Learning

Jill Norgren writes: "This is an intriguing book about change and turning points. It will prod readers to argue with the authors who contend that the United States has done better in past decades and could/will do so again. Putnam and Garrett are particularly interested in climate change, which they describe as an ultimate “we” issue. They observe environmental activists pleading for a moral awakening to the costs of inaction and imagine that this might be the non-partisan movement on which the upswing might be built. We can only hope that the authors are correct and that a new generation of activists, in community, will re-imagine America and that they will not be the ones who charged the Capitol on January 6." more »

The New York Times: "Three former top Capitol security officials and the chief of the Washington police blamed federal law enforcement and the Defense Department on Tuesday for intelligence failures ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and for slow authorization of the National Guard as the violence escalated. " 'None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred,' former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund told senators who are investigating security failures related to the attack. He called the riot 'the worst attack on law enforcement and our democracy that I have seen' and said he witnessed insurrectionists assaulting officers not only with their fists but also with pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and flagpoles. 'These criminals came prepared for war,' Chief Sund said."      more »

Reflecting the broad spectrum of American culture, printed magazines from the 18th through 21st centuries have both driven and documented the American experience. The Grolier Club’s winter exhibition, “Magazines and the American Experience,” lays out a chronological history of periodical print media in the United States, highlighting specific genres, topics and events using approximately 200 rare and unique magazine issues. In the colonial era, magazines were the clarions of American thought and identity; the first successful magazine from the eighteenth century proudly proclaimed itself as The American Magazine in 1744, and the first printed statement of American independence appeared in The Pennsylvania Magazine in June 1776. more »

Founded in 2017, the Penn and Slavery Project researches the University of Pennsylvania's ties to slavery and scientific racism. Robots Reading Vogue explores the digital humanities (DH) possibilities presented using data from Vogue magazine. Vogue creates a DH bonanza, as it has been "continuously published for over a century," and is "completely digitized," resulting in some six terabytes of data and thousands of covers and images. What makes the [Open Book Publishers] literary hub unique is that it not only publishes books in traditional print and ebook formats, but it also publishes "free online editions of every title in PDF, HTML and XML formats that can be read via our website, downloaded, reused or embedded anywhere." Black History in Two Minutes (or so) podcast is a wonderful resource to learn the full scope of U.S. history. The award-winning show explores important people and events from the past and present. more »