

The canyons of Wall Street

J. P. Morgan, plumber

What’s a prez to do? Biden and Ukraine

Bug or feature? Death

Bug or feature? War

Pax on your houses

What's a prez to do? Trump and the 2020 election

Cursive! Foiled again

What's that, Siri?

What’s a prez to do? Obamacare

The first post-racial president

If you were czar . . .

What’s a prez to do? The wars of George W. Bush

What’s a prez to do? Clinton and Monica Lewinsky

What Eleanor might have said

What's a prez to do? Bush and the budget

What’s a prez to do? Reagan and PATCO

Foreign wars and domestic disturbances

The climate problem

Win some, lose some

Countdown to the most popular prez: Washington

AI and free will

Countdown to the most popular prez: FDR

I am not a bot

Countdown to the most popular prez

Why parties? Because they work

Countdown to the most popular prez

Presidential countdown

Facts and opinions

When presidents were popular

What's a prez to do? Carter and the shah

Forgive us our debts

Big question: Why did legal slavery end in the 19th century?

What's a prez to do? Ford and the pardon

Religions and republics

What’s a prez to do? Nixon and detente

A perfect storm

From 1860 to 2024

What’s a prez to do? Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam

Should we re-up?

The lottery effect

What's a prez to do? Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs

When the world met Washington

Gallery of great ideas: Trade

What’s a prez to do? Eisenhower lying in state

Alternative history

What's a prez to do?Truman and the bomb

Throwaway lines

What's a prez to do? FDR and the Holocaust

Liberty and equality

What's a prez to do? Hoover and the Bonus Army

Rules

What's a prez to do? Coolidge and the press

Man does not live by bread alone

What’s a prez to do? Harding and scandal

Occasional heresies: In praise of amnesia

Washington's secret

What's a prez to do? Wilson and segregation

When the populist tide ebbs

What's a prez to do? Taft and the third-party challenge

Cogito ergo non sum

What's a prez to do? TR and Panama

When wheat beat cotton

The last writer

What’s a prez to do? McKinley and empire

Stir . . . crazy?

What's a prez to do? Benjamin Harrison and tariffs

What's a prez to do? Cleveland and Texas farmers

No country for old men?

Washington finds his calling

Progressive originalism? Conservative pragmatism?

Diss at your peril

What's a prez to do? Arthur and the civil service

Time's arrow

A most fortunate defeat

What's a prez to do? Garfield and the doctors

Calling Bill Buckley

What's a prez to do? Hayes and the Compromise of 1877

The timeless language of the Constitution

Is America the greatest nation in history?

What's a prez to do? Grant and the Klan

Exit gracefully

What's a prez to do? Andrew Johnson in the shadow of Lincoln

Teaching and the telephone game

What's a prez to do? Lincoln and slavery

Taking the fun out of history

What’s a prez to do? Buchanan and secession

Bring back the bosses!

What's a prez to do? Pierce and Bleeding Kansas

Large islands, great powers

Improve the world

What's a prez to do? Fillmore and the Compromise of 1850

Seeking part-time heroes

What’s a prez to do? Taylor and third-partyism

Imperial shuffle

Oh the equity!

What's a prez to do? Polk and Mexico

Nevermore

What’s a prez to do? Tyler and the succession

Gone in a cloud of mist

Politics and history

What's a prez to do? Harrison and campaigning

Between the wobble and the grind