2017-08-26 16:28
As I drove here from Richmond to Hampden-Sydney College, I could scarcely help but feel enfolded in history. I passed close to Tuckahoe on the James River, where Thomas Jefferson lived as a… Read More
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Fergus Bordewich: The Imperfect Union Blog
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Essays and discussions by Fergus Bordewich on Myth and Reality in The Underground Railroad
2016-07-29 22:26
Irate conservatives this week dismissed Michelle Obama’s assertion at the Democratic Convention that enslaved workers built the President’s mansion. They’re dead wrong, and… Read More
2016-07-28 04:24
The extraordinary rise of Donald Trump is forcing Americans, whether they like it or not, to consider just what they want a president to be. Mr. Trump certainly isn’t what the nation&r&hell…Read More
2016-07-01 23:07
Yet another set of bodies has been laid to rest, this time in Orlando, Florida, slaughtered by yet another gun-wielding maniac. The National Rifle Association issued its usual irresponsible… Read More
2016-05-28 10:00
The following review of The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government was published by The Brookings Institution’s… Read More
2016-05-23 02:07
The following review of The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government was published in the Washington Monthly March/April… Read More
2016-05-03 00:33
Republican rhetoric over the appointment of a new justice to the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia is not only transparently partisan, it’s historically baseless.
In rejec… Read More
2016-04-16 15:54
‘Public faith in our democratic institutions is more important than any single issue’
The deepening standoff between Congress and the president over the replacement of Sup… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
I RECENTLY had the pleasure of appearing with the multi-talented young actress Zooey Deschanel in a fascinating episode of Who Do You Think You Are?—which has been airing this summer o… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
DURING THE CIVIL WAR, Confederate soldiers were famed for delivering a shrill and unnerving battle cry as they ran to the attack. Just what the “Rebel yell” sounded like has perp… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
Remembering Gettysburg in 1913 and 1938
LIKE NO OTHER battlefield of the Civil War, Gettysburg has lent itself to an iconic, almost mythologized, presentation of the war. It ha… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
AS WASHINGTON steams in the summer heat, and the nation prepares for the November elections, Congress is no closer to overcoming the legislative paralysis that has hobbled its deliberations… Read More
2016-03-10 23:35
I recently reviewed Manisha Sinha’s revelatory history of American abolitionism in her new book “The Slave’s Cause” for The Wall Street Journal. Beginning in the 1960… Read More
2016-02-27 19:15
Fergus standing with His Excellency at Washington’s Crossing.
Thanks to the folks at Washington Crossing Historic Park in PA, Washington Crossing Park Assoc in NJ, Labyrinth Books of P… Read More
2016-02-18 10:00
Who knew that the first president was a library book scofflaw? My friend David Smith, formerly of the New York Public Library, just forwarded to me this fascinating story. The report is a co… Read More
2016-02-15 20:51
After the members of Congress had reassembled, Washington began to read the speech that Madison had drafted for him weeks earlier. “I was looking upon an organ of popular will just beg… Read More
2016-02-14 17:06
The Wall Street Journal’s Mark Spencer reviews The First Congress in a piece titled “Calling the House to Order.”
Spencer writes, “Mr. Bordewich’s accoun… Read More
2016-02-09 01:20
This past weekend, in a column about my new book “The First Congress,” New York Times writer Sam Roberts picked up on the fact that the First Congress is also a New York story. W… Read More
2016-01-09 00:57
Woodrow Wilson was an unadulterated racist. Princeton students who are demanding the removal of his name from everything named after him at the university he served as president are right to… Read More
2012-06-08 21:27
MY NEW E-BOOK, The Looming Conflict, has finally arrived! It will be available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other electronic outlets at a price of $2.99. For a writer like me… Read More
2012-05-22 17:54
Dear Readers, Friends:
Many of you may already know that my latest book, America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union, was releas… Read More
2007-07-22 21:44
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD occupies a romantic place in the American imagination that is shared by few other episodes in the country’s history. The term is so instantly recognizable that… Read More
2006-02-10 15:18
WHEN STUDENTS AND FACULTY at Calvin College in Grand Rapids protested the invitation of President George W. Bush to speak at commencement in 2005, it made national news. This wasn’t Ha… Read More
2006-01-14 17:02
JOHN BROWN believed that God himself had ordained him to bring an end to slavery. Achieving his goal hinged on a radical and deeply secret scheme: the establishment of an “Underground… Read More
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