political history

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  3/21/2020
  

  The Lessons of the Elections of 1918

  A nation ravaged by the Spanish flu figured out how to vote back then. Not without incident, but with democracy intact.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/19/2020
  

  Civic Republicanism: Good for the Jews

  The ancient roots of communal liberty.

• 
• SOURCE: Harvard Business Review
  3/16/2020
  

  What Democracy’s History Tells Us About Its Future

  In an email exchange hosted by the Harvard Business Review, Professor of Business Rebecca Henderson and Professor of History Jill Lepore discussed capitalism’s role in an increasingly populist world.

• 
• 3/15/2020
  

  Do We Want the Progressive Sanders or the Pragmatist Biden?

  by Walter G. Moss

  Because his pragmatic style matches more the American tradition, Biden has a better chance of unifying our nation and delivering positive long-range results.

• 
• SOURCE: Politico
  3/9/2020
  

  How Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus Compares to Past Crises

  Historians Julian Zelizer and Douglas Brinkley evaluate President Trump's decision to use the coronavirus for political ends.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/3/2020
  

  Bernie Sanders is the Left's Ronald Reagan

  by Sam Tanenhaus

  Bernie Sanders remade his party with a youth movement he built from the outside. Just like the Gipper did.

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  2/26/20
  

  Could Never Bernie Make It a Contested Convention? Here's 4 Contested Conventions in Presidential Election History

  Having a single candidate by the time of a party's convention has been a key stepping stone for victory. But it hasn't always worked out that way.

• 
• SOURCE: Journal of the Civil War Era
  2/21/20
  

  How to Build a Winning Coalition: What Today's Democrats Can Learn from Pennsylvania's Republicans in 1860

  by Daniel W. Crofts

  The Republican Party’s rise to power between 1854 and 1860 contains lessons that remain pertinent.

• 
• 2/23/20
  

  Is Bernie the New George McGovern?

  by Michel A. Genovese

  One can see close parallels between the 1972 presidential contest and that of 2020. Those parallels do not bode well for Bernie Sanders or the Democrats. 

• 
• 2/23/20
  

  Deep Division: Comparing Today and the 1960s

  by Donne Levy

  America is a deeply divided nation. That fact may be the only thing that Americans of all racial, ethnic, and political groups can agree about.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/18/20
  

  Klobuchar’s hot dish and Warren’s heart-shaped cakes soothe our unfounded fear of women in office

  by Stacy J. Williams

  Female candidates are using their culinary skills to win elections.

• 
• 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: NY Times
  2/12/20
  

  Bernie Sanders Has Already Won

  by Michael Kazin

  Whether he captures the White House or not, he has transformed the Democratic Party.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/13/20
  

  Socialists were winning U.S. elections long before Bernie Sanders and AOC

  The “Pledge of Allegiance” was written by a Christian socialist in 1892. Eugene V. Debs ran for president on a socialist ticket five times; in 1912, he got nearly a million votes.

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/9/20
  

  Who’s Really Shredding Standards on Capitol Hill?

  by Joanne Freeman

  Naming the alleged whistle-blower is much worse than tearing up a speech.

• 
• SOURCE: PBS Newshour
  2/6/20
  

  3 historians on American political divisiveness — and how to heal it

  Judy Woodruff sits down with the University of New Hampshire’s Ellen Fitzpatrick, presidential historian Michael Beschloss and Carolyn Lukensmeyer of the National Institute for Civil Discourse to discuss.

• 
• 2/9/20
  

  The Unique Struggles of Women and Native Americans to Vote

  by Thom Hartmann

  And how efforts to surpress certain voters continue. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/4/20
  

  Torched sheds and ‘snap’ votes: The Iowa caucuses have been a hot mess for a century

  By the turn of the century, political leaders from opposing parties grew weary of the shenanigans and more or less began begging for ballot systems — not in tweet storms, but by writing letters to their local newspapers.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/2/20
  

  Losing Iowa doesn’t always spell disaster — just ask Bill Clinton or Donald Trump

  Over the years, several candidates who fell short in the Iowa caucuses went on to win their party’s nomination.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/28/20
  

  Why I Fear a Moderate Democratic Nominee

  by Ibram X. Kendi

  Some Democrats are afraid of nominating a progressive, but a moderate may be more likely to ensure Trump’s reelection.