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Category Archives: American History
Reflections on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
First, I will admit that I have been teaching American history for almost 35 years and have never, until recently, read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Why? For several reasons, I suppose. First, it was never assigned in any … Continue reading
Posted in American History, books, Christianity, God's Providence
Tagged Harriet Beecher Stowe, Slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin
4 Comments
Images of Lincoln
When I was a teenager–not very thoughtful and focused mostly on baseball and basketball–my grandfather, a retired custodian whom I would have never thought would read such books, gave me a three-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg. The … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography, books, Government
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Carl Sanderg, Civil War, Slavery
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Moral Expediency and the Atomic Bomb
The Manhattan Project that resulted in the development of the Atomic Bomb was one of the most creative moments in world history. American scientists accomplished what only a few years before was considered unthinkable–exploiting the power of the atom in … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Government
Tagged Atomic Bomb, Harry Truman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Manhattan Project, Morality
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Whose Democracy Is It, Anyway?
Is America under the Constitution a democracy? The Constitution was written over the course of a summer in 1787 (in Philadelphia: the Constitutional Convention). The 55 or so men who wrote the Constitution did not have mandated authority from the … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Government
Tagged Constitution, Democracy, Government, James Madison
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History and Miracle
What is a historian to do about miracles, events in time that break the rules of natural law and sensory evidence, products of a supernatural force, that is, God? The easiest approach is, of course, to reject all theism, to … Continue reading
Posted in American History, books, Christianity
Tagged god, history, Jeremy Belknap, Miracles, Providence, St. Paul
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The Great Commission, Love, and Science
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” I have written a previous post about the Great Commission, as recorded in the Gospel of Mark, which is the basis for Christian missionary activity for the … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography, Christianity, Great Commission
Tagged Daniel Little, god, Great Commission, Missionaries
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Captain John Smith: Conqueror, Colonizer, Commissioner
The Sea Mark: Captain John Smith’s Voyage to New England, published by University Press of New England (http://www.upne.com/1611685169.html), juxtaposes three different mentalities and activities: the conqueror, colonizer, and commissioner. Smith the conqueror was a soldier who believed that whoever was … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography, books, Christianity, Great Commission
Tagged Anglican, Biography, books, Great Commission, history, John Smith, The Sea Mark
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The Constitution and Religion
The framers of the Constitution developed their conceptions of religion and government based on a variety of sources: classical political theory, such as Aristotle; European political theory, such as Machiavelli; English political theory, such as Locke and Hobbes; but also … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography, books, Christianity, Government
Tagged American Revolution, books, Constitution, Ebenezer Hazard, history, Jeremy Belknap, Love
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Jean Louis Berlandier
I am teaching this semester a course on the History of Science, and am using two of my books: Science in the Ancient World, and Frontier Naturalist: Jean Louis Berlandier and the Exploration of Northern Mexico and Texas. The latter … Continue reading
Pious Scientists
Oftentimes, missionaries in America were people of exceptional learning. Almon Bacone, for example, the founder of Bacone College, as a faculty member in the 1880s and 1890s taught an incredible number of subjects: Greek, Latin, rhetoric, English literature, logic, natural … Continue reading
Posted in American History, Biography, books, Christianity, Great Commission
Tagged Almon Bacone, Cotton Mather, Jeremy Belknap, missioanries
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The American Plutarch 