Category Archives: Books
Recommended Reading – Regarding Henry Thoreau
A somewhat controversial figure in his own day, Henry David Thoreau rose to his greatest prominence posthumously, in the late nineteenth century, with the publication of his expansive journals. In our day, he remains ranked among the nation’s most interesting … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Philosophy
Tagged Climate Change, Thoreau, Walden
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Current
“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”
Conservatives or Radicals or Something Else Entirely
Nicole Hemmer is Associate Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. She and I discussed her first book back in 2016. Her second book, Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s, resituates the Republican Party’s sharp rightward … Continue reading
Posted in Book Reviews, Books, Politics
Tagged GOP, Nicole Hemmer, Partisans
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Church, Commerce, Creation – A Conversation with Mark Stoll
Mark Stoll is Professor of History at Texas Tech University. He is the author of Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature in America; Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism; and Profit: An Environmental History. Each book explores … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Climate Change, Convo, Politics
Tagged Environmentalism, Mark Stoll
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Recommended Reading – Growth & Degrowth
Over the course of 2023 my interest in climate advocacy has carried me deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of climate change causes, which turn out to be the same forces driving a whole host of other ecological problems, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Climate Change, Politics
Tagged Climate Change, Degrowth
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The Year in Reading, 2023 – Abolitionism & Transcendentalism
In 2023 I read a bunch of books on slavery, Abolitionism, Transcendentalism, the major figures and currents of each, and the ties that bound them to one another. The reading list is included here, along with some reflections on the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Abolition, Recommended Reading, Slavery, Transcendentalism
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Communicating Climate Change
David Wallace-Wells is editor-at-large for New York Magazine, as well as a contributor at the New York Times. His 2017 article, “The Uninhabitable Earth,” later expanded into a 2019 book of the same title, sparked a heated discussion within the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Climate Change, Politics
Tagged Climate Change, Katharine Hayhoe, Wallace-Wells
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Freedom As and Against Democracy
Annelien de Dijn is Professor of Modern Political History at Utrecht University. Paul E. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh. Stephanie A. Martin is the Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs at … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Freedom Theory, Politics
Tagged Conservatism, Democracy, Freedom
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American Individuals – A Conversation with Alex Zakaras
Alex Zakaras is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. In his new book, The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson, he returns to the early nineteenth century to trace the mythology … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Christianity, Civility, Politics
Tagged America, Individualism, Zakaras
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Book Bans & Apple Pie
Since 2021, American public school boards have been targeted by a coordinated campaign intent on revising curricula, altering policies, and banning books. Especially after Glenn Youngkin’s surprise victory in the Virginia Governor’s race that fall, the rhetorical power of child- … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Culture War, Politics
Tagged Moms for Liberty, Warwick
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The Year in Reading, 2022 – Revolution to Civil War
In 2022 I read a bunch of books on American history from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, spanning the period that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. famously termed “the Age of Jackson.” The reading list is included here, along with … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged American History, Reading
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Christian Dialectic – A Conversation with David A. Hollinger
David A. Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. In his new book, Christianity’s American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular, he recounts the long-running, dialectical relationship between … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Christianity, Politics
Tagged Ecumenical, Evangelical
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How We Got Here – A Conversation with Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. He is a contributor to The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and the New York Review of Books, and author of 20 books of his own. His latest, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Christianity, Climate Change
Tagged Bill McKibben, Climate Change
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Recommended Reading 