Will Hitchcock
@willhitch.bsky.social
Historian | NYT best-selling author | UVa Prof. | Now writing "A SHADOW OVER THE WORLD: FDR, the Rise of Fascism, and America's Road to WW2.” | American Academy in Berlin 2025
Reposted by Will Hitchcock
Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.
Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.
Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:
Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.
Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:
July 31, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.
Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.
Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:
Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.
Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:
I need a couple books on the origins of the New Deal. Is there much on tha…
July 31, 2025 at 12:53 PM
I need a couple books on the origins of the New Deal. Is there much on tha…
Reposted by Will Hitchcock
🗃️Read Elizabeth R. Varon on why J.D. Vance is wrong about the Civil War, immigration, and “real” Americans. www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/elev...
Elevating the Few
What J.D. Vance excludes from the history of the Civil War and immigration.
www.historynewsnetwork.org
July 16, 2025 at 2:02 PM
🗃️Read Elizabeth R. Varon on why J.D. Vance is wrong about the Civil War, immigration, and “real” Americans. www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/elev...
Graduation speeches in the 1930s were 🔥
May 19, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Graduation speeches in the 1930s were 🔥
Reposted by Will Hitchcock
A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope
May 8, 2025 at 5:36 PM
A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope
Reposted by Will Hitchcock
Unhappy to confirm that the entire Historical Advisory Committee at the State Department received termination notices this afternoon (myself included). The HAC, set up by Congress, oversees the office that produces the FRUS series. history.state.gov/about/hac/in... 1/
April 30, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Unhappy to confirm that the entire Historical Advisory Committee at the State Department received termination notices this afternoon (myself included). The HAC, set up by Congress, oversees the office that produces the FRUS series. history.state.gov/about/hac/in... 1/
I am fortunate to be part of this great group of colleagues and phd students in our (entirely voluntary and casual) seminar on 20th C international history. Great discussion on Berlin as a site of decolonization!
April 29, 2025 at 11:16 PM
I am fortunate to be part of this great group of colleagues and phd students in our (entirely voluntary and casual) seminar on 20th C international history. Great discussion on Berlin as a site of decolonization!
“Almost the first freedom to be destroyed, as dictators take control, is the freedom of learning. Tyranny hates and fears nothing more than the free exchange of ideas.”
Franklin Roosevelt, Oct 5, 1940.
Franklin Roosevelt, Oct 5, 1940.
April 11, 2025 at 10:50 PM
“Almost the first freedom to be destroyed, as dictators take control, is the freedom of learning. Tyranny hates and fears nothing more than the free exchange of ideas.”
Franklin Roosevelt, Oct 5, 1940.
Franklin Roosevelt, Oct 5, 1940.
In 1940, the presidents of Yale, Columbia, and Harvard urged the government and country to fight fascism. It was national news.
March 18, 2025 at 11:52 AM
In 1940, the presidents of Yale, Columbia, and Harvard urged the government and country to fight fascism. It was national news.
Lovely convo with my grad students this week, riffing with them about how to plot a book on decolonization and the Cold War. Dreadful chalk scribbles but fun intellectual exercise.
March 5, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Lovely convo with my grad students this week, riffing with them about how to plot a book on decolonization and the Cold War. Dreadful chalk scribbles but fun intellectual exercise.
Sometimes old books can suddenly seem new again.
February 16, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Sometimes old books can suddenly seem new again.
Fortune mag, March 1940. 65% say government should care for needy even if it means more taxes or higher prices.
February 7, 2025 at 7:26 PM
Fortune mag, March 1940. 65% say government should care for needy even if it means more taxes or higher prices.
Look, it was never about prices. Sure, millions of people spoke those words but this is how ideology operates: it provides you with believable nonsense so you can hide your racism, sexism, and xenophobia behind happy stories about egg prices.
The most surreal and maddening feature of the campaign was that everyone agreed that high prices were the main issue but the guy explicitly, consistently running on a platform of raising everyone’s prices won voters most concerned about high prices.
We hammered this time and time again and yet.
We hammered this time and time again and yet.
February 2, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Look, it was never about prices. Sure, millions of people spoke those words but this is how ideology operates: it provides you with believable nonsense so you can hide your racism, sexism, and xenophobia behind happy stories about egg prices.
Word of the moment, used during the Nazi merging of the party w the state in 1933-35:
*Gleichschaltung*
gleich (same)
schaltung (circuit):
All switches are put on the same circuit, allowing them all to be activated by throwing a single master switch.
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a...
*Gleichschaltung*
gleich (same)
schaltung (circuit):
All switches are put on the same circuit, allowing them all to be activated by throwing a single master switch.
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a...
Gleichschaltung: Coordinating the Nazi State
Gleichschaltung is the German term applied to the Nazification of all aspects of German society following the Nazi rise to power in 1933.
encyclopedia.ushmm.org
February 2, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Word of the moment, used during the Nazi merging of the party w the state in 1933-35:
*Gleichschaltung*
gleich (same)
schaltung (circuit):
All switches are put on the same circuit, allowing them all to be activated by throwing a single master switch.
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a...
*Gleichschaltung*
gleich (same)
schaltung (circuit):
All switches are put on the same circuit, allowing them all to be activated by throwing a single master switch.
encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/a...
Happy birthday FDR! Your New Deal state survived almost a century but some very bad people you would call “economic royalists” are going to destroy it from within.
January 30, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Happy birthday FDR! Your New Deal state survived almost a century but some very bad people you would call “economic royalists” are going to destroy it from within.
History doesn’t repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes with Mussolini.
Read up on Italy from 1922 to 1926 for a preview of coming attractions.
Read up on Italy from 1922 to 1926 for a preview of coming attractions.
January 14, 2025 at 10:58 PM
History doesn’t repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes with Mussolini.
Read up on Italy from 1922 to 1926 for a preview of coming attractions.
Read up on Italy from 1922 to 1926 for a preview of coming attractions.
Now do History.
I’ve gotten obsessed with how little many people understand what reporting is, what journalism is – I wish there was a modern TV show or movie that really got into the nitty-gritty, because I think art is one of the only ways people absorb ideas (and fantasies/myths) about jobs
The second thing irritates the crap out of me
There are a lot of parasite accounts that don’t actually do any reporting, they just sort of scrape website websites that do
There are a lot of parasite accounts that don’t actually do any reporting, they just sort of scrape website websites that do
January 11, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Now do History.
My colleague and podcast cohost @sivav.bsky.social has written an excellent piece here about the global rejection of liberal democracy. Brief and insightful! Have a look:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
With the 21st century a quarter complete, illiberal democracy is the new global norm | Siva Vaidhyanathan
Many of the political ideas we thought were taken for granted at the end of the 20th century have cracked and crumbled
www.theguardian.com
January 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
My colleague and podcast cohost @sivav.bsky.social has written an excellent piece here about the global rejection of liberal democracy. Brief and insightful! Have a look:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Will Hitchcock
Reading about the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany? This sheet pan Black Forest cake will make you feel like you were there.
January 5, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Reading about the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany? This sheet pan Black Forest cake will make you feel like you were there.
Reposted by Will Hitchcock
We're just 48 hours from the special elections that will decide whether Dems keep their majorities in the Virginia Senate & Virginia House boltsmag.org/legislative-...
January 5, 2025 at 3:35 PM
We're just 48 hours from the special elections that will decide whether Dems keep their majorities in the Virginia Senate & Virginia House boltsmag.org/legislative-...
So far, my university’s policy discourages *faculty* from using any AI detector tool on student papers because the tools can be inaccurate. So the official policy message on AI is… 🤷♂️
I had a student whose final was flagged with 70%+ as paraphrasing from AI generated text. He could not understand why I considered Grammarly helping him “fix his sentence structure” plagiarism since it’s “not just getting Chat GPT to give you an answer.”
The biggest argument against AI should always start with autocorrect given how often that shit never works and will just outright mangle your sentences into a complete word homunculus if you’re not paying attention
January 2, 2025 at 7:09 PM
So far, my university’s policy discourages *faculty* from using any AI detector tool on student papers because the tools can be inaccurate. So the official policy message on AI is… 🤷♂️
Just saying, Denzel’s expression in his final scene in Galdiator 2 is me watching this movie
January 2, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Just saying, Denzel’s expression in his final scene in Galdiator 2 is me watching this movie
Writing is hard; and writing a book is agony, until suddenly there’s a moment when you look up and realize you’re finishing it, and it’s not terrible, and maybe you haven’t wasted years … and your heart beats a little faster. Worth bottling that feeling for use in future emergencies
December 27, 2024 at 6:28 PM
Writing is hard; and writing a book is agony, until suddenly there’s a moment when you look up and realize you’re finishing it, and it’s not terrible, and maybe you haven’t wasted years … and your heart beats a little faster. Worth bottling that feeling for use in future emergencies