History

What Might Have Been: Russia’s Missed Opportunity of 1917 0
- History
- February 6, 2019
The Bolshevik uprising of October 1917 is usually thought to have resulted in the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, which had ruled the Russian Empire since 1547. This belief has led to a certain idealization of the Russian Revolution. Despite the crimes that were later committed in the USSR in the name of communism, the
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What Cicero Would Say about Roger Stone 0
- History
- January 25, 2019
In his speech before the Roman Senate, when he accused Catiline of conspiracy to overthrow the state, Cicero famously proclaimed, “O ye immortal gods, where on earth are we? In what city are we living? What constitution is ours?” A former Latin teacher, I thought of those words when I read the news online
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Was There a Star of Bethlehem? An Astronomer Presents the Evidence.0
- History
- January 4, 2019
Christmas is over, right? Or so many of us think. But before the Christmas season ran from Thanksgiving to December 25th, as it does today, the first few days of January were a major part of the Christmas celebration. The “Twelve Days of Christmas” officially end on January 6th, or Epiphany, the day on which
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Congress Used to Pass Bipartisan Legislation – Will It Ever Again?0
- History
- January 4, 2019
Congress seemingly hasn’t accomplished much apart from a tax cut and criminal justice reform since the election of President Trump in 2016, despite all three branches being controlled by the GOP. Will that record get even worse now that the U.S. has divided government? As a political scientist who studies Congress, I find it tempting
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What Aristotle Can Teach Us about Trump’s Rhetoric 0
- History
- January 2, 2019
From Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats to Ronald Reagan’s reputation as the “great communicator” to Barack Obama’s soaring oratory to Donald Trump’s Twitter use, styles of presidential communication have varied over time. But what is similar across all presidents is their ability to create persuasive messages that resonate with large segments of the U.S. population.
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Does the Unfortunate 20th Century Foretell a Worse 21st?0
- History
- December 14, 2018
On the centenary of his birth, we see that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was right, not once but twice. In appearance he was more akin to an Old Testament prophet—Jeremiah, say—than a Nobel Prize-winning Russian dissident writer, a man who had emerged from his long captivity in the Soviet Union only to find the supposedly superior West
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