Father of the Year: Bill Clinton’s Paternal Redemption

“Chelsea was the first child to reside in the White House since Amy Lynn Carter in 1979, allowing for the conscious construction of Clinton as Dad, as well as President. At the Democratic National Convention in 1992, Chelsea was pictured holding her father’s hand, and she stood beside him as he took the Presidential Oath at his inauguration in 1993. More casual photographs of father and daughter surfaced on numerous occasions during the campaign, with Clinton cast in the role of ‘ordinary dad’, white-water rafting and playing mini-golf with his family.” Continue reading

Why High School Teachers should teach History through and beyond Narrative

“A postmodernist historian would hold that history, and historiography, cannot be simply quantified and determined as one particular narrative with one particular meaning. The problem with this is that non-narrative history typically represents the larger group – the cohort or mass actor. By contrast, a narrative approach to history-telling is more likely to focus on the individual, a character or narrator who reveals their personal experiences and perhaps their emotional responses to historical events and dilemmas. Students of history can commonly relate more easily to the individual, with whom they may be able to identify common experiences or emotions.” Continue reading

Book Review: Hidden in the Mix – The African American Presence in Country Music by Diane Pecknold

“Hidden in the Mix is an enjoyable, enlightening and captivating read that finally gives recognition to the African American presence within one of the most successful music genres in the world.” Continue reading

Selling Houses to Buy a Dream: White Diaspora and the Suburbs in Richard Ford’s Bascombe Trilogy

“The issues raised in Independence Day and The Lay of the Land – rising house prices, shoddy construction, profiting on the back of others’ aspirations (for what else does a realtor do than make money from people in search of their dream home?) – are still remarkably relevant today. The Markhams fall victim to their own outsized ambitions but also to the upswing of a property bubble that eventually crashed with devastating consequences for millions across America.” Continue reading

The Cold War and the Origins of US Democracy Promotion

“However, previous strategic tensions re-emerged as the George W. Bush and Obama administrations both soft-pedalled democracy promotion in friendly Middle Eastern states such as Egypt when it clashed with immediate geopolitical objectives, and were able to do so because the US government funds the NED and now implements the bulk of US democracy promotion programs. Due to this back-tracking the fall of the authoritarian Mubarak regime was followed by a power struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military rather than a pro-US democratic successor elite.” Continue reading