Teapot Dome: First Major Presidential Scandal, 1920s

HCR: "In the 1920s, President Warren G. Harding’s secretary of the interior, Albert Fall, went to prison for a year for accepting a $385,000 bribe from oilman Edward L. Doheny in exchange for leases to drill for oil on naval reserve land in Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. Fall was …

‘Free State of Jones’: Mississippi County Rebelled Against the Confederacy

Free State of Jones is a 2016 American historical war film inspired by the life of Newton Knight and his armed revolt against the Confederacy in Jones County, Mississippi, throughout the American Civil War. (more from Wikipedia). It's also an astonishing book by Sally Jenkins and John Sauffer. "From 1863 to 1866, residents of Jones County, MS engaged in an insurrection against the Confederacy that …

‘Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History’

Columbia University Press: "Long before the current preoccupation with “fake news,” American newspapers routinely ran stories that were not quite, strictly speaking, true. Today, a firm boundary between fact and fakery is a hallmark of journalistic practice, yet for many readers and publishers across more than three centuries, this distinction has seemed slippery or even …

U.S. Needs Immigrants To Maintain Global Economic and Political Power

"Demography is destiny," supposedly said 19th-century French philosopher Auguste Comte, noting that increases in population enhance the political and economic power of a region or nation, while decreases in population reduce the economic or political power of a region or nation. China and Russia are losing population, so is India and Japan, partly due to …

Save One Life, Save the World?

An extraordinary feel-good movie, One Life, about how one "ordinary" British man, Nicholas Winton, portrayed by Anthony Hopkins, saved 669 Jewish children in Czechoslovakia from the Holocaust in 1939, is now streaming in the U.S. It does, unintentionally, raise uncomfortable questions as to what humanitarians can do to save the lives of the children of …

Indonesia’s War For Independence From the Dutch Empire In 1940s Illuminated by ‘The East’ Movie

A 2020 Dutch war film, "The East," popped up on my recommendations to stream. It is set in the Dutch East Indies of 1946 during the Indonesian National Revolution, also known as the Indonesian War of Independence. A soldier, deployed to suppress post-WWII rebellion in Indonesia, finds himself torn between duty and conscience when he joins an elite …

Optimistic Vs. Pessimistic Views of History: Which Wins Out?

I learned that a former neighbor, Doris Flexner, wrote a strong-selling book, The Optimist's Guide to History, published in 1995. But typical of human nature, it wasn't as popular as her previous book, The Pessimist's Guide to History, a "Compendium of Catastrophes, Barbarities, Massacres, and Mayhem," published three years earlier. That one was a bestseller. …

An American Expat in Egypt, Jordan, So Different From A Decade Ago

What's it like to be an American expat in the Middle East now, with regional tensions high and many locals blaming the U.S. for sticking with Israel? Samantha Childress on Substack shares her experiences in Egypt and Jordan. Goodbye to All That: On Loving and Leaving Cairo. Vignettes from Life in Amman. Despite a loud …

Immigration in America: A Mini-Course

I've posted a 10-part mini-course on immigration to my Substack. "Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Is Historic. And ignorant, against U.S. interests. Can we break with the past?" is part one, which has been e-mailed to subscribers. Click. It begins with a link to a NYT series on new state laws in 10 states restricting Chinese nationals from purchasing …

Russia Currently Has Battlefield Advantage, Ukraine Concedes. US Aid Is Mostly Defensive

The six-month delay on the U.S. military aid package has led to tactical disadvantages for Ukraine, says Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Shmyhal talks about the country's relationship with NATO and Canada's support for Ukraine during the war. Click. The U.S. aid is almost entirely defensive, and will not empower Ukraine to regain lost territory, analysts …