People have told me that they wanted to know more history and social science so they can understand the country and the world better. If that’s you, this is your chance. No papers to write, no tests to take—just posts that deal with topics worth learning and thinking about.

The subject matters I’ll deal with are what were called “Social Studies” during my teaching days: American history, world history, political science, and economics.  My plan is to publish posts about research articles that I hope are of general interest. I aim to put up a post at least every Sunday, and maybe one or two during the week if I’m ambitious. The posts may not be full summaries of the articles, but I will try to insure that the pieces I pull out do not misrepresent the larger whole.

I don’t intend to present a comprehensive treatment of a topic–everything you need to know about World War I, for example. There may, however, be multiple posts on a general subject, so you can get a broader view as we go along.  (The idea is that much of this material will be combined into a book. We’ll see what that looks like.)

Scholars can and do take differing points of view on an issue.  At the very least, this means that no post will be the final, definitive, objective truth about a topic.  Indeed, some might be controversial.

Ideas presented may well have relevance to current political issues; in fact, I hope they will.  But I intend this blog to be nonpartisan, and will try not to go beyond the scholarship in discussing such topics.

I will try to represent various points of view.  Just because I post about an article does not mean that I agree with it.  I intend to explore, not indoctrinate.

So, welcome!  I hope the time you spend here will be enlightening as well as enjoyable.