Blog Archives

The Big (ger) Picture

9/24/2021

So, my longtime history buddy, Trevor Getz has commented on this morning's posting. I'm using this reposting to encourage folks to comment on my postings and take a look at others' comments (click on the comments link below each posting).

Trev and I have sparred over the years about the role of Europe in the modern world and I'm glad we're continuing to do so. He is correct in pointing out the perils of summarizing 500 years of history in 500 words. I also confess to being a Europeanist, which means it's easy for me to fall into the trap of thinking that "it's all about Europe." I agree with him that:

Europe didn't exist in a vacuum and its culture has always incorporated contributions (both material and ideological) from other parts of the world. So, it can be misleading to summarily refer to "European" culture.
We need to be extremely wary of inferring European moral superiority or 'pride of historical place' from the vast power Europeans applied to the modern world, especially since much of that history demonstrates European brutality, exploitation, and disregard for other peoples.

I've noted elsewhere that the 19/20C might well be anomalous in terms of 'Western" preeminence when taking a broader historical view. Still, from our spot here in the early 21C, the "West" has had the greatest effect on creating the modern world.

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The Big Picture

9/24/2021

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When I teach “big picture” survey courses, such as “Modern Western Civ” or “World History since 1500,” I sometimes ask students in their final exam to choose (and defend their choice as to) the biggest events or developments from the period under study. But I want them to do it from a perspective different than the usual: “A caused B” model and to take themselves out of their usual early 21C mentality. So I ask them: “How would a Historian in the year 2500 talk about the period from 1500-2000?” Given their relatively limited exposure to history, their choices are generally not so surprising: the French Revolution, 20C World Wars, the Enlightenment, European Imperialism. Of course, I’m much more interested in how they prioritize their choice and articulate their rationale than the specifics of their choice itself.

Occasionally, I will get an original thinker who goes beyond the usual list and tries to reframe how they look at our modern history. It is particularly difficult to look back at the not-so-distant past and try to characterize the period rather than list an event or development, in other words, to interpret the significance of the period. It gets more clear the further away in time one goes. It seems easier to characterize the agricultural revolution than the industrial revolution, the Persian or Roman Empires than the British or American versions.

So, here goes… (in less than 500 words):

Our modern world (the last 500 years or so) can be seen as a period of accelerating change, a marked contrast to the relatively incremental change that marked human societies up to that point. The world of 1900 was radically more different from 1400 than 1400 was from a thousand years earlier. The acquisition and consumption of food was no longer the dominant human activity. Knowledge/information (and therefore, of power) became much more widely dispersed within societies.

Much of this was driven by the Christian “West,” initially northwestern Europe, later spreading to other parts of Europe, the US, Japan, and former British colonies in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Its rapid development, both epistemological and material, was due to geography and culture. With the power created by these advantages, the West came to dominate and exploit both the natural world/environment/resources and other cultures which lacked its unique combination. Enlightenment-spurred analytics and categorization provided a framework for othering built on skin tones and cultural differences as a rationalization for claims of superiority of and targeted exceptions from Western “morality.” The West was not unique in the ability of its power elite to self-justify (as evidenced by the universal treatment of women), but was unique in the extent of the military and economic power it marshalled to coerce and cajole others.

The remarkable pace of change of technology and material life, accelerating over the past 250 years, has disguised the relatively slower adaptations of “human nature” and social relations. Increased education and consciousness of individuals and societies (stemming from Gutenberg’s printing press and Luther’s declaration of a direct line from individuals to God) enabled the distribution of political power and economic power (in overlapping but distinct tracks) to the mass of people as compared with very tiny elites. This shift towards democracy and equality were still very much in process by the 21C and were contested both by ideologies of domination and faith and local contingencies, personalities, and social inertia. This is as true for the production and consumption of “stuff” (e.g., food, clothes, entertainment) as it is for the political process.
Indeed, one of the basic challenges in characterizing the “modern” world is that, unlike its predecessor, it was still very much “in process,” incomplete, and uncertain in future direction. As the Sci-Fi author William Gibson said in 2003: “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” The components of modernity—rationality, organization, technology, urbanization, globalization, capitalism, states, democracy, change—were each at different stages of development in different cultures and always have been. Moreover, while I am talking about a generic Western modernity, it is certainly defensible to recognize that the different mix of these components makes for a multiplicity of modernities; the version experienced by well-off American elites was just one way to see the world.

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It’s important to have a sense of historical perspective when thinking about all this. For us, in 2021, COVID looms hugely, but no more so than the “Spanish” Flu a hundred years ago or the Black Death in the 14C. But take our point of view, for example, in 2018; no one (other than a few historians) would have put either of these on their list of world historical events. Now, three years later, we pay much more attention to them. So, we can’t assume that what takes up bandwidth on Twitter or the NYTimes will actually make the cut. The mess in Afghanistan is a great example; a hundred years from now, it is unlikely to have any more prominence than the British misadventures there in the 19C.
Our world is also characterized by complexity. This is a product of both phenomena and how we understand those phenomena. We have global supply chains, multi-layered bureaucracies (both governmental and private), and wider networks of human connections. We also think about these things in multifarious ways—economic, social, political—to take a few big categories. The critical thinking and analytic mode gives us the ability to reframe issues and events in lots of ways. “Post-modernists” emphasize that this multiplicity means there isn’t any one “truth,” that it’s all just a bunch of competing narratives (usually driven by power and fear). Their point is well taken, so long as we don’t stop trying to make sense of things, throw up our hands and act as if none of it matters. It might not, but on this point (as so many others) we can’t be sure; it’s our own version of Pascal’s wager.
In any event, this is a useful exercise. It also works at a smaller scale (either geographically or chronologically). You might even try it at home, with your own life, divided into decades. If you are in your ‘60s, how would you characterize your ‘30s?

At whatever level, it’s good to look at both forests and trees.

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A Few Good History Books

9/17/2021

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People sometimes ask me for book recommendations. As a card-carrying History nerd, I have read a lot, but I wouldn’t inflict many of them on an unwary public. A lot of “professional” History books are reworked doctoral dissertations—highly focused and deeply embedded in the discipline’s debates on how to think about history, with much less attention to “what actually happened.” They are useful, but only for a particular purpose. Many others a grand synthetic surveys; again, useful for a (different) particular purpose. Many are oh-so-eager to demonstrate their erudition, often at the expense of clarity. Of course, there are a lot of fine books out there, but most are aimed at folks (like me) who start every new book by looking at the bibliography.

On the other side, there is a lot of “popular” History: lots of biographies, frequent superficiality, much that is “half-baked,” and, sometimes, just plain wrong.

So, here is a list of ten books that I really like (in alphabetical order). As a modern Europeanist, with some interests in world history and a bent towards political stuff, my working collection draws from a small sample of what’s listed in the History section of any University Library. (I only have about a dozen books on the French Revolution out of several thousand that have been written.) I don’t have much US history, for example, and relatively little covering the period before 1500. I have tried to avoid the overly hefty tomes (although I was tempted by E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (a classic weighing in at 800+ pages)). Some items on the list are books I have used in my classes, some are “popular,” but each is well-written and has something interesting to say (sometimes revelatory) to the kinds of people who are likely to be reading my blog.

1491, Charles Mann (2005): What was going on in the Western Hemisphere before Columbus and the rest of the Europeans showed up? Actually, quite a bit more than you might think. A mix of science, history, current affairs, and anthropology written is a lively way (Mann is a journalist), with things that will make you rethink how our part of the world came to be how it is. His sequel, 1493, continues the story of the impact of Europeans and is also quite good.

Against the Grain, James Scott (2017): A stunning rethink of how “civilization” arose, with a particular focus on the Fertile Crescent. What was the relationship between agriculture, society, and the State? How have the fundamental structures of human existence survived and morphed over the past 8,000 years. Scott melds new discoveries and a willingness to push the interpretative “envelope.”

Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings, Amy Kelly (1957): Gender, politics, and society in medieval France and England. Beautifully written, this is more than a biography of a remarkable woman and her families.

The Great Cat Massacre, Robert Darnton (1984): A collection of studies of French culture (mostly 17/18C) that combines great stories and with historical analysis. Darnton, shows how Historians should work to extract insight from particular pieces of historical evidence and gives us a real sense of how peoples’ minds were changing as modernity was being developed.

The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman (1962): Of the dozens of books on the origins of WWI that I have read, this is still the most engaging, bringing the events of the summer of 1914 alive. It’s hardly the whole story, but if politico-military history can be a “fun read,” this is it.

Mosquito Empires, John McNeill (2010): Did bugs turn the tide of the American Revolution? You’ll have to rethink the relationship between the geographic/biologic/natural environment and traditional politico-military history with this remarkable study of war and malaria in the Western Hemisphere in the 16-19Cs.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Paul Kennedy (1987): Long before this hour of apparent American global decline, Kennedy showed how we fit a pattern over the past 500 years. Spain, France, Britain, and Germany have gone before us. Any success of imperialism is, at best, temporary.

Sapiens, Yuval Harari (2011): A sweeping interpretation of human history from the beginning through the future (better, in my view, than Harari’s other books). Engaging, startling, and fun to argue with.

The Scientific Revolution, Steven Shapin (1996): A brief (popular) survey that begins with one of the great lines in history writing: “There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution and this is a book about it.” If you’re up for a heavier lift, Shapin’s Leviathan and the Air-Pump blows apart the idea that the whole idea of scientific thinking developed in isolation from the political/religious turmoil of early modern Europe.

The Sleepwalkers, Christopher Clark (2014): The best rethink of the origins of WWI brought out in the spate of books marking the centenary of the start of the war. Not the easiest read among the books on this list, but full of new ideas and insights on this essential event from a broader perspective than Tuchman.

Of course, there’s more where this came from (as you know if you’ve been in my study). I certainly don’t claim that these are the “best” books out there (matters of taste, too). So, I’m happy to make more recommendations, especially if you can tell me what you like or dislike about any of the initial list above.

Check ‘em out!

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Recalling Democracy

9/17/2021

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Hillary Clinton famously lost the election of 2016 by 80,000 votes in three states, less than one-tenth of one percent of the number of eligible citizens who did not cast a ballot in that election. In the subsequent “blame game,” many said that those who did not vote had no right to complain about the results. It’s hard not to agree with that sentiment, even without going so far as to urge legally-mandated voting. At least as a general philosophical principle, urging all citizens in a democracy to participate in this essential act seems pretty straightforward.

Among the results of that fateful choice five years ago was the election of a man/party/tribe for whom democratic norms seem pretty dispensable. The great hue-and-cry of late 2020 and early 2021: “Stop the Steal” essentially argued that “If we don’t win, then the election was rigged” and is illegitimate. This attitude undermines a shared sense of participation and confidence in a process that is fundamental to any political community.

Which brings me to our recent Recall election in California.

Much can be said about the misshapen constitutional process which led to this expensive charade. Much more can be said about the (generally) pathetic group of “wanna-be’s” who sought the Governor’s seat, as well as their sponsors and the sorry remnant of the party of Earl Warren (and even of George Deukmejian). The former is a typical legacy of good intentions and legislative inertia. The latter… well, ‘nuff said. Neither was surprising or disappointing.

However, I am pretty disappointed in our (un-recalled) Governor and his party machine for their stance on how Democrats and other supporters (and other opponents of the recall) should vote on the contingent question of who should become Governor if Newsom was, in fact, recalled. (Some of my California friends have heard from me a bit on this issue, so I apologize to them for any redundancy).

Their party line was to sit it out, i.e., to take the risk that Newsom would not be recalled. This is, in the event, what happened; and, so, the whole thing appears academic. He wasn’t recalled, even though, for a while, the issue appeared to be in doubt. If he had stumbled (perhaps another dinner at the French Laundry or a COVID spike-plus-economic downturn), we could have had Caitlyn Jenner, or Larry Elder, or (could it be possible…) worse.

This “tactical” voting argument was arrogant and disdainful of our democratic process and a pretty close cousin of the “Stop the Steal” gang. As best I could figure, they were concerned that endorsing any plausible alternative would increase the chances of losing on the threshold recall question. They didn’t trust voters to vote “no” on the recall AND choose the least bad alternative if the recall were successful. They thought we’d be distracted by the possibility of a (non-horrible) Democrat on the list of replacements and decide to toss Gavin out. Perhaps, they were just pissed that they got caught in a lame-brained constitutional provision that was hi-jacked by right-wing crazies.

These might be nice arguments in the abstract, but “Don’t vote” doesn’t cut it in a democracy, particularly from a party that has championed voting rights and processes, particularly from a party that was (rightfully) upset with many non-voters in 2016. It would have been a cold comfort to have awakened on September 15 to a smiling Governor-elect Elder. The (current) Governor and his coterie would have to be counted among those who “could not complain” as “Governor Elder” ditched mask mandates, cut funds for environmental repairs and welfare benefits, and endorsed Texas-style abortion regulation. Nor could they have complained that the vote was “rigged” or that Governor Elder’s tenure was illegitimate. As it was, over 4 million people voted on the recall but abstained on the choice of a potential replacement.

Politics is, as they say, “the art of the possible.” It’s all about making choices from among competing ideals and principles. Democracy is about getting everyone in society to participate and to endorse/tolerate the results. The California Dems didn’t stand up for the process this time, to their shame. Gov. Newsom has a lot to be proud of; he showed some real political guts on the gay marriage issue, for example; but this time around, he was just another pol.

Last year, I wrote about the decayed state of US political parties. The implosion/kidnapping of the GOP has been the dramatic lead in that story; so much so that the not-quite-as-parlous state of the Democrats has pretty much gone unnoticed. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if they both disintegrated. Regardless of your policy proclivities, however, we need political institutions—including parties—and leaders who support the democratic system, and not just on a tactical basis. This is why the Dems’ call for abstention on the 2d part of the Recall is so troubling. The more both parties pretend politics is war, that opponents are enemies, that electoral “victory” is the only thing that matters; the greater our social peril.

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Journal of a Blog Year

9/10/2021

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In 1722, Daniel Defoe (more famous for Robinson Crusoe) published A Journal of the Plague Year, adapted from his uncle’s journals from 1665 when a wave of bubonic plague swept London. We have had our own “plague year” (it looks more like two years at this point), but in keeping with my approach, I have used historical references and current events merely as starting points for my essays. Thus, this first anniversary edition is called: A Journal of a Blog Year.

So, a year ago (Sept. 13, 2020 to be precise), I started this blog. It was a personal challenge: to see if I could discipline myself to write 900-1000 more-or-less coherent and interesting words every week. I hope that, beyond my own benefit, this blog has stimulated some thinking and reflection on your part. Some of you have been kind enough to comment and even to get friends and family to sign up for the weekly notifications.

As I look back over the process, the entries have been a combination of long-held ideas and beliefs and topical responses. In each case, I have tried to flesh out my ideas so that they make sense to my (relatively intelligent and well-read) audience; even if you’re not ‘inside-my-head.’ I have seen my style (lots of asides/parentheticals/multi-slash words) evolve. I have tried to balance topics between history, politics, law, philosophy, education, and related areas. I’ve done my best not to beat the same drum twice; although sometimes, I’ve sidled up pretty close to previously-made points/themes/angles.

Sometimes the ideas accumulated faster than the words to express and develop them. Sometimes an idea came and the piece was done in an hour. Sometimes I had to struggle to “meet the deadline.” Some essays were inspired by what I read in my main news sources (NYT, Economist, Atlantic, links posted in FB by my friends); but more often they presaged what I later read in those places.

Even the (relatively few) entries that have been stimulated by recent events are really more about long-term issues and perspectives, so as I was reviewing the list below while writing this entry, I was struck that, while far from “timeless,” almost all are still current and relevant. I still stand behind my critique of Brexit and of the Afghanistan war, for example. If you missed a few along the way (unlike most op-eds in the NYT etc.) they may be worth reading. (you can go to the ‘archives’ section to the right of this entry and click on the appropriate month of publication)

9/13/20: Welcome - This Blog Project.
9/14:Thoughts on the Semester - Pandemic Teaching.
9/15: Brexit - The Fall of Britain.
9/19: Global Pandemic.1 - COVID and the world.
9/20: Condemned to Repeat It - Santayana and all that.
9/26: Anomalies and Exceptionalism - What is “normal”?
10/4: Ending American Imperialism - Repairing one of our country’s defects.
10/9: A Democratic Crisis - Demographics colliding with institutional inertia.
10/16: Global Pandemic.2 - COVID, Science, and History.
10/23: The Comforts of History - Do we rely too much on history?
10/30: Agendas - What to do after the election.
11/6: The Path Forward - Nation-building in 21C America.
11/13: Party Time - Our obsolete political structure.
11/20: Stories - The distortions of historical coherence.
11/27: Triage - Power, Wealth, and Pandemic Priorities.
12/04: The Laws of History - The limitations of using the past as a guide to the future.
12/11: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Do we need a 4th branch of government?
12/18: Rising and Falling Powers - Dealing with American Decline.
12/24/20: The Word for Our World is Forests - We can do something significant about climate change.

1/8/2021: Judgments - Consigning Trump to history.
1/15: Role Model - Will the US be the inspiration of the world?
1/22: In Media Res - Making sense of the information deluge.
1/30: Democracy in America - Is it a fluke?
2/5: ConCon.2 - Can we change our government without a revolution?
2/12: Contingency - God plays dice with the universe.
2/19: Democratic Federalism - Rethinking the Senate.
2/26: Historical Fiction and History - Are facts always important?
3/5: Globalization Course - How do we see our world?
3/12: Royal Families - Atavistic Fantasies.
3/19: Sci-Fi Governments - Different political models from the future.
3/26: Reparations - Error, shame, and money.
4/2: Who Lost Hong Kong? - A future foreign policy debate.
4/9: Bhutan - One extraordinary place.
4/16: Pop Culture - So many more people.
4/23: Global Democracy - Why it’s a long way away.
4/30: Avocational Education - A quandary for most universities.
5/7: Electoral College - Some obvious fixes.
5/14: Three-State Solution - Thinking outside the box in the middle east.
5/21: Representing the People - A radical change for Congress.
5/28: Forever Wars - Are our ideas about war outdated?
6/4: ______- Americans - Ethnicity and labels.
6/11: De-merit - Do we live in a meritocracy?
6/18: Google U - Accreditation where accreditation is due.
6/25: History and Truth - The long road from one to the other.
7/2: Gettysburg - Lincoln’s choices… and ours.
7/9: Changing the Past - Why we construct mythologies.
7/16: Limiting the Leviathan - A case for smaller government.
7/23: Accounting for the Future - How to think long term.
7/30: Thinking Fast and Slow - Kahneman’s classic is worth a read.
8/6: AI, vay! - Is the Borg coming? Is resistance futile?
8/13: The Complexity of Liberty - Modernity has made it harder to be free.
8/20: Territorial Imperative - People and dirt
8/27: Too Early to Tell - Historical framing
9/3: Back in the Classroom - Returning to face-to-face teaching

I haven’t counted, but I’m guestimating that the total is about 45,000 words, about half a book’s worth.

Going forward, I may release myself from the once-a-week constraint. I may try some shorter (400-500 word) entries as well. I’d love to see your comments more; particularly disagreements and challenges. I’m certainly open to suggestions for topics as well.

Thanks for coming along so far. I hope you’ll stick with me going forward, too.

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Back in the Classroom

9/3/2021

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We’ve been back in the classroom for two weeks now. It’s definitely strange. I can’t say that I am happy to see students’ “bright smiley faces,” since smiles (and frowns and other expressions) are hidden from view.

With vaccine mandates, daily symptom self-check, and everyone masked, I’m not anxious about teaching “live.” It’s definitely more fun than Zoom and, as importantly, it’s better for the students, their learning and their social experience of college, too.

I don’t think we’ve settled into the “new normal” quite yet. Only about half the normal number of classes are being held live on campus; a significant number of instructors and students having opted for full or partial Zoom courses for the balance. Of the 63 regular undergraduate courses offered by the SFSU History Department, 29 will be regular face-to-face, 13 will be partial f2f and partial on-line, 6 will be live on Zoom and 15 will be fully on-line/asynchronous.

I’m teaching three courses this semester, but with “social distancing” in mind, the University has capped the number of students in each room, so classes are smaller. I’m actually teaching fewer students than in past terms when I only taught two courses.

Of course, no one knows how long the current arrangements will last. The summer Delta surge raised fears of relapsing back to all-Zoom classes and we’re hardly out of the woods on that score (much less Lambda and subsequent variants). At least we all know what Zoom classes look like (having done them for two-and-a-half semesters), so an urgent transition/reversion should be pretty straightforward unlike April, 2020 (seems like a decade ago!) when we did a blind flash-cut. Still, there’s no denying that the Damoclean sword is hanging over us all.

On top of all that stuff, the University moved our entire department across campus and has demolished our old building (no sorrow there!). So, we have (newer and smaller) offices, a new layout, and only a small percentage of the faculty on-site every day (less dallying, too). Oh, did I mention there is a new copier to be learned and the fact that they cut our admin staff by 25%. Let’s just say our departmental recovery curve will be shallower than we might have hoped.

Here’s some anecdotal reportage:
* The first day, at least five students asked me for directions to a particular rooms. In each case while they were in the right building, they hadn’t yet figured out that one is unlikely to find Room 3xx on the first floor.
* While there is a fair amount of bustle, the relatively small portion of students on campus means that hallways are not so crowded and there was no line at the student union cafeteria at 12:20. (same food as before, but they’ve closed the seating areas, so everyone is eating outside (fine for now; not in December, though).
* Students and faculty are required to self-verify on-line every day before they come on campus. Then they can enter any building (masked); except (for unknown reasons) the Library, where Covid status must be verified to enter.
* My feet are a bit sore from standing/pacing 4 hours a day. Zoom classes are much more sedentary.

Students seem to be pretty happy/excited to be back live (Although my sample is skewed since I’m only seeing the ones who decided to come back.) Discussions are lively, students are eager. The freshpersons, of course, have never been in a college classroom before; but we have some sophomores who Zoomed all last year and are getting their first taste of campus life. Some freshpersons who had gone back to high school last spring find that while there is a change to college life, the (masked) classroom experience isn’t so different. Perhaps the COVID shock has put the formerly ‘big’ transition into a new light.

Everyone in my classes has been good about masking (one slipped mask was promptly remedied on request). Fortunately, there haven’t been any confrontations.

Talking through masks is generically a challenge. Even though I have a large and projectable voice, I have to bear the mask in mind when talking in class, even if the groups are relatively small. Some students, who often ‘underproject’ their voices in the normal course, need more frequent reminders to speak up. Since many students aren’t so good at raising hands and I can’t see their mouths move, it’s sometimes unclear who is talking, but eventually, we will work this out.

Similarly, it’s usually a multi-week project to get sufficiently familiar with students’ faces to match them with names. With Zoom classes, I could get a handle on a good number (at least among those students who activated their cameras). Now, it’s definitely harder since masking limits the ‘recognizable square inches’ of everyone’s faces; so this is another area where I will cut myself (and others) some slack.

The University now is wrestling with the parameters for the Spring Term. While everything, of course, is subject to change, we will see if it decides to keep the current level of live activities, nudge things up, or return to “normal” operations. Even if the latter, I expect that some higher level of on-line courses (maybe 15%) will be part of the “new normal.” All of that will lead to a complex calculus of class sizes, and number of courses offered which means, as usual, us lecturers are sitting on a bubble to see how many courses we are hired to teach.

However, that is all administrivia in the moment. It’s good to be back. We still have the “normal” challenges, and we can’t be sure how the COVID shock will play out in the psyches of students or faculty over time.

But, overall, most folks seem to have smiles (under their masks).

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Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.

I don't actually agree with Santayana's famous quote, but this is my contribution to my version of it: "Anyone who hears Santayana's quote is condemned to repeat it."

The Big (ger) Picture

The Big Picture

A Few Good History Books

Recalling Democracy

Journal of a Blog Year

Back in the Classroom

Condemned to Repeat It --Musings on history, society, and the world.

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Condemned to Repeat It --
Musings on history, society, and the world.