"Legible States"

"I don't think these stances can be explained merely by Trump's much-discussed fondness for Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping. The notion that the central government's control over the contested regions should be made official, recognized, and unambiguous accords with his overall worldview."

Joshua Keating in Slate writes that "[w]hen hard-line nationalists take power, such ambiguity in borderlines is no longer tolerated."

"The Beating Heart of Trumpism"

"In the shithole remarks we see it very unadorned: why do we want more low-quality non-white people? To Trump, it is an obvious and urgent question. Arguments about cultural assimilation are often prettied-up in right-leaning policy journals as concern that too rapid immigration doesn't give enough time for assimilation and thus threatens social stability. That may be true at extremely high levels of immigration, though here in New York City we have a massive immigrant population (documented and undocumented) and we seem to do fine as the safest big city in the country. But with shithole you get to the heart of it which isn’t these prettified, intellectualized theories but rather a voice of contempt and dehumanization about people who–let's just say it–aren't white.
"'They are taking over' is the backdrop of Trumpism. The shithole comments make that crystal clear."

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo reacts to the latest expression of racism from Donald Trump.

Just Like Twilight Baby Robinson

The New York Times runs obits for actor Don Keefer, baseball player George Shuba, Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, and musician Paul Revere.

"Brings to a Conclusion One of the Towering Achievements of Historical Scholarship of the Past Half-Century"

"Davis is fully aware of the moral ambiguities involved in the crusade against slavery, the process of abolition and the long afterlife of racism. Nonetheless, in a rebuke to those historians today who belittle the entire project of emancipation, he insists that the abolition of slavery in the Western Hemisphere was one of the profoundest achievements in human history, 'a crucial landmark of moral progress that we should never forget.' His monumental three-volume study helps to ensure that it will always be remembered."


In The Nation, Eric Foner reviews David Brion Davis's The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation.

"One of the Finest One-Volume Histories of the Rise and Fall of Modern Slavery"

"Blackburn also rejects the idea that emancipation arose from what he calls 'latent virtue,' a comforting notion sometimes invoked by American historians to excuse the founding fathers for lack of action against slavery on the grounds that their ideals set in motion the abolition process. High ideals alone did not abolish slavery. And while not neglecting slave agency, Blackburn argues that the concessions and customary rights wrested by slaves from their owners over a long period of day-to-day struggle did not pose a fundamental challenge to the system. Rather, he insists, emancipation emerged from specific historical circumstances—a nexus of slave resistance, ideological conflict and political crisis."

In The Nation, Eric Foner reviews Robin Blackburn's The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights.

An Unbroken Agony

"Haiti's chronic impoverishment began at its birth in 1804, when, having overthrown its French rulers in a bloody, 12-year slave revolt, the newborn nation was subjected to crippling blockades and embargoes. This economic strangulation continued until 1825, when France offered to lift embargoes and recognize the Haitian Republic if the latter would pay restitution to France—for loss of property in Haiti, including slaves—of 150 million gold francs. The sum, about five times Haiti's export revenue for 1825, was brutal, but Haiti had no choice: Pay up or perish over many more years of economic embargo, not to mention face French threats of invasion and reconquest. To pay, Haiti borrowed money at usurious rates from France, and did not finish paying off its debt until 1947, by which time its fate as the Western Hemisphere's poorest country had been well and truly sealed."

Tunku Varadarajan in The Daily Beast argues that France owes Haiti reparations.