Interview with a Renegade Historian

Jesse Walker has an informative piece about one of my favorite historians, Thaddeus Russell, author of the must-read A Renegade History of the United States. I am honored to say that Thad was also my tag-team partner in an ill-fated effort to build a coalition with the left in Historians Against the War (HAW).

Our efforts only met with humorless irritation from the, otherwise lethargic, leadership of HAW. While the whole interview is well worth your time, here are Russell's comments about the experience HAW:

Libertarian historian] David Beito somehow found out about me and asked me to participate in this Historians Against the War organization. He had basically taken over their blog; no one else was interested in doing it. He was putting libertarian stuff on the blog, and they weren’t happy about it, but there was so little energy in that organization that they couldn’t bother one way or another. Then I came along and we really went after Obama hard, especially over what I would call his imperialist foreign policy prescriptions.

We also then were chastising the organization for not criticizing him. Even after Obama was elected, even after the inauguration, all they would do is put anti-Bush stuff on the front of the website, and it just drove us crazy. For months we kept saying, “Would you please now talk about the guy who’s in office?” Finally they expelled us.