The past is present
Comprehensive Exams, or 'Comps,' can be confusing and intimidating for graduate students, but the first step to conquering Comps, and the fear they elicit, is to understand what they are, what they are designed to test, and how they work.
As the Trump administration calls for the return of domestic manufacturing, there is one industry that managed to resist the outsourcing process of the late 20th century. It only required the destruction of its labor unions.
In 1995, Democrats held up a Big Bird doll to laud the importance of children’s television and save public broadcast funding. This strategy does not seem likely to work in 2025.
The first 100 days of President Trump's second term marks a departure from established US foreign policy, focusing on dismantling international aid and agreements. His administration’s actions, including cuts to USAID and skepticism toward NATO, jeopardize global partnerships. Trump's approach favors unilateralism and transactional relations over multilateral cooperation, risking America's leadership and security in an increasingly authoritarian world.
Trump has floated the idea of creating a new category of (im)migrant worker to deal with the labor shortages caused by his own deportation program. This type of program has a long history in the United States. What Trump is proposing is a rerun of an old policy that attempts to codify white supremacy by solidifying Anglos at the top of society with a permanent (im)migrant underclass to make the economy hum for the benefit of the wealthy.
Chapter 1 of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga was a box office failure, but the cowboy masculinity it portrays helps to explain Trump’s victory.
If America’s greatness is its love of freedom, who held the firehoses in Birmingham? Who wielded clubs on Edmund Pettus Bridge?
The United States has almost always been a very politically divided nation. Conservative majorities on the Supreme Court are mistakenly viewed as unique to recent years, but they are really the norm in American history. So too is political polarization the norm.
Disaffected Americans living in today’s era of wealth inequality may turn to someone new as they did in the past if both Biden and Trump are nominated by their respective conventions this summer, as presumed.
See how to schedule and organize a Reacting to the Past Game, with examples from After a Long Battle: Congressional Responses to the AIDS Epidemic, 1982-1985.
Clio and the Contemporary 