by Bob Schoone-Jongen. Fernand Braudel sits high on my list of historian heroes. While I don’t assign his works to my classes, I make sure to mention him in every class I teach. His idea that history proceeds along three tracks appeals both to the historian and the railroad fan in me. I find the …
Continue reading Trump and Clinton, Sanders and Cruz—They Actually Rhyme
by Eric M. Washington. Washington may be the most important name in the United States of America. It is the name of the capital city, the 42nd state, and thirty counties (including Washington Parish, Louisiana) and fifty one cities, towns, villages, and unincorporated communities with Washington somewhere in their names. All of these names are …
Continue reading The Irony of the “Blackest Name in America”
by Will Katerberg. The liberal arts and their fate are a central issue in higher education today. Pundits and politicians, and some parents, students, and graduates, are questioning the value of a university degree, some of them saying that students and taxpayers should not waste money on “useless” areas of study. Students seem to be …
Continue reading The Liberal Arts—Present, Past, and Future
by Jim Bratt. This post originally appeared in The Twelve: Reformed Done Daily on January 15, 2016. Although Martin Luther King’s birthday was actually yesterday, the United States will mark the occasion next Monday. Once more we’ll hear the familiar quotations rehearsed in respectful tones. We’ll see footage from the “I have a dream!” speech on the …
Continue reading Let Us Now Quote Famous Men
In the days after the terrible news of attacks in Paris and Beirut, members of the history department looked at each other and asked "What can we do?" As we are inundated with stories of terror, violence, and hatred around the world, we struggle as individuals and as communities with how to respond. As historians, …
Continue reading ISIS, Terrorism and Refugees: A Teach In
Happy new year from the Calvin College History Department! We started this blog two years ago, in January 2014. In our second year of Historical Horizons, we've focused more frequently on current events, both on campus, in our nation, and around the world. Many of our most popular posts were those offering a historical perspective on …
Continue reading Historical Horizons: 2015 in Blog Posts
Historical Horizons 