History Matters: On the 400th Anniversary of Plymouth We’re Still Clinging to Destructive National Myths
Within William Bradford’s massive work, Of Plymouth Plantation, composed between 1630 and 1651 while he…
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America, the Mythical: “Mother of Exiles” or Denier of Safe Haven?
Thanksgiving has been marshaled in the battle over what is the proper interpretation of the idea of America. With thousands of refugees looking for amnesty in that “last, best hope of earth,” will the better angels of our nature find room for them at the table?
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Storytime with David Brooks: In Which the Liberals’ Favorite Conservative Gets Lost in a Lily-White History
Personal research conducted among my lefty friends shows that for many liberals, reading David Brooks…
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Mayday’s Demise and the Rise of our Gloomy Empire
May 1st 1628 was the second time that Thomas Morton had erected a Maypole at…
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What Did the Puritans Have Against Christmas?
Another Christmas, another string of outrages about the supposed “War on Christmas.” In November there…
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How Thanksgiving Became All Dinner, No Worship
Or, why we’re glad American culture settled on “Thanksgiving” over “Fasting and Humiliation.”
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America, the Mythical: “Mother of Exiles” or Denier of Safe Haven?
In a quiet part of the London borough of Southwark, on a street running parallel to…
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Will This Relic Change Our Whole View of Early American History?
It’s a news story that contains the ingredients of a paperback thriller, the sort of…
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Dangerous Religion
Throughout US history the perpetrators of religiously-inspired violence have usually been white Protestant men fearful of non-Protestant communities.
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No Turkey for Me: Confessions of an Indian Militant
Forty years ago, Indian militants, as they were then named, occupied the island of Alcatraz. In their memory, our writer reflects on both the bloody history of the first Thanksgiving, and the remarkable, enduring power of tribal tradition to create spiritual sustenance in the modern world.
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