David Silkenat

Boundless South Series Editors: Karen L. Cox, University of North Carolina, Charlotte & Françoise N. Hamlin, Brown University  The Boundless South series publishes books that are regional, readable, an...

A series on southern history from @uncpress.bsky.social, co-edited by @drkarenlcox.bsky.social. 🗃️

uncpress.org/series/bound...

Tolkien is not perfect but he did, in fact, hate the fucking Nazis.

This is exactly the same argument — and, in parts, even the same language — that segregationists advanced to argue that white people had a “right” not to live next to people who were different from them.

Lots of you have been asking for the syllabus for the lecture course -- "America at 250" -- that I'm teaching with David Blight and Beverly Gage.

Here you go:
president.yale.edu/sites/defaul...

Book stack of Opium Slavery on a table with curtains as a backdrop.

It’s officially pub day for Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America‘s First Opioid Crisis! Available at a bookshop near you. Thanks to everyone who made it possible to bring this research to life! 🗃️ @uncpress.bsky.social uncpress.org/978146968953...

Pentagon to use $130 million donation from anonymous Trump ‘friend’ to pay military members | CNN Politics The Trump administration plans to funnel a $130 million donation from an anonymous ally of President Donald Trump toward paying military service members during the government shutdown, the Defense Dep...

Nobody makes a $130 million donation without expecting something in return. www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/p...

Get in, nerds. The records of Truman's Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion (1949-1952) have been digitized.
www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/fede...

Jefferson's White House Upgrades Thomas Jefferson gave orders for the demolition of the outdoor wooden privy and had two water closets installed upstairs, one on each end of the house. He also had a...

Jefferson ordered the demolition of the outdoor privies at the White House. Checkmate, libs!
www.whitehousehistory.org/jeffersons-w...

Stack of 5 copies of the November 2025 Journal of Southern History on an office desk, with a toy owl in the background.

✍️We're excited that the November 2025 JSH will soon be out in the world. It features a special forum on teaching about the South, in the South and beyond. The issue will also be free-to-read on Project Muse. So, SHA members check your mailboxes, and watch this space.✍️

thesha.org/contents

Everything is terrible but BIG NEWS:

My new author website is live! megankatenelson.com

Read more about me, my books, upcoming events, and
pre-order "The Westerners"!

John Adams, upon moving into the White House: “I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof."

School recognizes three at 2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner - UNC School of Education The UNC School of Education honored three alumni at its annual Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony held Saturday, Oct. 18, at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center on the campus of […]

Last weekend, the School honored three outstanding alumni at its annual Distinguished Alumni Awards! 🎊 Learn more about this year’s award recipients. unc.live/42TFOGn

The edge of the WH residence and then the construction cranes where the East Wing used to be

Y’all the East Wing of the White House is gone. It’s just… gone.

I wasn’t prepared for how awful it would be to see it

Here's the thing I don't understand. You can't as much as sneeze near a historic site in Washington without like 14 commissions, councils, and advisory boards giving you the okay. And everybody now is like...yup, fine with us? wtf?

I hope the next administration converts the ballroom into a food bank.

Opium Slavery During the Civil War, the utility and widespread availability of opium and morphine made opiates essential to wartime medicine. After the war ended, thousand...

Congratulations to @jonathansjones.bsky.social on the publication of his new book with @uncpress.bsky.social. Just received my copy and it looks fantastic. uncpress.org/978146968953...

Theodore Pomeroy was Speaker for one day.

Shut it down like it’s 1802.

1)You may remember the articles criticizing liberal students for their hesitancy to make friends with conservative students—alleging that they were less open-minded than their conservative counterparts.

Indiana University students and faculty should go on strike over this blatant assault on student journalists’ First Amendment freedoms.

How Eli Whitney Single-handedly Started the Civil War . . . and Why That’s Not True - Commonplace The real Whitney story is less grand than the legend, but more interesting and, ultimately, more edifying.

We know Eli Whitney's story, right? He invented the cotton gin, interchangeable parts, and set the South and North on course for War -- except that didn't actually happen writes Ariel Ron @arielron.bsky.social in an important new Commonplace piece. Check it out:🗃️
commonplace.online/article/how-...

So I guess the Grim Reaper will finally get this guy www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoDY...

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Happy to announce that after my Lillian Smith bio comes out in Sept 2026, a new 10 year anniversary edition of #MasterlessMen - edited down with a new introduction - will debut spring 2027 (@CambridgeUP).

It will also have a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Hahn!!!

The cover of "Empire Ablaze: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class," which features an image of an eighteenth-century building on fire, with small sailing boats visible on a river in the foreground.

In 1776, a Scottish housepainter called James Aitken set out on a secret mission to destroy the British navy and win the War of Independence for the United States. His story is the core of my book, EMPIRE ABLAZE: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class, out next summer with Verso!

How Native Nations Shaped the Revolution The Founders were inspired—and threatened—by the independence and self-governance of nations like the Iroquois Confederacy.

New essay in the Atlantic today: How Native Nations Shaped the Revolution by Ned Blackhawk (with many lessons on how we ended up where we are as a nation, and a gift link) www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Printed copy of Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis held by the author in the background

Look what came in the mail today, @uncpress.bsky.social @simpsonvos.bsky.social @profsommerville.bsky.social! 🗃️

Featuring @whiskeyrebelpod.bsky.social @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social @frankcogliano.bsky.social

Very happy to be included in the new issue of @gliamericanhistory.bsky.social History Now, with @mkn.bsky.social, @catherinemcneur.bsky.social, Keith Pluymers, Lauret Savoy, and Sara Dant www.gilderlehrman.org/history-now/...

Donald Trump Truth Social Post: Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also.

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?