News Analysis, Politics, Culture & History
Friday, September 29, 2023
By Bonnie James America’s First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Basic Civitas Books, 2003, 129 pages Phillis Wheatley is perhaps the most fascinating and thought-provoking American you never heard of. She arrived in Boston on July 11, 1761, at about age 7, […]
Ulysses S. Grant, the outstanding hero of the U.S. Civil War, who brought peace to the nation with the surrender of the Confederate armies at Appomattox; two-term President of the United States; friend and ally of Abraham Lincoln; and protector and advocate for the emancipated African-American slaves, was born this […]
By H. Graham Lowry This article was put together and edited by Pam Lowry in 2003, following the death of her husband Graham Lowry, using an incomplete draft of an article, research notes, and the transcript of several classes Graham conducted on Lincoln during the year before his health failed […]
By Bonnie James As I was considering the latest announcement from the Trump Administration, this one pronounced by the toad-like personage of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, lately, the Attorney General of the United States, rescinding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), or Dreamers Act, thereby subjecting some 800,000 young people, […]
By Nancy Spannaus First Entrepreneur: How George Washington Built His—and the Nation’s—Prosperity Edward G. Lengel Da Capo Press, Boston, 2016, 280 pp. February 2017–As director of the Washington Papers documentary editing project at the University of Virginia, author Edward G. Lengel has been working for 20 years on the extensive […]
By Nancy Spannaus Hamilton: The Revolution Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter Grand Central Publishing, 2016, 288 pages. March 2017—It is quite possible, as great philosophers have pointed out, for a misguided or totally erroneous action to have positive consequences. So might be the case with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash Broadway hit […]
By Rachel Douglas April 18—As the Trump Administration of the USA exercised a quick trigger-finger in attacking Syria’s Shayrat airbase with cruise missiles on April 7, and has made increasingly ominous statements about unilateral action to terminate North Korea’s military programs, Russian political leaders and diplomats, so far, have kept […]
One of the most crucial steps in creating the basis for economic progress, and a human standard of living, is the creation of an electrical power infrastructure. The availability of electricity dramatically increases the potential productivity of the human individual, and the more that individual uses, the better. Contrary to […]
The life of Rembrandt, born July 15, 1606, was, to a significant degree, affected by two history-changing events. The first took place on Dec. 20, the year of his birth: Two English merchant companies, under the patronage of King James I, set sail from London, their destination, the New World, […]
Since the time of Andrew Jackson’s run for the Presidency in 1828, individual political parties have had the job of filling any vacancy on their national ticket, either that of their Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate. If one of their candidates vacates the ticket after they are nominated, either because […]