February 2020 Acquisitions

Books:
Andrew Delbanco, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War, 2019.
Alan Grant et al, Batman: Arkham--Victor Zsasz, 2020.
Rebecca Razo, Quiet Los Angeles, 2016.
Mark Waid et al, Superman: Birthright, 2005.

Music:
Beatles, Let It Be, 2009.
Beatles, On Air--Live at the BBC Volume 2, 2013.
James Brown, Black Caesar, 1973.
L7, Bricks Are Heavy, 1992.
Radiohead, Pablo Honey, 1993.
Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine, 1992.
Rolling Stones, England's Newest Hitmakers, 1964.
Santana, Santana Legacy Edition, 2004.
Sonic Youth, Goo, 1990
Neil Young, Mirror Ball, 1995.
Various, The Best of the Girl Groups Volume 1, 1990.
Various, Guitar Player Presents: Legends of Guitar--Country, Vol. 2, 1991.

"Ended Up Becoming a Part of Latter-Day Pop's Musical DNA"

"He had started out as one of a number of west coast-based musicians who felt the best route out of punk was exploring the past: Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, the debut album by the band he had formed while at college in Minnesota, the Rain Parade, was clearly in thrall to the psychedelic era from its title down: it featured sitar, songs called things like Kaleidoscope and This Can't Be Today and dreamily drugged-out textures spiked with lyrics that hinted at the scary, overwhelming side of the LSD experience. It was beautifully done, and sounded like less of a knowing pastiche than their paisley-shirted British equivalents."

At The Guardian, Alexis Petridis writes an appreciation of David Roback.

As does Pat Thomas at Variety.

"If History Is Boring, It's the Historian's Fault"

"There's a lot of magical thinking when it comes to Washington's road to emancipating his slaves upon Martha's death. The declaration that's usually made is that Washington began to think differently during the Revolution, which I challenge. It's not that he began to think differently. It's that he became the most famous person in the world and was exposed to people who he respected, like the Marquis of Lafayette, who were telling him, 'Listen, this is terrible and you could change the world and everyone would love you for it.' He was well aware from that moment forward that it did affect his legacy. Let's be realistic about this, and let's also talk about the times that he could've emancipated them.

Karin Wulf at Smithsonian Magazine talks with Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.

"All of That Experimentation Was Brewed on Bitches"

"'Ultimately, the album can be looked at in several ways,' said Nelson. 'It launched a whole new way of thinking about jazz, and it was very influential with rock musicians. At the same time, it can be taken simply for the great sounds it contains.'"

Jim Farber at The Guardian marks the fiftieth anniversary of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew.

The Constitution's Lost Clause

"It's time to resurrect these 110 words of the most important amendment to the world's most important constitution. The authors of those words looked to Congress to ensure that the most fundamental aspect of American democracy—the right to vote—would be upheld. Today, with the closure of polling locations, spread of voter identification laws, and purging of voter rolls, the right to vote is, yet again, under siege."

Joshua Geltzer at Politico calls for enforcement of Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"Historians Disagree About Everything, or So It Seems"

"Famous philosophers have warned of the danger of overly realistic history. In his 1692 classic, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke denounced seventeenth-century history instruction because it celebrated soldiers and conquerors and thus implanted 'unnatural cruelty' in young minds. In the early 1800s, the great Swiss educator Johann Heimlich Pestalozzi banned history from the elementary school curriculum because he believed history exposed innocent children to 'learning about the wickedness and evils of the world before they were able to understand their significance.' Thus, traditionalists and progressives fight fierce battles over standards, curriculum, and textbooks. From their past, traditionalists want God, heroes, pride, nationalism. From their past, progressives want reason, complexity, honesty, and cosmopolitanism."

Peter Gibbon in a 2017 Humanities article asks, "how do we offer a realistic portrait of America's past without extinguishing idealism?"

"The Mainstream Left Is in Serious Trouble in the West"

"The ethnic change that is transforming western societies makes cultural issues more relevant, benefiting the Right while harming a Left that finds itself hemmed in by progressive norms, unable to adapt to new electoral realities."

Eric Kaufmann at Law & Liberty explains "Why the Left Is Losing."

"Anyone Who Expects a Restoration of the Status Quo Ante 2017 May Be in for a Rude Awakening"

"Take, for example, three cherished institutions—White House press briefings, independent courts, respect for nonpartisan law enforcement agencies and a nonpartisan civil service. Their foundations are more young and shaky than you might think, and once altered, they may not be easily restored. Future presidents may regard newer precedents as more binding. A once-sturdy nonpartisan civil service and equally assured nonpartisan courts may be too weakened to enforce a return to prior norms. A public once conditioned to expect certain things of its presidents may have lost a critical amount of muscle memory."

Joshua Zeitz at Politico discusses more damage Donald Trump has done.

"Torn Apart by Cross-Currents Over Immigration and by Tensions Between Socially Progressive Urbanites and Traditionalist Working-Class Voters"

"In a piece last year in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Yascha Mounk noted the industrial, trade-union roots of European social democratic parties and how a reason for their decline 'is, quite simply, that fewer and fewer people are now ensconced in the milieus that gave birth to these movements in the first place.'
"With cultural issues supplanting economic issues in salience during the 21st century and the former sense of economic solidarity giving way, the old center-left parties had trouble pleasing all of their supporters, or even most of them."

Rich Lowry at Politico compares Bernie Sanders to Jeremy Corbyn.

"It Has Failed Billions of People"

"Globalisation was sold as a way of boosting prosperity for all by making markets bigger and more efficient. For a while the model worked, but when it blew up and caused extensive collateral damage, a backlash was inevitable. Deglobalisation is the result."

Larry Elliott at The Guardian writes that the "era of open markets and open borders is over."

"Almost Single-Handedly Stunted the Growth of Every Other Center-Left Alternative"

"Biden has run for president three times. He has not yet managed to finish higher than fourth in any primary or caucus. Biden may, or may not, have been a good enough politician to win a presidential campaign in his prime. He is now well past his prime. His campaigning pace is languid, his debate performances unsettling. Nor has he built the kind of campaign apparatus that could drag him over the finish line. He has far fewer endorsements than a traditional establishment favorite, and his organization has underperformed in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Yet, for most of the last year, Biden sat on the largest piece of real estate in the Democratic party. He has commanded the loyalty of voters who fondly recall Barack Obama's presidency and wish to replicate it, and whose primary goal is to assemble  majority coalition. They are disproportionately black and occupy the center-left heart of the party's base."

At New York, Jonathan Chait argues that Joe Biden's "2020 campaign is going to end in a disaster for the whole party."

"If You, an Individual, Want This Service, You'll Have to Pay for It, and Pay Big"

"The state should not 'subsidize intellectual curiosity,' Ronald Reagan told reporters in 1967, back when he was just the governor of California. At the time he took office, California had one of the most pristine public university systems in the nation, but Reagan saw the universities as fertile ground for budget cuts and a happy target in the culture war he was waging. It was a two-birds scenario for the burgeoning conservative lawmaker. Attacking the public system would not only solidify his legacy as a budget hawk but would directly drain the main source of income and professional growth for both his academic and working-class detractors. He would bring this same model to the presidency. As Devin Fergus, a senior fellow at Demos and professor of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, wrote in a piece tracing this history for The Washington Post, federal spending on higher education 'was slashed by some 25 percent between 1980 and 1985,' and the Reagan administration 'shifted the federal government's focus from providing students higher education grants to providing loans.'"

Nick Martin at The New Republic reports on efforts to organize a student-loan strike.

"Read On for More"

"Depending on which universe we end up with in 2070, the impeachment will have accelerated the political rise of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 'ushered in the age of the imperial presidency,' or 'sounded the death knell of impeachment as a bulwark against an outlaw president,' according to the experts." 

Politico asks historians to write passages from future textbooks about the impeachment of Donald Trump.