Contributing editor Julia Frankenbach considers the importance of early western American literature for academic historians and for a politically engaged American public. In this moment of political confusion, facts begin to ring hollow. The broader truths and guiding ethics in the writings of our western American forebears may help as we seek the way forward.…
Following last week’s post on the plausibility of The Man in the High Castle, Erstwhile editor Graeme Pente and friend of the blog Travis R. May (Ph.D. student, CU-Boulder) investigate the history of stories with alternate timelines and suggest reasons we tell them. “The only way to view the truth of life is to stand apart from…
Erstwhile editor Graeme Pente compares present visions of consumption to late-nineteenth-century predictions for the future and suggests troubling similarities. Early last week, online retail giant Amazon.com, Inc. released an advertisement for its projected Amazon Prime Air—“a future delivery system from Amazon designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using small unmanned aerial…
Erstwhile: A History Blog 