History Does Not Come in Black and White By Nancy Spannaus Oct. 11, 2019—The first issue of the revived Bulletin of Loudoun County History is a “must-read” for those seriously committed to achieving racial harmony in the United States. Three of the articles in the yearly journal focus on the […]
Historians on Hamilton, How a Blockbuster Musical is Restaging America’s Past Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, editors Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2018, 399 pp. By Nancy Spannaus Aug. 2, 2018—While I did not have very high hopes for this book of essays critiquing the Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical […]
By Nancy Spannaus April 5, 2021—I was very happy to see the recent article by Oren Cass of the American Compass, entitled “We’re Just Speculating Here…, The Rise of Wall Street and the Fall of American Investment.” In a lengthy footnoted piece, replete with informative graphics, Cass documents the ways […]
By Nancy Spannaus March 22, 2021—Over the last two days, two prominent advocates for Alexander Hamilton have come forward to defend Hamilton’s legacy as a visionary statesman, including against the charges that he was an “enslaver.” These important initiatives came from Douglas Hamilton, Hamilton’s fifth-great-grandson, who directly took on the […]
Ignoring the Founding Fathers, at Our Peril
American Dialogue: The Founders and Us, by Joseph J. Ellis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. 283 pp. Reviewed by Edward Spannaus , November 29, 2018 This is both an ambitious and a provocative book. Joseph Ellis, who taught college-level American history for decades, takes the major debates among the […]