Saturday, December 26, 2015

A Merry Christmas from Maximilien Robespierre (with a side-note on that Newton business)

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From the vaults via last year's Tumblr post: Understandably enough, we tend to think of December 25 primarily as Christmas, thereby ...
Friday, December 25, 2015

Traditions of Christmas Past: from boisterous to banned to bourgeois

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From the vaults, via last year's Tumblr post : “‘At Home’ in the Nursery, or The Masters and Misses Twoshoes Christmas Party,” ...
Thursday, December 24, 2015

Christmas greetings! (and two eighteenth-century prints of the nativity)

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Wishing a merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate the holiday. From the vaults: Artifact of the Moment: Reflections on Nativi...
Saturday, December 12, 2015

Happy Hanukkah To My Readers (and a reminder of the legacy of the Jews from Arab countries)

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Wishing a happy Hanukkah to all my readers who celebrate the holiday! Israel Hanukkah coin, 1973 Nominal value: 5 Lirot [pounds]...
Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Trump and Perverse Pearl Harbor Analogies

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Normally, I would reserve the time around the anniversary of Pearl Harbor for posting about the attack itself, rather than the dismaying con...
Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Donald Trump vs. George Washington on Muslim Immigrants

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"Religious Freedom in America" canceled? stamp commemorating the Flushing Remonstrance , 1957 The bizarre political candid...
Monday, December 7, 2015

Is Your Restaurant Breeding Bolsheviks?

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When we visited Boston earlier this fall for a little family gathering, we stayed, for sentimental as well as practical reasons, at the clas...
Tuesday, November 17, 2015

An Old Picture About Race in Amherst

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A year ago today, I put up a little post about a picture involving attitudes toward race in Amherst . With renewed discussion of problems ...
Thursday, October 15, 2015

Amherst NOT "only the 'h' is silent" caption contest

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As almost all readers of this site will know, the unofficial motto of the town, popularized at the time of our 250th anniversary in 2009 , a...
Monday, October 12, 2015

The Best Columbus Bio You Never Read (and it's German)

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Every year, as Columbus Day rolls around, it seems that the critique of the explorer and reluctance to celebrate his holiday grow. Nothing ...