Science Explainers in the Age of Covid
Recently I wrote for GESIS on the history of science communication and popularized science. It’s an interesting question when the practice started. As wit...
Category: history
Twitter Thread and Blog Post on the Folly of Comparing the American Left to Nazis
In August, I posted a long thread on Twitter regarding the problem of bad-faith distortions of history. It was set off by an especially egregious statement by D...
Tom Wolfe and the Age of Self-Involvement
Tom There’s writers in there like Pynchon. But if he were a realist. There’s thorough knowledge of American history and the people who wrote it down...
A History of the Third Dimension: Past Future Visions of 3D in Movies
The future would be brilliant, glowing, and rich in color. The future would be lifelike on the screen as much as off. The future, Hollywood attempted – and atte...
Podcast Appearance – #KönigVonDeutschland
Lutz Becker and Gunnar Sohn of #KönigVonDeutschland, a podcast about the many sides of, and issues related to the concept of utopia, recently spoke with me. The...
Out Now Everywhere: My Book ‘Wires That Bind’
I am very happy to announce that my book Wires That Bind: Nation, Region, and Technology in the Southwestern United States, 1854–1920 is now available worldwide...
Decide: The French Election and the Untenable Position of Abstention
Slavoj Žižek bemoans in The Independent that the upcoming French run-off election means no choice at all because between Le Pen and Macron, the French people fa...
The Center Must Hold for a Peaceful Europe
It is not an exaggeration to say that with the upcoming French presidential election, the future of Europe hangs in the balance. To wit, Europe, not simply, not...
Donald Trump Is No Lyndon Johnson
John Fund at the National Review recently compared Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump. Citing also this blog, he argued that there were similarities between the two...
On Patriotism: How to Practice a Constitution
Playwright Tony Kushner wrote of “beautiful systems dying, old fixed orders spiraling apart” in the 1990s, referencing the changes palpable at the e...