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The Roundup Top Ten for October 15, 2021

The Lies of TV's Abortion Storylines

by Tanya Melendez

"Looking back on how abortion came into our living rooms starting in the 1960s and persisted into our audience-fragmented streaming era can teach us how these stories taught, shaped, and contributed to today’s public discourse about abortion."

Canada is Going through its Own History Wars

by Ian Rocksborough-Smith

"To what degree will well-established professional historians and scholars respond and engage with younger generations of activists, intellectuals and cultural workers adamant about centring the experiences of marginalized people?"

The US is Politically Bankrupt

by Rebecca L. Spang

By provoking crisis over the debt ceiling, Republicans are failing to heed lessons from pre-revolutionary France. 

Built on the Bodies of Slaves: How Africa Was Erased from the History of the Modern World

by Howard W. French

Popular understandings of history have generally ignored the significance of Africa and Africans in the establishment of the interconnected world and modernity. 

Columbus Day was a Battle in the 90's History Wars, Too

by Cynthia C. Prescott

"The History Wars of the 1990s can show us that compromise and accommodation can temporarily defuse controversy — but tempt us to postpone the harder work of seeking justice and truth."

Reframing Abortion as a Public Good

by Judith Levine

"States have a compelling interest—a profound obligation—to defend the right to abortion. Abortion is a public good. Why haven’t we linked abortion to the commonweal?"

Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa

by Abraham Tapiwa Seda

Jack Johnson's achievement as the world heavyweight champion had cultural significance far beyond the United States, as European colonial regimes that had used sports like boxing as instruments of social control found that they could also be instruments of rebellion and rejection of white supremacy.

"The Chair" Creator: How to Fight Adjunctification

by Annie Julia Wyman

"The academic job market had collapsed -- indeed, it has been collapsing for more than a decade. Even L.A., where people famously go to get their dreams stomped on, seemed like a better bet."

The Electoral Count Act is Broken; History Shows it Always Has Been

by Erik B. Alexander and Rachel Shelden

Much of what we know about the Congressional resolution of the 1876 presidential election is wrong. Rather than a behind-the-scenes compromise, the election was decided in a context of severe vote suppression and partisanship.

Never Mind Donor Influence. The Problem with "Grand Strategy" was Always Warmongering

by Aaron G. Jakes

"Invoking the transformative power of “big ideas” became a way of dismissing those who had devoted their lives to learning and teaching about the places the United States had, once again, decided to bomb and invade."