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The American and French Revolutions Compared 3
- History
- October 4, 2024
One of the many differences between the American and French Revolutions is that, unlike the French, Americans did not fight for an abstraction. Americans initially took up arms against the British to defend and preserve the traditional rights of Englishmen. The slogan “no taxation without representation” aptly summed up one of their chief complaints. The
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Friday Comic: Providence 0
- Entertainment
- October 4, 2024
Credit: OwenComics (store) X: @owenbroadcast Instagram: @owenbroadcast Save this article to favorites
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Don’t Skip the Boring Parts 2
- Literature, Featured, MomThink
- October 3, 2024
When I taught literature, I had to frequently remind my students not to skip the “boring parts” of the books—things like long paragraphs describing scenery in Dickens’ Oliver Twist or the long list of ships that appears near the beginning of The Iliad. I understand the temptation. When I was their age, I frequently skimmed
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Shareable Snack: A Firsthand Account of the Civil War and Its Causes 15
- Video
- October 3, 2024
Julius Franklin Howell joined the Confederate Army when he was 16. After surviving a few battles, Howell eventually found himself in a Union prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland. In 1947, at the age of 101, Howell made a rare recording at the Library of Congress, in which he described his enlistment, sudden capture, and
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The Right to Speak Evil 0
- Culture
- October 3, 2024
Words can harm. The childhood saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is obviously untrue. Words bring ruin and despair, drive people to suicide, and foment massacres and war. They are used to justify the enslavement of nations, and the genocide of entire ethnic groups. This is exactly
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Purposeless Masculinity in Beryl Bainbridge’s ‘The Birthday Boys’1
- Featured, History, Literature
- October 2, 2024
In the face of certain death, does being civilized matter? All the narrators of Beryl Bainbridge’s 1991 historical novel The Birthday Boys die. And still, knowing their deaths loom, they carry on with birthdays, religious practices, and virtues like loyalty and courage. Heavily based on real life diaries and letters, this novel is a hybrid
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