My summer with Gibbon

The year 1776 was an eventful one. The August issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine duly carried a curious document from across the ocean called “The Declaration of American Independence”, before proceeding to a more serious matter: a review of a …

Nixon vs. McGovern 2.0

Any number of pundits and social commentators are looking at the current presidential election matchup between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in terms of its historical, societal, or political ramifications. They’ve come up with several hypotheses, some of which are …

The man who defended Orientalism

“As a young man visiting a Sufi shrine in Algeria,” remarks the writer Robert Irwin parenthetically in an otherwise scholarly essay on medieval Arabic literature, “I once encountered a jinni in the form of a cat.” No further elaboration is …

What Happened to American Civics?

Man in tricorn hat at Bicentennial celebration, July 1975; Diana Mara Henry, https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/muph051-s01a-i00035

My son’s school assigned a civics project for summer vacation. The project’s scope is expansive and spans from explaining the history and functions of the three branches …