The Syrian Crisis in Longer View

A review of Fragile Nation, Shattered Land

Reviewed by Spenser R. Rapone The future of the Syrian Arab Republic, still embroiled in a brutal civil war, is today a topic of raging debate in the Middle East and beyond. Taking the long view, James A. Reilly’s Fragile Nation, Shattered Land: The Modern History of Syria recounts the origins ...
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So You Are Finishing Your United States History Syllabus

Public Seminar is here to give you a hand

The United States historians at Public Seminar know what our high school and university colleagues are doing right now: finishing syllabi for the fall. We know the feeling of needing just the right piece – something that will spark discussion, show students what good historical writing looks like, and give ...
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So You Are Finishing Your United States History Syllabus

Irony and Historical Detachment

Analysis/discussion of pastiche in social media

This second interpretation is what I want to focus on. I want to show that instead of being a form of humor the graffiti in this image is representative of a strain of urbane, ironic detachment that has become pervasive in Anglophone cultures over the past decades. I want to ...
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Irony and Historical Detachment

Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson, and America’s Fate

A response to Keval Bhatt

In a stirring, passionate, and bracingly clear recent contribution to the ongoing Charlottesville thread in our “Power and Crisis” vertical, University of Virginia student Keval Bhatt accounts for his decision to join others in shrouding the famous, indeed iconic, statue of Thomas Jefferson on the grounds of the University. I ...
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How Not to Remember 9/11

There are two memorials for 9/11 at the site of the World Trade Center ("Ground Zero"). The first, the Memorial proper, is a park of around eight acres, consisting of paved space, rows of trees (swamp oaks) and grass, and concrete benches. Within this space are two large square pits ...

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Marx and Nature

"What Engels called “the monopolization of the earth by a few” has reached absurdist proportions as I was writing this. (60) It would appear that the 1% now own more than half the wealth of the planet. It is the greatest concentration of wealth ever, and yet it corresponds to ...
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Marx and Nature