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ebrandom.bsky.social
Eric Brandom
@ebrandom.bsky.social
12K followers 3.3K following 13K posts
Intellectual history, here decontextualized. Especially modern France, history of political thought, and socialism. And Kansas, because that's where I live "als Gelehrter, der durch Schriften zum eigentlichen Publikum, nämlich der Welt, spricht."
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ebrandom.bsky.social
Eric Brandom @ebrandom.bsky.social · Feb 22
"the common ruin of the contending classes"
ebrandom.bsky.social
A hilux with a guillotine bolted into the bed.
November 10, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
astrokatie.com
Humans: capable of building entire skyscrapers but still afraid to put the scary number on one of the floors
An elevator button panel with the numbers 12 and 14 next to each other and no number 13
November 10, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
erhochman.bsky.social
I will be teaching my grad seminar on nationalism next semester, and I was wondering if anyone had recommendations on works concerning nationalism and internationalism. I'm open to books or articles on any region/time period. Thanks! 🗃️
November 9, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
mobydickatsea.bsky.social
it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one
November 9, 2025 at 9:47 PM
ebrandom.bsky.social
Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht!!!
historyned.bsky.social Ned Richardson-Little @historyned.bsky.social · 1d
One of the few people acquitted at Nuremberg was the first Nazi Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht - whose full name was implausibly Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht because his parents were fans of the American abolitionist.
November 9, 2025 at 6:59 PM
ebrandom.bsky.social
Here is Mahmood Mamdani describing the time in 1965 when the FBI inadvertently introduced him to Karl Marx. This took place in Pittsburgh, and was in response to a SNCC visit to Alabama during which he met Martin Luther King.
Roughly a month ­ after returning from Alabama, two FBI agents knocked on my door, wearing beige raincoats, badges in hand. The FBI—­ I was thrilled. Just like on ­ television, I thought. ­ After a few preliminaries, they asked what I thought of Marx. I said I had never met him. Not surprisingly, this Ugandan Muyindi had never heard of Karl Marx. “He’s dead.” I said, “I’m sorry, what happened?” “No, he died long ago.” I wondered why, then, the question. “Why, then, are you asking me?” They said that Marx believed that the money of rich ­ people should be taken away and distributed to poor ­ people. I said it sounded like a fine idea! At that point, they seemed to decide ­ there was ­ little point in continuing the conversation, and they left. That, however, was not the end of the story. I went to the library to look up Marx. ­ Later, I would remind myself: the FBI intro- duced me to Karl Marx! This was 1965. It would mark my entry point into the civil rights movement. ­ There was a student ­ organization at the university called the Hill Education Proj­ ect. The Hill referred to the area where poor African American families lived. The proj­ ect brought together college students like me to mentor a secondary school kid from the neighborhood once a week. The pre- sumption was that we would have something to teach ­ these kids. Very soon I realized I ­ didn’t have much to teach this par­ tic­ u­ lar kid. The best ­ thing I could do was to take him for a nice meal, and talk over the meal about anything he was interested in. So we used to go to a Lebanese restaurant, Umar Khayyam, in an upscale neighborhood, Shadyside, eat pita bread with hummus and bar- becued lamb . . . and talk. I ­ don’t know how much it helped him, but it certainly did help me. The 1960s in the US ­ were an amazing ­ decade, especially culturally. ­ There seemed few limits to the risks you could take and the bound­ aries you could transgress. Every­ thing was provisional, every­ thing was experimental. It began for me a ­ decade of activism, and I moved seamlessly from civil rights to anti-war mobilization.
November 9, 2025 at 6:30 PM
ebrandom.bsky.social
they didn't mind at all
ebrandom.bsky.social Eric Brandom @ebrandom.bsky.social · 2d
How displeased will the children be by a bit of whole wheat flour in their sourdough pancakes tomorrow? Stay tuned.
November 9, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
nataliereed84.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 4:56 AM
ebrandom.bsky.social
Social justice and also, for sure, democratic socialism, are just new names for communism www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
Anti-Communism Week, 2025
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION This week, our Nation observes Anti-Communism Week, a solemn remembrance of the
www.whitehouse.gov
November 9, 2025 at 4:53 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
annakornbluh.bsky.social
luckily we can do most of that with TROLLOPE
November 9, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
nathankhensley.bsky.social
The European Reading Room, Library of Congress, is another one I’ve been in before. It can take your breath away, the beauty of the democratic ideal of general public education
European reading room, Library of Congress
November 8, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
michellechn.bsky.social
A sign that looks like a Zohran Mamdani campaign sign that says "Justice for em dashes"
November 8, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
erindwyer.bsky.social
New uncanny valley unlocked: inflatable corn maze for urban fall fests.
It’s like photos of corn on plastic in an inflatable corn maze on grass. The inflatable parts are yellow and blue. It looks like an AI hall of mirrors but it’s IRL.
November 9, 2025 at 3:50 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
layallyourloveon.me
yes, I let the music speak
November 9, 2025 at 3:45 AM
ebrandom.bsky.social
How displeased will the children be by a bit of whole wheat flour in their sourdough pancakes tomorrow? Stay tuned.
November 9, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
blipstress.bsky.social
πόνοῦν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος (Sing, goddess, of the grindset of Achilles)
spavel.bsky.social Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 2d
As his work would have been orally composed rather than written, I think it's more accurate to consider Homer an early sort of podcaster
November 9, 2025 at 3:35 AM
ebrandom.bsky.social
I'd forgotten I had this. A Parisian zine from 2008.
géographie nocturne Tous les sages de pacotille peuvent bien nous avertir, prendre des vessies pour des lanternes, outre qu'il finit toujours par en résulter quelques fâcheuses conséquences, cela n'est pas si simple qu'il n'y parait. Se diriger vers la lumière est une pratique que sans peine nous abandonnons aux volatiles. Laissons donc les maitres sur leurs trónes en plastique; quant à leurs esclaves, le mépris leur sied mieux qu'une vague pitié. Que l'on nous foute la paix, voilà une motivation sans effet secondaire. Enfin l'air toxique, le ciel éteint, les fruits påles, et notre place encore chaude dans le circuit économique: on a beau dire une vie de chien, la nôtre ne vaut que rarement mieux. Une vérité communément admise, quoique sous-jacente, est la supériorité d'une espèce rompue à la métaphysique et à la mécanique des fluides. Mais poussés dans nos ultimes retranchements, du fond de nos lits, les idées se dissolvent. Ne reste que le goût amer d'une existence gâchée, que de menus plaisirs n'auront pas secourue, laissant au contraire entrevoir l'ampleur du sabotage. Le Surhomme dépasse de loin l'imagination fantasque d'un philosophe; il s'agit au contraire d'une image en creux, qui trouve tout son sens par contraste, dans la réalité inverse, strictement symétrique et on ne peut plus matérielle de l'insuffisance de nos vies. Le fait est que NOUS N'EN POUVONS PLUS D'ETRE DES SOUS-HOMMES. géographie nocturne - premier numéro, novembre 2008. édité et diffusé par la librairie béatrice 12, rue d'Ulm, Paris. rédaction: Benjamin Pitchal, Philippe Urvoy. photographies: Emilien Urbano, Philippe Urvoy.
November 8, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
skeetsofgrass.bsky.social
Not a day passes .. not a minute or second without an accouchement;
November 8, 2025 at 4:49 AM
ebrandom.bsky.social
Frankenstein is very good
November 8, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
guggenheim.bsky.social
Overturned Blue Shoe with Two Heels Under a Black Vault by Jean Arp, 1921
https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137527
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976 © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
November 8, 2025 at 3:05 AM
ebrandom.bsky.social
Am a few chapters into Bailyn's *Ideological Origins* and it is fantastic. What does a person wanting to learn about the American Revolution read *next*? I have ideas, but am a Europeanist, and feel sure there are obvious books I won't be aware of. 🗃️
November 8, 2025 at 3:05 AM
ebrandom.bsky.social
"Lewis...returned home with so intense a disgust at the scenes he had beheld that he took to poetry"
His 700-line poem, "The Dream and Riddle" echoed the many despairing pamphlets, poems, and squibs pub-lished in London in the 1720's and early 1730's in ridiculing the justice of the English government ("Complaints if just are very shocking things; / And not encouraged in the courts of Kings"); the venality of the court ("... our noble Prince's ear / Is open to complaints, and he will hear; / The difficulty's how to get them there"); the mores of shopkeepers ("The gaudy shops of this tumultuous hive / By several arts of cheating only thrive"); and the corruption of Parliament ("Both senates and their chosers vote for pay / And both alike their liberty betray"). He ended
November 8, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
peligrietzer.bsky.social
Wait is the melody of That's No Way to Say Goodbye just the melody of Suzanne sped up?
November 8, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
gabriellehecht.bsky.social
The pope has signed on to the STS agenda.
cpaxton.bsky.social Chris Paxton @cpaxton.bsky.social · 3d
Words to live by tbh
November 7, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by Eric Brandom
jessemlocker.bsky.social
Claude Lorrain, The Grotto of Neptune in Tivoli, c. 1640, Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, 17 x 23.7 cm (Teylers Museum, Haarlem) #earlymodern #arthistory #rome
"The bold, free handling, plus the small figure set in the inhospitable landscape, lend this drawing a dimension that is unusual in Claude’s oeuvre. Through broad strokes of wash that fill the page, the artist has depicted the Cave of the Sirens near the Aniene River that springs from beneath the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. Meanwhile, Claude’s depiction of the figure “from the back” leaves room for the imagination, just as the absence of personal features invites the beholder to identify with the sitter." https://lelorrain.louvre.fr/en/html/ll02.html
February 26, 2025 at 5:28 PM