Category Archives: History

Discourse, Reality, and the Culture of Combat

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

Historian John A. Lynn wrote in 2005: Historians need to differentiate between the reality of war and die way in which a culture conceives of war: between the concrete and the conceptual. At die conceptual pole, the term ‘discourse’ signifies … Continue reading →

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Historian Matthew Ghobrial On Russia Vs Ukraine (3-29-22)

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Luke Ford

00:00 PhD student Matthew Ghobrial, https://twitter.com/GhobrialMatthew 01:00 Matt’s Youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9z6CwgycPjUbOLElkLuHjQ 02:00 What are Russia’s legitimate interests in Ukraine? 04:00 Why did Putin invade Ukraine? 06:00 What would a peace agreement look like? 08:00 Hyperbolic rhetoric about Putin 09:00 When … Continue reading →

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In Defense Of History

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Luke Ford

Richard Evans writes in this 1999 book: * Virtually all historians, for example, assumed that the nation-state was the primary object of historical study. The emerging historical profession was dominated by the view that the historian’s task lay principally in … Continue reading →

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Jews in the American Historical Profession (8-4-21)

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Luke Ford

Peter Novick writes in his 1988 book: * Selig Perlman, a professor of economics at Wisconsin, is said to have regularly summoned Jewish graduate students in history to his office and warned them, in a deep Yiddish accent, that “History … Continue reading →

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HBO’s Small Town News & That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ (8-3-21)

Posted on August 3, 2021 by Luke Ford

If you are watching a TV show and it makes you uncomfortable because it reminds you of yourself, I assume that indicates that there’s something there you haven’t worked through yet. For example, I’m watching the Small Town News doco, … Continue reading →

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