History

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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What’s the Best Way to Deal with a ‘Political Animal’?0
- History
- December 10, 2018
G. K. Chesterton was that rarest of political animals. He was a fellow of firm views and well decided certainties. But he was also someone who always treated those of differing views and certainties with fairness and kindness. (We could use many more of his type these days, couldn’t we?) How did Chesterton manage to
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The Perpetual Presidency 0
- History
- December 6, 2018
Former President Barack Obama recently continued his series of public broadsides against his successor, Donald Trump. Obama’s charges are paradoxical. On one hand, Obama seems to believe that he, rather than Trump, should be credited with the current economic boom and the emergence of the United States as the world’s largest energy producer. But Obama
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