It’s late November, which means that newspapers and periodicals are starting to put out their “Best of 2012” lists. Here are the works of scholarly and popular history (and some historical fiction) that have shown up on “Best Books” lists produced by Publishers Weekly (PW), The Washington Post (WP), and Britain’s The Guardian. For each, … More The Best History (and Religion) Books of 2012?
I don’t have all that many memories of the former senator and presidential candidate — I was only five when he was voted out of the Senate in 1980, after three terms representing South Dakota — but as a historian I know enough to find interesting what’s being remembered, and what’s being forgotten, as journalists … More Remembering (and Forgetting) George McGovern
Okay, one more Olympic post… Last fall I spent a couple of weeks attempting (with a big assist from my HIS354 Modern Europe students, and with tongue mostly in cheek) to determine the “best national anthem” — pointing out at least once or twice along the way that there’s really no objective way to determine … More The Best National Anthems: Special Olympic Edition
I try not to post too many posts defending the beleaguered liberal arts from assorted barbarians at their gates. I’m pretty sure my feelings on that model of education are well known, or could be predicted if you just knew my occupation, and the value of the liberal arts seems self-evident to me. But two … More The Liberal Arts: From Minnesota to China
Okay, my last word clouds for 2011 — I promise! It’s probably obvious that the first has to do with Kim Jong-il and the second with Vaclav Havel. While the North Korean dictator was reported to have died on Saturday and the Czech playwright-president passed away on Sunday, their obituaries happened to appear side by … More Kim and Havel
Having disposed of nine nominees on Wednesday and Thursday for the coveted title of World’s Best National Anthem, let’s jump right into the six finalists. Again, the initial rankings were based on a semi-serious but mostly objective calculation weighing three factors: how long the song has endured as official anthem; how singable the anthem is, … More The Best National Anthems: Japan
September 19, 1945 – “Lord Haw Haw” is sentenced to death One of the courses I teach at Bethel University is the capstone of our major program, Senior Seminar, in which students spend the spring semester conducting original research on a topic of their choosing, produce an article-length paper, and close the year by giving … More This Week in History
A couple of years ago I was asked to give three talks as part of our church’s mid-spring “family camp,” at Covenant Pines in northern Minnesota. There weren’t many stipulations, not even a suggested topic, but I was encouraged to be “inspiring.” Now, as a trained scholar who studies some pretty awful episodes in human … More Clouds of Witnesses: Introduction
The Pietist Schoolman 