American History

This was something.  Posted Wednesday, December 13, 2023.

LA Times Building Bombing, 1910.

Clarence Darrow: Jury Tamperer?

Thank you to Eric Hunley.

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POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

2007, TEA PARTY, December 16, 2007, not February 19, 2009

Much appreciation to Dale Steinreich.  Posted on Friday, December 16, 2022.

AMERICAN HISTORY
1.  In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America, Gloria Farley, 1993.  The “Before Columbus” section came recommended.
2. America Revised, Frances Fitzgerald, 1979.

Old textbooks are not kept by libraries. If you want to study the history of what the public schools have taught, or what universities have taught, or what communities of scholars generally believed, you have to have access to the older textbooks. You have to compare older textbooks with newer textbooks. But in my entire academic career, I have only seen one book that did this: Frances Fitzgerald’s book, America Revised. It is a history of public school textbooks on American history. Nobody else had attempted this before. It was not easy to do since research libraries don’t keep old textbooks, especially high school textbooks. The public schools don’t keep them, either. They are tossed out when they are too old to use any more.

3.  Fame and the Founding Fathers, Douglas Adair, 1998.
4.  Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, Esther Hoskins Forbes, 1999.
5.  How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America, Brion McClanahan, 2017.
6.  Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, Gordon S. Woods, 2007.
7.  What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, David Walker Howe, 2009.  Wikipedia explains that

Daniel Walker Howe is an American historian who specializes in the early national period of U.S. history, with a particular interest in its intellectual and religious dimensions

8.  The Revolution of American Conservatism, David Hackett Fischer, 1965.
9.  Liberty!  The American Revolution, Thomas Fleming, 1997.  On Modern America, Thomas Fleming came highly recommended.  
10.  Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America, Thomas Fleming, 2000.
11. American Slavery, American Freedom, Edmund S. Morgan, 2003.  Morgan was called “great” by Dr. Gary North.
12.  The United States After the War, James C. Malin, 1930.  A discussion of United States History in the aftermath of World War I.
13.  Indian Policy and Westward Expansion, James C. Malin, 1921.
14.  The Grassland of North America: Prolegomena to Its History, James Claude Malin, 1947.  Prolegomenon (usually plural prolegomena) is an Ancient Greek word used to mean “prologue” or “introduction,” to introduce a larger work, e.g., a book. 
15. The Contriving Brain and the Skillful Hand in the United States: Something About History and the Philosophy of History, James Claude Malin, 2012.
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AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1.  Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn, 1967.  
2.  Modern Historians Confront the American Revolution, Murray Rothbard, 1978.
3.  Main Currents in Economic Thought, Volume 1: 1620-1800: the Colonial Mind; Volume Two: 1800-1860: The Romantic Revolution in America, Vernon Louis Parrington, 1959.  
4.  Our Libertarian American Revolution Collection.  
5.  “Old Republican” Opponents of Federal Tyranny Collection.
6.  Constitutional Controversies and Debates Collection.  
7.  America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited, Sheldon Richman and Jeffrey A. Tucker (Foreward), 2016.
8.  “Did the Constitution Betray the Revolution,” The Independent Institute, Jeffrey R. Hummel and William F. Marina, 1981.
9.  The American Counter-Revolution in Favor of Liberty: How Americans Resisted Modern State, 1765-1850, Ivan Jankovic, 2018.
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COLONIAL AMERICA
1.  Taxation In America, 1607-1775, Alvin Rabushka, 2008.
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PURITANS
1.  Edmund S. Morgan on the Puritan era. He is a great writer and a specialist in American Puritanism. Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea, 1963. His book, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in 17th-Century New England, 1942, was his doctoral dissertation.
2.  Antonia Fraser’s [biography of] Cromwell, 2001, was a bestseller and deserves to be.
3.  The Puritan Hope: A Study in Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy, Ian Murray, 1971.
4.  Keith Thomas’s magisterial opus, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 2012.  This is one of the most extraordinary history books ever written. The footnotes will boggle your mind. It is an important topic.
5.  It is unfortunate that one of the greatest historians of the Puritans was a Marxist: Christopher Hill. Read any of his books, but don’t expect a real understanding of the theology of Puritanism. Pay close attention to his analysis of their social and economic views. Here, he was a master.
6.  Read the Putney debates between Cromwell’s son-in-law, Ireton, and a representative of the Democratic faction, Rainsboro. These have been in print for over 75 years.
7.  The main publisher of primary source documents from the era is the Banner of Truth Trust. These books focus on the pietism of Puritanism, not the social views.
8.  Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, Kai T. Erikson, 1966.
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REVISIONIST WRITERS
1. Harry Elmer Barnes.  Rothbard on Barnes’role in revisionist history, he says “He was the father and the catalyst for all of World War II revisionism, as well as personally writing numerous articles, editing and writing for the revisionist symposium Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, and launching the whole struggle immediately after the war with the first of numerous editions of his hard-hitting, privately printed brochure, Struggle Against the Historical Blackout.  Fortunately, Harry lived long enough to see the tied begin inexorably to turn among the historical profession, to see a New Left emerge that is beginning to call into question not only America’s current imperial wars but also World War II itself: especially in the work of William Appleman Williams and his students in modern American history.  To his friends and colleagues, the fact that Harry lived to see the emergence of his own vindication after so many years is the only slight consolation for suffering his loss.”

William Appleman Williams.

SLAVERY
1.  Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, Robert William Fogel, 1994.
2.  Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South, Michael Tadman, 1989.
3.  Slavery in Brazil and the United States: An Essay in Comparative History, Carl N. Degler, The American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Apr. 1970), pp. 1004-1028.  [You can sign up for a free subscription, letting you get up to 3 articles.]
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On Slavery, Dr. North points out that

The ones who abolished slavery were the Quakers. Trinitarian churches fought abolition for decades. Only after 1780 did a few Christians get on board.

SOUTHERNERS
1.  Life and Campaigns of Stonewall Jackson, Robert Lewis Dabney, 2013.
2.  Stonewall Jackson, James Robertson, 1997.
3.  Robert E. Lee: A Biography, Pulitzer Prize Edition, Douglas Southall Freeman, 1936.
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RECONSTRUCTION
The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896, (Oxford History of the United States), Richard White, 2017.  About this series, Gary North writes, 

This is a fine series, written by specialists in each era.  I have not read this one.  These books are written for readers who are familiar with each era.  The authors are good writers.  The series is not pedantic.  

FEDERAL RAIDS
Ruby Ridge, Idaho: August 21, 1992, to August 31, 1992.
1. Ambush at Ruby Ridge: How Government Agents Set Randy Weaver Up and Took His Family Down, Alan Bock and Dean Koontz, 1995.
2.  Scott Horton interviews Jim Bovard, January 26, 2019, on Trump Attorney General nominee William Barr.  
3.  Jim Bovard’s Playboy Magazine article on Ruby Ridge, titled, “Overkill: The FBI’s Gun Battle with Randy Weaver,” Jim Bovard, 1995.
4.  “William Barr, Patron Saint of FBI Snipers,” Jim Bovard, January 16, 2019.
5.  Rules of Engagement were changed to war rules.  Marshalls had no search warrant or arrest warrant. They were on Randy’s property illegally.  If you saw them carrying a gun, it was okay to shoot them without any warning. Lon Horiuchi hiding with a 10 powered scope.  Weaver and Kevin Harris were heading back to the cabin, Lon shot Vicki standing in the doorway holding her baby.  Lon Horiuchi was also at Waco but was the lynchpin at Waco.  Arlen Specter did a hearing on Ruby Ridge.  Idaho filed criminal charges against Lon Horiuchi, and the Justice Department swooped in and said we have Supremacy clause right to steal this guy and move him to the Federal Court system where we find that we don’t have a case against him and let him go.  
6.  Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, Radley Balko, CATO Institute, 2006.
7.  Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces, Radley Balko, 2014.
8.  Lon Horiuchi: American Sniper, William Norman Grigg, 2015.

1993, April 19.  Waco, Texas.  The Waco Seige.  The Rules of Engagement.  Ron Paul on Waco Massacre.  You’ll want to read this by Anthony Gregory, who chronicles the BATF’s publicity stunt as a preface to the Massacre of children at Waco.  Watch the cruelty of the Feds in Waco: The Rules of Engagement.  That’s the official name, and it’s now for rent on YouTube.  TopDocumentaryFilms also hosts the documentary, but they simply host the YouTube version for rent at $2.99.  I remember I was in UC Irvine’s Periodical section in the Basement working and talking about this horrible event with my coworker, Debra.

1995, Oklahoma City Bombing.  Read David Hoffman’s Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror.  Then there is the Jesse Trentadue story.

This discussion with Cody Snodgrass was riveting.  His book is Dark Secrets of the Oklahoma City Bombing, 2017.

  Posted on Friday, November 4, 2022, I found this interview in this post.

This discussion was mostly about how the Gulf War Syndrome records of American soldiers who were injected with Anthrax vaccines were stored in the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, and in 1995, they were incinerated in the bombing of the Murrah Building.  Not only that, but the Clinton White Water scandal was being investigated and subpoenas and investigative records were also stored in the Murrah Building in 1994.  April 19, 1995 was the date of the bombing.

He points out that the CIA was restricted to conducting operations on U.S. soil, on Americans.  The 2001 PATRIOT removed that restriction, and now Americans are victims to its government’s secret police.  Watch out.  I could tell you some stories.  It’s designed to give every opportunity to immigrants, but to punish citizens who’ve grown up under a police force whose only credibility is its violence, detention, and bankrupting citizen.  In other words, it’s illegitimate.

from Paul Gottfried’s review of Mary Grabar’s scathing critique of Howard Zinn.  In contrast to this celebration of today’s America as the high point of human history, we might look at the critical reflections of a now-deceased member of the Old Right, Robert Nisbet. In The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy, which was published in 1988, Nisbet deplored the by then dangerously expanded reach of the federal government, its accelerating crusades against “discrimination,” and the size of the military-industrial complex. Nisbet also called attention to the disintegration of the family under the impact of the feminist revolution and the cultural radicalization of youth. While Zinn’s view of the American past is hopelessly flawed and profoundly malicious, part of his attraction (even for the Right) may be his recognition that there was something seriously wrong with how our country was developing. Too bad that he told this story so poorly!