Today’s post accompanies “Freedom and the American Revolution,” episode 166 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of the Doing History 2: To the Revolution! series. You can find supplementary materials for the episode on the OI Reader app, available through iTunes or Google Play. History is a primary context for every decision we make; our… Read More »
by Nadine Zimmerli, Associate Editor of Books “We had no ardent spirit of any kind among us” Member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, December 25, 1805 ‘Tis the season. I am daily reminded of this by cheerful notices in my inbox from my alma mater’s bookstore and other retailers, which interrupt the steady flow… Read More »
Today’s post is a special report from Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez of Texas State University on the Southwest Seminar, one of several conferences on #VastEarlyAmerica the OI is proud to support this year. From October 5 to 7, 2017, the University of California – San Diego hosted the fourth annual meeting of the Southwest Seminar Consortium on Colonial… Read More »
Today’s post is by Nathaniel Holly, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at William & Mary. He attended Robert Morrissey’s VastEarlyAmerica lecture at W&M, an annual event that the OI sponsors in conjunction with various departments on campus, on Monday, October 2. Vast in its Vastness: Borderlands Hide Paintings and the Historical Processes of… Read More »
by Karin Wulf Over the life of the Omohundro Institute, the staff here in Williamsburg produced resources with the aim of helping scholars to navigate the early American field. Like the Carnegie Guides I discussed in a previous post, these inevitably reflected a contemporary understanding of “the field” as well as the communication capacity and… Read More »
Welcome to 2017, where the past is always urgent. There are times when the present and future seem like all we can handle, but to paraphrase Santayana repeating the past is not the real danger of neglecting history. It is that our understanding or misunderstanding of history is always, explicitly or implicitly, even when it’s… Read More »
Today’s post comes from Christopher Heaney, Assistant Professor, Penn State, 2016-2018 Barra Postdoctoral Fellow, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and WMQ author (October). “Do we really need a ‘Peruvian Atlantic’ … ?” asked Reader B. For the sake of my argument, I couldn’t help but agree. The original subtitle of what became my essay in this… Read More »