Matt Crow

Woo hoo #Declaration #Jefferson #legalhistory #earlyamericanists

A strange Poe novel might be just the right book for today’s weird times - The Boston Globe Two local academics who contributed to a new edition of “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” say the book’s 19th century ideas around race, exploration, and capitalism speak to our own er...

It's your boys @rezekjoe.bsky.social and me in The Boston Globe! In print on Sunday! (We are in a big fight about how to interpret the ending of Poe's novel and the illustration poignantly captures the strain in our friendship.)

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/24/a...

Oh yea we've got tons of evidence for this

My kingdom for commentary that affirms the importance of reading for reading’s sake, grappling with complexity, and rejecting the logic of tech-bro “efficiency” that DOESN’T treat attention as linear or paint diffuse or lateral attention patterns as moral defects.

Jefferson on Race
A Reader
Edited by Annette Gordon-Reed
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford

Copyright © 2026 by Princeton University Press

Opinion | This Is Who’s Really Driving the Decline in Interest in Liberal Arts Education

“The tragedy of the contemporary academy is that even when traditional liberal learning clearly wins with students and donors, it loses with those in power [trustees and administrators].”

John Elphinstone wrote a travelogue/memoir/apologia to blackmail the Russian government. I just edited, annotated and introduced it. Hakluyt Society published it. boydellandbrewer.com/978191693102...

Book cover with various kinds of evidence of family history arrayed around the author and title, the latter is _Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America_. The kinds of materials include printed texts, manuscripts, a red book (shhhhh that figures largely in the Introduction!), a watercolor family record, Fraktur, gravestone, and a sampler. One repeated text says "born free, born free (etc)"

It’s been a long time coming… so thrilled to share the cover (and Oxford UP website last in 🧵) for my book, _Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America_, pub date 7.2.25 (but will ship, so they say very enticingly, mid-June. 1/ #VastEarlyAmerica 🗃️

Canal Dreamers | Jessica M. Lepler | University of North Carolina Press In the 1820s, there was a little-known quest to unite the world by building a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As new Spanish American natio...

The proofs are turned in and the website is up!🎉 📖
"Canal Dreamers" is now available for pre-order with delivery in August (just in time for classes 😉). Use code 01SOCIAL30 at checkout to save 30%! 🗃️
@uncpress.bsky.social #history

uncpress.org/book/9781469...

So exciting to see this in the flesh at SHEAR! Congrats @jlepler.bsky.social!!

Opinion | Students Want the Liberal Arts. Administrators, Not So Much.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/o...

How one celebrates getting their second book approved for contract. #maine #melville

An illustration featuring a leopard shark, bat ray, and the California state marine fish: the garibaldi. They are swimming next to giant kelp and illustrated on a vibrant blue background.

A lil tribute to the kelp forests along the California coast 🌊✨

4th of July, Mystic, CT #melville

Clams

Clam pasta

Clam wood-fired pizza

Chowdah!

The clam. Many consider it only a dangerous denizen of the sea — “man’s weirdest foe.” However, I have wrested them from the mudflat’s maw and created three tasty meals.

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC NEW SERIES Book History for the Future SERIES EDITORS: Lisa Gitelman, New York University, USA Tom Mole, Durham University, UK Sarah Werner, Independent Researcher, USA Book History for the Future aims to define the cutting edge for a new generation of book historians, as book history enters a new chapter of its evolution. Books sit at a densely trafficked intersection of social relations, status negotiations, emotional investments, material possibilities, desires, aspirations, and dreams. They require an intellectual approach grounded in attention to physical artefacts and material conditions while also engaged in theoretical reflection, attentive to historical contexts while attuned to contemporary resonances. This series publishes books that eschew academic parochialism in favour of adventurous engagements with new theoretical developments, innovative methodologies, digital tools, and global contexts.

Exciting news, Bluesky! I’m editing a new book series for Bloomsbury with Tom Mole and Lisa Gitelman: Book History for the Future! Do you focus on material textual artifacts and innovative methodologies? We’re actively soliciting proposals, so give us a shout! www.bloomsbury.com/media/cecjzl...

“The autonomy that the National Archives has until recently enjoyed was by no means foreordained: it emerged only out of political struggle, with far more proximate origins than we may think.” 🗃️

I’m with Justice Jackson here, although it breaks my heart to find a reference to chancery “inapt.” #supremecourt #equity #bartleby

www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/06/zone...

The Crow. Stonington, CT.

The Sea. Groton, CT.

we start printing in History 308 this week thanks to an MC Lang Fellowship with @rarebookschool.bsky.social and the Mellon Foundation #HWSColleges

Georgetown Law To Ed Martin: F All The Way Off - Above the Law It's a good day to be a Hoya.

Georgetown Law School dean gounded his rejection of pressure to alter DEI policies in the Jesuit tradition as well.

abovethelaw.com/2025/03/geor...

Let’s gooooooooo

The bell still rings for me. A very Happy Christmas to all.

Cheers

Truly allyship ⬇️⬇️⬇️🌈🌈🐳🐳😭🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️👏👏

Book cover for Rendered Obsolete: Energy Culture and the Afterlife of U.S. Whaling by Jamie L. Jones. Yellow and black design features a whale, a barrel of oil, and ocean waves

I'm *thrilled* that my book was shortlisted for the MLA Prize for a First Book! Enormous thanks to the committee for honoring RENDERED OBSOLETE, and congratulations to the winners, Adhaar Noor Desai and Miya Qiong Xie!

www.mla.org/Resources/Ca...

As it turns out, Melville didn’t write that, had me off for a bit, but still, I love it

Love it

A thank you from HWSRowing, of sorts. I backed the coach’s launch into a floating log a year ago. That’s the actual propeller stuck in the actual log.