I’ll bet I paid a lot less than Subway did for product placement in this episode.
I want to thank the hit ABC show Nashville for using the cover of Andrew Jackson, Southerner as a prop in the mayor’s office. It would be better if someone on the show were actually reading the book, but I’ll take it.
(Of course, that portrait just happens to be the same one I’m using for my book cover, but one can dream.)
I’ve written previously about the usefulness and necessity of examining conspiracy theories, and I also provided an outline of my conspiracy theories course.
Several weeks ago, a student approached me asking for reading suggestions about conspiracy theories. The request provided a good opportunity to write a blog post that I’ve wanted to write outlining the essential readings on conspiracy thinking.
Some of the works listed below provide the intellectual and theoretical framework for understanding the conspiratorial mindset, while others provide a narrative on specific conspiracy theories. Many of the monographs offer overviews of conspiracy thinking and theories in their introductions.
Primary Source Compilations
Donald T. Critchlow, John Korasick, and Matthew C. Sherman, eds., Political Conspiracies in America: A Reader (2008)
David Brion Davis, ed., The Fear of Conspiracy: Images of Un-American Subversion from the Revolution to the Present (1971)
Comment: Both books are good. Davis’ is older, but it’s more diverse in its coverage of topics.
Secondary Sources (Books)
Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America (2001)
Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From (1997)
Kathy Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (2008)
David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History (2009)
Comment: Pipes and Aaronovitch take a more global view of conspiracy thinking, while Goldberg and Olmsted focus on the U.S. Both of the latter have strengths: Goldberg’s introduction is a good historical overview of American conspiracism, while Olmsted’s book is more up-to-date.
Secondary Sources (Essays/Articles)
David Brion Davis, “Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature,” Mississippi ValleyHistorical Review 47 (September 1960): 205-24.
Comment: This article offers an incisive analysis of Early Republic conspiracy thinking.
Robert A. Goldberg, “‘Who Profited from the Crime?’ Intelligence Failure, Conspiracy Theories, and the Case of September 11,” Journal of Intelligence and National Security 19 (Summer 2004): 249-261.
Comment: This essays supplements Goldberg’s book (see above).
Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 3-40.
Comment: Although the original essay was published in 1964, it has held up well. This is the first thing I have my students read in the conspiracy theories class.
Gordon S. Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century,” William & Mary Quarterly 39 (July 1982): 401-441.
Comment: An insightful and important explanation of the influence of conspiracy thinking during the Revolutionary era.
At some point, I want to write about other important books and articles that are more narrowly focused on specific eras or theories. But if you’re looking for some introductory material, the above suggestions should keep you busy.
Just remember:
Amazon.com has Andrew Jackson, Southerner listed at a pre-sale price of 29.80. That’s 25% off of the list price of $39.95. I also plan to hold a contest of some sort to give away a handful of signed copies this fall.
I try to confine my MOOC commentary to Twitter and Facebook, but this seemed important enough to break radio silence.
The philosophy department at San Jose State University has written an open letter to one of their peers at Harvard, Michael Sandel, about his MOOC on social justice. The letter outlines the faculty’s objections to MOOCs offered as university credit. They emphasize that they are not opposed to technology in the classroom, which is an important point. From my readings, many pro-MOOCers like to label anti-MOOCers as Luddites fearful of technological change, when the opposite is often true.
The letter also touches on other arguments, such as the elitism of only having select universities with the available resources offering MOOCS for credit and the obvious benefits of having students and professors interacting in person. These are all points made elsewhere, and there are certainly more that one could add. (For those arguments and continual updates on the evolution of the MOOC debate, Jonathan Rees’ blog More or Less Bunk is essential reading.)
What struck me about this letter, however, was this warning:
[T]he thought of the exact same social justice course being taught in various philosophy departments across the country is downright scary – something out of a dystopian novel. . . . Diversity in schools of thought and plurality of points of view are at the heart of liberal education.
Despite reading a few dystopian novels lately, what resonated with me was the last sentence. I’m a firm believer in the liberal arts education. I’m a firm believer that a liberal arts education requires different beliefs, perspectives, modes of interpretation and methodology, etc. The liberal arts environment isn’t a place to participate in intellectual gymnastics just for fun, although that happens. It is a place where you discover who you are and what you believe. It is the place, as I’ve written before, where you engage in debate and discussion and disagreement, all of which helps you grow intellectually, emotionally, and ethically.
If you can do that by watching a video, more power to you. Just don’t ask (or force) me to do it.
I’m speechless. Because nothing says “Founding Fathers” chic like fabric depicting them in A & F skin-revealing poses.
And according to Urban Dictionary, the blog title might actually be appropriate.
H/t @JennieGoloboy
The Fall 2013 LSU Press catalog includes Andrew Jackson, Southerner. Here is the description:
Many Americans view Andrew Jackson as a frontiersman who fought duels, killed Indians, and stole another man’s wife. Historians have traditionally presented Jackson as a man who struggled to overcome obstacles and helped create a more democratic United States. In his compelling new biography of Jackson, Mark R. Cheathem argues for a reassessment of these long-held views, suggesting that in fact “Old Hickory” lived as an elite southern gentleman.
Jackson grew up along the border between North Carolina and South Carolina, a district tied to Charleston, where the city’s gentry engaged in the transatlantic marketplace. After visiting Charleston, Jackson moved to North Carolina, where he joined various political and kinship networks that provided him with entrée into society. In fact, Cheathem contends, Jackson had already started to assume the characteristics of a southern gentleman by the time he arrived in Middle Tennessee in 1788.
After moving to Nashville, Jackson further ensconced himself in an exclusive social order by marrying the daughter of one of the city’s cofounders, engaging in land speculation, and leading the state militia. According to Cheathem, through these ventures Jackson grew to own multiple plantations and cultivated them with the labor of almost two hundred slaves. His status also enabled him to build a military career focused on eradicating the nation’s enemies, including Indians residing on land desired by white southerners. Jackson’s military success eventually propelled him onto the national political stage in the 1820s, where he won two terms as president. Jackson’s years as chief executive demonstrated the complexity of the system of elite white southern men, as he earned the approval of many white southerners by continuing to pursue Manifest Destiny and opposing the spread of abolitionism, yet earned their ire because of his efforts to fight nullification and the Second Bank of the United States.
By emphasizing Jackson’s southern identity, characterized by violence, honor, kinship, slavery, and Manifest Destiny, Cheathem’s narrative offers a bold new perspective on one of the nineteenth century’s most renowned and controversial presidents.
The cloth (hardback) edition will be published in October and will retail for $39.95, and an e-book edition, almost certainly priced lower, will be available as well.
My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston.
As I kept up with the news about the bombings yesterday via Twitter and Facebook, two thoughts came to mind.
The first was the unreliability of reports circulating right after a tragedy such as this one. I can’t even imagine what the immediate post-9/11 rumor mill would be like today with social media. One only has to look back a few months to the Newtown to see how inaccurate reports were and how those reports were used to construct conspiracy theories such as this one or these.
The second was how important it is to understand conspiracy thinking in order to prevent being swept up in the emotions of an event like yesterday. As someone pointed out on Twitter, this week marks the anniversary of a number of violent attacks, including Oklahoma City and Waco. Not only did the individuals responsible for those events believe in conspiracy theories, those events themselves spawned a number of conspiracy theories as people rushed to judgment because of what they wanted to believe was true.
We have a lot of fun in my conspiracy theories course discussing outlandish ideas, but as I’ve said before, what I ultimately want my students to walk away with is the ability to critically analyze evidence and claims and come to a rational conclusion and not do or say things that demonstrate their apparent lack of concern for humanity.
After nearly six years in print, here’s the first payoff from Old Hickory’s Nephew:
I know what you’re thinking: “Will Mark loan me some money?” Sorry-the money’s already spent.
Research commitments are going to require me to scale back this summer’s casual readings, but I have a short list of childhood favorites that I want to revisit:
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Johann David Wyss, The Swiss Family Robinson
On the surface, it looks like a strange list, but I have fond memories of each of these books. When I was a child, my parents bought me a set of books that included all of the above except Pilgrim’s Progress, and I read them multiple times. Bunyan’s book was a required school reading, but I also read it for fun. (Please withhold your groans.)
I’m interested to see how well my memories of them hold up with rereading. If you’re interested in last summer’s reading list, it’s posted here.
As I noted earlier this week, Robert V. Remini passed away on March 28. Given his age, it wasn’t unexpected news. In fact, I had just been wondering about the health of Remini and also Donald Cole, who turned 91 last Sunday, over the weekend.
Last year, I included Remini among the historians who influenced me the most. I only met him once, at the 2008 AHA roundtable on his history of the U.S. House of Representatives. After the roundtable, I stood in line to introduce myself and give him a signed copy of Old Hickory’s Nephew. It was a very academic fanboi thing to do, but more than any other historian, he had influenced my scholarship, as he continues to do so today.
Remini’s earliest influence on me was his narrative story-telling. I read his three-volume biography of Jackson twice as an undergraduate, and while I’ve never been able to emulate his writing style, it affected how I tried to write then and even now.
A lot of historians criticized Remini for his interpretation of Jackson’s treatment of Native Americans. I think Remini (usually) tried to be fair in his assessment. He never struck me as an Jackson apologist on this topic, although he sometimes appeared too sympathetic to Old Hickory.[1]
The one area of Remini’s scholarship on Jackson that fell short, in my opinion, was in regards to Old Hickory’s slave ownership. Remini rarely mentioned slaves or analyzed how Jackson’s mastery over them affected his politics and vice-versa. His interpretation of Jackson instead perpetuated much of the historiography about him as a rough-hewn frontiersman, which Hendrik Booraem and Peter N. Moore have recently challenged.[2]
Like James Parton and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Robert V. Remini will undoubtedly be a name associated with Andrew Jackson for as long as Old Hickory is considered an important figure to study. He will be missed.
“‘His earthly toils are o’er, And History’s golden page, Shall wait for him no more.’”[3]
Updated: Link to University of Illinois at Chicago press release about Remini, with some useful links.
[1] Ronald Satz’s review of Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars pointed out some of Remini’s too-sympathetic language (Journal of American History 90 [December 2003]: 1014).
[2] See my 2011 article, “Andrew Jackson, Slavery, and Historians.”
[3] Funeral eulogy for Jackson, 1845, quoted in Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. (New York, 1977-1984), 3:530.
