I just cast my ballot, but I’ve got to admit: I’ve rarely been so unenthusiastic going into the booth. I’m normally the kind of citizen who is giddy on Election Day — shucks, I even show up for primary elections when all that’s at stake is a city council seat — but this year I … More Grateful to Vote
150 years ago today, the courts-martial of over 300 Dakota warriors came to an end with convictions for murder and rape. While Pres. Abraham Lincoln commuted most of the sentences, the day after Christmas 1862, thirty-eight were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota. In commemoration, here’s a post on the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 that I originally … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: “All have sinned”
Ten years ago today, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, and five others died when their small plane crashed en route to Eveleth, MN. Running for a third term in the Senate, Wellstone was scheduled to debate Republican challenger Norm Coleman later that night. It was less than two weeks before … More Paul Wellstone: The Conscience of a Liberal (G.W. Carlson)
I may play the role, but I’m not a historian of Christianity, or any other religion. I edit books, write articles, give papers, and blog about Pietism, and I teach courses on Christianity and Western Culture and The Reformations, but my graduate education was overseen by this guy and this guy; I somehow never took … More Matthew Bowman’s The Mormon People
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
Fifty years ago this morning, American national security adviser McGeorge Bundy showed President John F. Kennedy photographs taken by U-2 spy planes that had flown over Cuba two days earlier. CIA analysts concluded that the photos revealed that the Soviet Union had succeeded in deploying medium-range ballistic missiles to bases within mere minutes’ flight of … More The Cuban Missile Crisis, 50 Years Later
Here • This is a blog that seeks to explore “Christianity, history, education, and how they intersect.” So naturally the most popular post of the week had to do with thinking through how Americans in a not-too-distant might replace pro football. (Thanks again to my friends and colleagues Sam Mulberry and Chris Moore for doing … More That Was The Week That Was
In the shadow of the Mall of America and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport stand two very different kinds of memorials to Minnesotans’ participation in the two world wars and other conflicts: one the product of design, the other the victim of neglect. First, Fort Snelling National Cemetery, the final resting place of over 180,000 men … More Commemorating WWI in Minnesota: Fort Snelling
Here • If I had realized that it was going to be my 500th post at The Pietist Schoolman, I would have come up with a better title than “Crowdsourcing and the Practice of History.” • Two posts on college rankings: one comparing the systems used by Washington Monthly and U.S. News magazine; the second … More That Was The Week That Was
This semester I’m directing an independent study on the theory and practice of public history by a student who’s interested in pursuing graduate study in that increasingly popular field. In our weekly conversation on Wednesday, we talked about his initial impressions of how public historians have tried to define what it is that they do. … More Crowdsourcing and the Practice of History
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