Trump Syllabus Reader

Although historians have adapted to reading veritable libraries of books, for many people reading can be daunting.   Everybody leads busy lives and doesn’t always have the time to set aside for something that seems to offer no immediate benefit.   Academic books also have the reputation of being difficult to understand – either poorly-written or jargon-y – discouraging potential readers from cracking open the cover.   While it is tempting to imagine an unbridgeable divide between expert and layperson and their use of books, I don’t accept that.   I believe that everyone has the ability to understand academic histories and the important insights they offer (hence this blog/book club).   In order to get the most out of a book it always makes sense to read it in its entirety; however, if you worry about reading a lot of books in a small amount of time, I’ll let you in on a secret – YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ THE ENTIRE BOOK.   Make no mistake, you’ll definite...

There are many reasons to read , but from a historian’s perspective there is one major incentive – books are THE major way ideas are communicated to other historians.    Books allow historians the space and time to develop complicated arguments about the past, as well as provide a method of explaining their evidence to their readers (footnotes).   Before diving into our reading, first I’d like to examine what we’re looking for in the book.   For our purposes, I’d suggest that there are three important elements: the thesis, major turning points, and sources.   Generally, each book will have a thesis, and in history that thesis usually revolves around “change over time.”   A historian might be analyzing the entire span of the nineteenth century or maybe just the Civil War, but the beginning of a historian’s thesis can often be described as “From (year) to (year) something happened.”   Historians often have a special focus they are examining, so ...

Welcome back to the Trump Syllabus Reader.   As I mentioned in my first post, I’m planning to read books inspired by N.D.B. Connolly and Keisha Blaine’s Trump Syllabus and invite you to join me.   The books on the syllabus examine the historical roots of many of the problematic policies put forward by this administration, and the issues they pose for a society with the potential for democratic inclusiveness.   I believe these books can poke holes in many of the myths the current administration’s policies are founded on, and in doing so help inspire the pursuit of social justice. I primarily chose books from Professors Connolly and Blaine’s syllabus because it would allow us to read important books on topical issues.   My choices are not meant to be a judgment on their perceived quality; rather, I tried to focus on books that I personally have not read yet and will lend themselves to a reading process I’ll outline next week.   In a few instances I chose boo...

It has been hard to read the news over the past few weeks.   The killing and injuring of protestors after a white supremacist attacked them with a car – a tactic Republican state legislators have been working to legalize – (and the president’s subsequent “condemnation”) have rightly dominated headlines.   In the weeks leading up to this tragedy, the White House proposed slashing legal immigration to the country; the Department of Justice decided to clamp down on rather than promote civil rights at universities; and, a study of Indiana demonstrated active efforts to make it harder for communities of color to vote, the latest in an increasingly prominent vote-suppressing campaign spreading around the country . While these are jarring and outrageous events, they unfortunately have deep roots in American history.   Historians have been writing about these and other, related problems for decades, but many Americans have not had the opportunity to learn from this rese...