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30 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
James K. Polk
This is historical malpractice. Image
Ht @pashulman

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More from @arothmanhistory

Adam Rothman Profile picture
22 Sep
Thank you to Thaddeus Russell for having me and Barbara Fields on #Unregistered. Please watch. We discuss the Hannah Fizer case, racecraft, and history.
Here's the episode. If you've never heard Barbara Fields speak about racecraft before, you are in for a treat and an education. @ThaddeusRussell #Unregistered
As a reminder of what sparked this conversation, here's the essay that Barbara Fields and I wrote for @DissentMag dissentmagazine.org/online_article…
Read 4 tweets
Adam Rothman Profile picture
26 Aug
Teaching a grad class for @GUHistory on the US to 1900 this semester. Just had an invigorating first class, despite being on Zoom. Always fun to get to know a new group of students. Let's go!
Kicked off the semester with *Our Declaration* by @dsallentess. All historians should reflect seriously on this line from the book: "While history can serve to help us understand many things much better, it can also function as a barrier to entry."
Book #2 in my grad class on US to 1900 is Robert Parkinson's The Common Cause, which shows how fears of slave revolt, Indian war, and foreign mercenaries inspired the patriot rebellion against Britian. Great on revolutionary-era information networks. uncpress.org/book/978146962…
Read 15 tweets
Adam Rothman Profile picture
18 Aug
I was struck by this passage about historians' love of contingency in this essay by @jbf1755 in @TheAtlantic. I have something to say about this idea of contingency... theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Image
Historians often invoke contingency to imply that nothing is inevitable. Things could have gone one way or another. The concept goes hand-in-hand with agency, that all things are possible. Except that all things are not possible...
As Marx famously wrote in the 18th Brumaire, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please..." The historians' task is to explain why things happened as they did. That isn't our only task, but it is an important one...
Read 5 tweets
Adam Rothman Profile picture
8 Aug
RIP Bernard Bailyn, quite a historian. I would like to add one point about his contribution to the historiography of slavery...
In his landmark book, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, published in 1967, Bailyn recognized the centrality of the idea of slavery in Anglo-American political thought... Image
Moreover, slavery was more than an abstract metaphor. The Revolution put tremendous pressure on actually existing colonial slavery, he argued. Here's Bailyn's conclusion to this part of the book... Image
Read 4 tweets
Adam Rothman Profile picture
11 Jul
Nobody can seriously believe that the U.S. system of policing and punishment provides either the due process or the equal protection promised by the 14th Amendment. We are in serious perpetual violation of our own Constitution.
npr.org/2020/07/23/894…
Another flagrant instance of unconstitutional incarceration. theappeal.org/mississippi-te…
Read 5 tweets
Adam Rothman Profile picture
14 May
I would follow a New York Times Corrections twitter bot.
For example, today Image
Your NY Times correction for the day. Image
Read 4 tweets

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