polarization

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  1/19/2021
  

  Why It’s Time to Take Secessionist Talk Seriously

  by Richard Kreitner

  "The Confederate flags the insurgents carried through the Capitol weren’t about the past, but the future." (note: Subscription required to read source article.)

• 
• SOURCE: Keeping Democracy Alive
  1/19/2021
  

  One Nation, Indivisible: Really? Forever?

  Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up" joins Burt Cohen's podcast to discuss the history and future of calls to break up the United States.

• 
• 12/20/2020
  

  Can Biden Broaden Our American Dream?

  by Walter G. Moss

  Can a program of national service create pathways to individual opportunity while also building the social cohesion America needs to recover? 

• 
• SOURCE: Politico
  12/16/2020
  

  How Secession Became America’s Favorite Idle Threat

  With one notable exception, secession has been an idle threat in American political discourse. Richard Kreitner's book on secession movements anchors columnist Jack Shafer's analysis.

• 
• 12/13/2020
  

  Review of Robert Putnam’s "The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again"

  by Walter G. Moss

  Robert Putnam's book on the "Great Divergence" toward economic inequality, political polarization and social fragmentation contains ample historical generalization, but asks big questions that it will be worth historians' time to engage. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/16/2020
  

  Just Forget About Donald Trump

  by Peter Wehner

  It may be difficult for many Americans to let go of deep anger at Donald Trump and the political movement he represents, but it will be necessary. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/11/2020
  

  A Battle Between the Two Souls of America

  by Ibram X. Kendi

  We the people of the United States do not have a single national soul, but rather two souls, warring with each other. The battle for the soul of America is actually the battle between the souls of America.

• 
• 10/18/2020
  

  Lessons from the 18th Century Dutch Republic

  by Matthijs Tieleman

  The history of the Dutch Republic demonstrates that polarization can gradually destroy a country from within and can easily be exploited by foreign actors. The embrace of political pluralism by every citizen is the key antidote to the rot of polarization.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2020
  

  Are We More Divided Now Than Ever Before? (Review)

  A political scientist argues that today's polarization is enabled by the collapse of political diversity within the major parties, not by an especially ideological electorate.

• 
• 9/6/2020
  

  Americans Have Feared Another Civil War Since the End of the Last One

  by Richard Kreitner

  The ink was hardly dry on Lee's surrender at Appomattox before Andrew Johnson's conciliation toward the former Confederacy clashed with the unfulfilled goals of freed slaves and radical Republicans to threaten further violence. These fault lines have been hidden but never healed in the restored American union.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  5/4/2020
  

  Kent State: 50 Years After the Shootings

  by Thomas M. Grace

  Myth has obscured the conflict that led to the killings at Kent State: a long-building clash between a broad set of youth-led protest movements and established authority. That clash continued after May 4, 1970.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/4/2020
  

  Four Students Were Killed in Ohio. America Was Never the Same.

  by Richard M. Perloff

  Fifty years after May 4, public expression of unpopular views remains endemic to democracy. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/14/20
  

  Think the US is more polarized than ever? You don’t know history

  by Gary W. Gallagher

  To compare anything that has transpired in the past few years to this cataclysmic upheaval represents a spectacular lack of understanding about American history.

• 
• SOURCE: Facebook
  6-4-18
  

  How business broke the post-war consensus and gave us Movement Conservatism

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  Coming out of the Depression and World War II, there was not a lot of daylight in America between conservatives and liberals.

• 
• SOURCE: The Washington Post
  3-28-18 (accessed)
  

  Niall Ferguson says we should be alarmed by the polarization associated with social media

  In a fascinating interview he sees dangerous parallels between the birth of the printing press and the establishment off social media.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Review of Books
  3-6-18
  

  Today’s Eerie Echoes of the Civil War

  by Manisha Sinha

  We would do well to pay heed to the old enmities bubbling up in our politics: it is not that we are on the verge of another civil war, but that the Civil War never truly ended.

• 
• 3/4/18
  

  Worried About Political Partisanship?

  by Gordon S. Wood

  Adams and Jefferson showed that even the harshest partisans can enjoy a warm friendship. (It helped that they had a common enemy.)

• 
• SOURCE: WSJ
  2-2-18
  

  Gordon Wood, the noted historian of early America, says Adams’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Republicans were far more divided than today’s political parties

  What was striking about the 1790s, Mr. Wood emphasizes, is the extent to which each party sincerely believed the other posed an existential threat.

• 
• SOURCE: Harvard Gazette
  1/29/18
  

  Social scientists' review history and conclude US polarization is a flashing light danger to democracy

  "One factor that underlies most of these breakdowns is extreme polarization."

• 
• 10-22-17
  

  No One Should Be Surprised We’re so Polarized

  by Richard Archer

  We have a history of being divided.