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Tom Zoellner

@tomzoellner.bsky.social

Professor at @ChapmanU, editor-at-large @LAReviewofBooks, PhD in history, author of “The National Road” http://tinyurl.com/y6lrtzal

254 Followers  |  34 Following  |  109 Posts  |  Joined: 17.09.2024
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Posts by Tom Zoellner (@tomzoellner.bsky.social)

Been meaning to send an email. Stay tuned!

07.03.2026 20:39 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

This book is outstanding.

07.03.2026 19:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

This was exactly the approach that made LARB great.

07.03.2026 19:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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RIP to Jesse Jackson. His funeral is today. I wanted to share this clip from his appearance on Sesame Street in 1971. His important words ring just as true today as they did back then.

06.03.2026 19:01 — 👍 8221    🔁 2204    💬 139    📌 126

And she doesn’t split her infinitives!

05.03.2026 17:52 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I done got throwed off that site.

05.03.2026 02:11 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Preview
How Slavery Ended Tom Zoellner on the messy, inspiring story of the ground-level revolt that brought about emancipation.

Honored to have been a guest on the most thoughtful history podcast in digital-land, Richard Kreitner's Think Back. www.thinkbackpod.com/p/how-slaver...

03.03.2026 18:58 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

It is a well-known rule of journalism that the subject of a profile is granted absolute power over the content.

27.02.2026 17:33 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

No one who is at all concerned with the national security of the United States can possibly support Trump. This is simply a hideous betrayal of the country and its future in exchange for a bribe.

25.02.2026 21:25 — 👍 2039    🔁 897    💬 41    📌 16

$1.5T military budget
$170B on ICE & Border Patrol
$100B on tax cuts for the 1%
$20B from Treasury for Argentina
$1B to refurbish Trump's Qatar jet
$500M sending National Guard into cities
$250M on Kristi Noem's jets
$100M+ on Trump's golf outings
$75k for Kash Patel's Olympic trip

Priorities.

25.02.2026 01:32 — 👍 2763    🔁 1153    💬 98    📌 49

Thst is a sub-Constitutional office

21.02.2026 21:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Badly written, too. Full of bromides and generalizations.

16.02.2026 05:25 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Perfect

15.02.2026 03:45 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Trump's dictatorship coup is now fully in the open. Wake up America.

14.02.2026 03:00 — 👍 947    🔁 384    💬 29    📌 17

That misses the point of serving as a landmark.

08.02.2026 03:05 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

This is not the first time you’ve made that reference

07.02.2026 23:44 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Some context… Bezos is killing the Post by choice, not by necessity…

04.02.2026 19:41 — 👍 1470    🔁 564    💬 72    📌 27

Your spirit Muppet here seems to be one of those cranky old codgers up in the opera box.

04.02.2026 16:59 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Kermit wears a raincoat when he covers the news.

04.02.2026 14:51 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Antagonists like to slam @radiofreetom.bsky.social for decrying the fascist characteristics of Trump while refusing to call it such. But they should point out a worse hypocrisy: labeling 1970s music "a horrid stew of disco and wimp-rock hits" in The Atlantic while rocking out to #AT40 in private.

31.01.2026 19:05 — 👍 10    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 1

Good reporting by The D, though.

30.01.2026 05:39 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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The cruelty is big business

30.01.2026 00:23 — 👍 938    🔁 456    💬 37    📌 22

What the Trump Admin is telling you.

-Don't record ICE
-Don't carry a gun around ICE
-Don't ask ICE for a warrant.

So that takes out the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments.

25.01.2026 02:32 — 👍 1007    🔁 372    💬 35    📌 16
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“Freedom is not free. We have to work at it. Nurture it. Protect it. Even sacrifice for it.”

25.01.2026 02:56 — 👍 17814    🔁 7089    💬 419    📌 476

ChapmanU Professor Tom Zoellner (English) published his new book, The Road Was Full of Thorns: Running Toward Freedom in the American Civil War.

thenewpress.org/books/the-roa...

@tomzoellner.bsky.social

20.01.2026 18:01 — 👍 0    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Alan Watts discussing why poets are so often at their best when speaking of change.

18.01.2026 09:28 — 👍 97    🔁 28    💬 2    📌 1
Iconic black-and-white photograph of Mary Oliver, renowned American poet celebrated for her lyrical observations of nature and deep bond with dogs. Seated cross-legged on a plush couch near a bright window, she holds an open hardcover book in her lap, wearing round glasses and a simple dark turtleneck. Her expression is gentle and absorbed as she looks sideways at her fluffy white standard poodle, Percy, who stands poised on a square ottoman or cushion right beside her, ears perked and eyes fixed intently on Oliver in a moment of quiet connection and mutual regard.

Iconic black-and-white photograph of Mary Oliver, renowned American poet celebrated for her lyrical observations of nature and deep bond with dogs. Seated cross-legged on a plush couch near a bright window, she holds an open hardcover book in her lap, wearing round glasses and a simple dark turtleneck. Her expression is gentle and absorbed as she looks sideways at her fluffy white standard poodle, Percy, who stands poised on a square ottoman or cushion right beside her, ears perked and eyes fixed intently on Oliver in a moment of quiet connection and mutual regard.

#OTD in 2019, we lost beloved #poet Mary Oliver.

Her work celebrated the natural world with simple, profound language & a sense of wonder. Perhaps America's best-selling poet, she won the #Pulitzer Prize (1984 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦) & National Book Award (1992 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘴). #booksky #poetry

17.01.2026 15:17 — 👍 110    🔁 23    💬 1    📌 1

@rickperlstein.bsky.social has the scoop on this.

16.01.2026 03:40 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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😕🇺🇸

12.01.2026 03:12 — 👍 1364    🔁 426    💬 78    📌 19
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🔥NYT: “Trump is the Jan. 6th president… It was a turning point toward an even more lawless version of Trump… people who violently attacked Congress & beat officers escaped w/o lasting consequence… Tragically, 🇺🇸 is still living in that political era…” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/o...

02.01.2026 20:38 — 👍 735    🔁 251    💬 22    📌 12