On this week’s episode of The 252, Chris, Sam, and I kept talking about the Olympics: analyzing an assignment that had students draft a “fantasy team” of nations competing in the Olympics (and what medal counts do and don’t signify about countries); considering what effect the 2008 Olympics had on Chinese politics; and predicting what the … More Thursday’s Podcast: Fantasy Olympics
Seventy-five years ago today, Japanese forces attacked the American military base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leading to U.S. involvement in World War II. That evening Pres. Franklin Roosevelt issued an emergency proclamation authorizing the arrest of “Alien enemies deemed dangerous to the public peace or safety of the United States.” Within three months, FDR had authorized the War Department … More When a Christian College Sheltered Japanese Americans During WWII
Here… • My colleague, friend, and mentor G.W. Carlson passed away on Friday morning. I expect that I’ll have more to say next week, but until then, here’s the tribute I wrote on the occasion of his retirement. • The behavior of the president of Mount St. Mary’s, a small Catholic university, got me to sign a … More That Was The Week That Was
One reason I haven’t been writing quite as much as usual here at the blog is that I’ve spent the first month of the semester putting the finishing touches on Bethel at War, 1914-2014, a digital history project that I’ve been working on since last summer with Fletcher Warren. It started as part of a special student-faculty research … More A Sneak Preview of Our Digital History Project: Nisei at Bethel
Here… • After debuting the new look of this website, the first post in the new format was one I’d been researching all summer: how to teach history to five-year olds! • I’d still welcome nominations for the best history-related podcasts. • Not mine, of course: it’s more about religion and education than history. And anyway, it … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • As if I needed any more proof that I’m Minnesotan: I’m still blushing from the superlatives lavished on our Pietism/higher ed book by its endorsers. Thanks, Amos, Jake, John, John, Rhonda, and Shirley! • GW Carlson on Glen Stassen: “Stassen’s calm but passionate presentations suggested that we need to take seriously the Sermon on the … More That Was The Week That Was
I wish I could say that I was clever enough to have planned yesterday’s post on the beginning of the Second World War in Asia to be published on the 68th anniversary of the Japanese surrender that ended that conflict, but… Total coincidence. But I was reminded of the significance of August 15 in the … More China and Japan 68 Years after WWII
On my recent vacation spent driving from small Minnesota town to slightly smaller Minnesota town looking at war and veterans memorials, I listened to The War, Geoffrey Ward’s book based on Ken Burns’ PBS miniseries of the same title. I’d picked it simply because it was one of the few WWII histories available as a … More The Second World War Before Pearl Harbor: China, 1937
