Dear Friends of The Way of Improvement Leads Home, With Christmas coming and the year winding down, I can’t help but look back—something I suppose comes naturally to a historian. This season seems …

The man was a dentist. The woman was Grant Wood’s sister. Here is a taste of James Barron’s piece at The New York Times: Originally, the farm tool that’s almost a character in Grant Woo…

Over at The Dispatch, Nick Cataggio compares Jimmy Carter’s 1979 “Malaise Speech” to the one Donald Trump delivered earlier this week. A taste: “The malaise speech” is how Ji…

Dear Friends of The Way of Improvement Leads Home, With Christmas coming and the year winding down, I can’t help but look back—something I suppose comes naturally to a historian. This season seems …

This piece originally appeared at Current on April 21, 2022. In 1932, the German sociologist Max Herbert Boehm observed that cosmopolitan life has always existed in “compromise with nationalism, ra…

Dear Friends of The Way of Improvement Leads Home, With Christmas coming and the year winding down, I can’t help but look back—something I suppose comes naturally to a historian. This season seems …

What is happening today at the intersection of Evangelicalism and politics? Tucker Carlson recently spoke at the Turning Point USA “AmFest.” Allie Beth Stuckey had thoughts about his ap…

Listen to Life on a Mississippi Steamboat from American History Hit. It's one of the most iconic symbols of early Americana; it conjures up images of bustling saloon bars and Mark Twain. But as glamorous as they may seem, there's a dark side the history of the Steamboats of the Mississippi River.In this episode we welcome Professor of History at Colorado State University, Robert Gudmestad. His newest book is The Devil’s Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War.Edited by Rich Power. Produced by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to...

Dear Friends of The Way of Improvement Leads Home, With Christmas coming and the year winding down, I can’t help but look back—something I suppose comes naturally to a historian. This season seems …

Dear Friends of The Way of Improvement Leads Home, With Christmas coming and the year winding down, I can’t help but look back—something I suppose comes naturally to a historian. This season seems …

What is happening today at the intersection of Evangelicalism and politics? Over at Christianity Today, theologian Brad East reminds us that Advent comes with political implications. A taste: As Pa…

Matthew Restall is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology and Director of Latin American Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. This interview is based on his new book, The …

Society & Culture Podcast · Updated Semimonthly · A biweekly discussion dedicated to American History, historical thinking, and the role of history in our every day lives. Hosted by historian John Fea

Society & Culture Podcast · Updated Semimonthly · A biweekly discussion dedicated to American History, historical thinking, and the role of history in our every day lives. Hosted by historian John Fea

Giuseppe Paparella is Lecturer in East Asian Security at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. This interview is based on his new book, Abiding Influence: Presidents, Nationalist Be…

My early support for Black Lives Matter sprang neither from tribal membership nor from guilt about wrongs committed by my ancestors, impoverished Eastern European Jews who immigrated to Chicago in …

What is happening in the world of Evangelicals and politics? An Ohio church recently packaged 52,000 meals for those in need. Half of the meals went to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, and the othe…

If you can get behind The Atlantic’s paywall, Gal Beckerman’s piece is worth your time. It focuses on the work of historian Rob Boddice (pictured above), a historian of emotions and sen…

Kevin Williamson explains why he thinks the “Trump movement is already over.” Here is a taste of his piece at The Dispatch: We have, perversely, entered into a period of politics define…

Princeton’s Jan Werner Müller explains in the London Review of Books. Here is a taste of his piece, “Caesar Wept”: Like other terms featuring what has sometimes been called a ‘mag…

My early support for Black Lives Matter sprang neither from tribal membership nor from guilt about wrongs committed by my ancestors, impoverished Eastern European Jews who immigrated to Chicago in the early twentieth century. I supported BLM because the killing of unarmed people is a crime against humanity. At the same time, I rejected the white countermovement whose members shouted "All lives matter," because it uses a banal general truth to distract attention from an important empirical truth, namely that African Americans are more likely to be subject to discrimination and violence than other Americans.

Princeton's Jan Werner Müller explains in the London Review of Books. Here is a taste of his piece, "Caesar Wept": Like other terms featuring what has sometimes been called a ‘magical prefix’, ‘post-liberal’ has both a complicated history and many conflicting meanings. It was first used in the 1970s by American theologians who sought a post-liberal alternative to forms of Protestantism that had made too many compromises with the modern world.

Kevin Williamson explains why he thinks the "Trump movement is already over." Here is a taste of his piece at The Dispatch: We have, perversely, entered into a period of politics defined by what I call “Pareto punishment”: I don’t care if this development makes me or the people I care about any better off in real terms—as long as it hurts or humiliates the other side…

Over its eighteen-year history, The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog has appeared on three different platforms. We started on Blogger. Then we moved to WordPress. That was followed by a four-year…

On November 19, 2025, the Ohio House of Representatives passed the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act (House Bill 486). Written by Republican representatives Gary Click and Mike Dovilla, the bill s…