The institution of slavery had broad implications far beyond the obvious result of millions of sub-Saharan Africans being forcibly recollected to the western hemisphere. These implications were political, cultural, and economic in nature and can be seen throughout the eighteenth century. They include the catalyzing of the independence movement in the British colonies of North …
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On the Columbian Exchange
The period of global interaction inaugurated by Columbus’s arrival in the Western hemisphere lay the groundwork for much of the social, cultural, and political changes worldwide in the 16th and 17th centuries. These changes were either developments resulting from this interaction or reactions against it. Specific examples include demographic changes Brazil, the political transformation of …
On "1491" by Charles C. Mann
By way of explanation, I’m current taking a course at the Community College of Philadelphia for transfer to the history program at SNHU. The course is Global History II, which covers 1492 to the present. The below is my short paper for the first week of class.The assigned reading (see footnote 1 below for the …
On Paris and History
One of the moral dicta of history is the famous one from George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The advice is clear: history is told in part to teach of what went wrong in the past so we can avoid it in the present (and future). So far, …
So I’m Blogging Again
After 15 years out of graduate school and nearly a decade of not blogging, I’ve decided to take up blogging again as a way of working out ideas as I pursue a bachelor’s degree in history at Southern New Hampshire University, where I have taught as an adjunct in the Literature Department for a couple …
Inevitable Historicity 