Akim Reinhardt is a professor of History at Towson University in Baltimore. Born and raised in the Bronx, he has also lived in Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona. He is the author of several books with more in the hopper. Email: yankeeslim [at] gmail.com
Website: https://ThePublicProfessor.com
by Akim Reinhardt Black Pete. Good Lord, what a head shaker that is. Most anyone who's not Dutch looks at Black Pete and thinks to themselves: For real? You've got Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, working his Christmas season magic accompanied by an army of little Jumpin' Jim Crows? Diminutive, black face helpers…
by Akim Reinhardt In the recent Virginia gubernatorial election, Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis received over 6% the vote. If he had not run, much of his support would likely have gone to Republican Ken Cuccinelli rather than Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who won by a narrow 2.5% margin. Last year's U.S. Senate race in Montana also…
by Akim Reinhardt In part I of this essay, I offered a broad re-definition of the term “Dark Ages,” using it to describe any historical period when dogma becomes ascendant and flattens people's perceptions of humanity's very real complexities. From there, I discussed how the conventional Dark Ages, marked by religious dogma's domination medieval Europe,…
by Akim Reinhardt European Historians have long eschewed the term “Dark Ages.” Few of them still use it, and many of them shiver when they encounter it in popular culture. Scholars rightly point out that the term, popularly understood as connoting a time of death, ignorance, stasis, and low quality of life, is prejudiced and…
by Akim Reinhardt I. A Sneeze for All SeasonsII. God Bless YouIII. The Poetry of SneezingIV. Sneeze vs. Cough Sternuisso ergo sum. I sneeze, therefore I am. It defines me. It is at the core of my very existence. It is hell on Earth. I. A Sneeze for All Seasons Most people associate sneezing with…
by Akim Reinhardt I belong to a credit union. It's been fifteen years since I kept my money in a for-profit bank. Nearly one-third of Americans also belong to credit unions, and for most of us, the reason is obvious: for-profit banks suck. They nickle-and-dime you to death, looking for any excuse to charge fees.…
by Akim Reinhardt We should all probably be a lot smarter by now. The internet, more or less as we know it, has been around for about fifteen years. So if this magical storehouse of instantly accessible information were going to be our entrepôt to brilliance, we should all be twinkling like little stars. You…
by Akim Reinhardt Let me be clear from the start. This article is not about Ann Coulter's politics, which I find to be dogmatic, bigoted, and intellectually dishonest. I've already written about that elsewhere. Rather, politics aside, the goal here is to consider her humor and try to understand why it fails. To figure out…
by Akim Reinhardt The Ottoman Empire, which emerged during the beginning of the 14th century, reached its zenith some 250 years later under its 10th Sultan, Suleiman the Law Giver. By that point, the empire held sway over more than 2 million square miles spread across parts of three continents, from Hungary in the west…
by Akim Reinhardt On November 5, 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan opened fire on soldiers and civilians alike at the Fort Hood military base in Killeen, Texas. He killed thirteen people, including a pregnant woman, and wounded thirty-two more. Hasan is now awaiting a military trial that is scheduled to begin on April 16.…
by Akim Reinhardt Less than an hour apart, similar in size and population, and connected by I-95 and a tangled overgrowth of suburbs, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. are very much alike. The mid-Atlantic's kissin' cousins share everything from beautiful row home architecture to a painful history of Jim Crow segregation. But the wealthier parts of…
by Akim Reinhardt Earlier this week, the United States Post Office announced that come August, it would be suspending regular home delivery service of the mails on Saturdays, except for package service. The USPS is In financial straits, and the budget-cutting move will save about $2 Billion in its first year, putting a dent in…
by Akim Reinhardt To study American history is to chart the paradox of e pluribus unum. From the outset, it is a story of conflict and compromise, of disparate and increasingly antagonistic regions that somehow formed the wealthiest and most powerful empire in human history. For even as North and South grew further apart, their…
by Akim Reinhardt I have very fond memories from the 1990s of listening to a friend’s Gujarati Indian immigrant family butcher Christmas carols. It was an annual Christmas Eve tradition for these religious Hindus. Each year, with women on one side of the room and men on the other, the genders separated by the large,…
by Akim Reinhardt There is scientific evidence indicating that Asiatic peoples migrated from Siberia to America many millennia ago via a land bridge that was submerged by the Bering Sea after the Ice Age ended, or by island hopping the Pacific cordillera in coastal water craft. But when I teach American Indian history, I don’t…
by Akim Reinhardt I’ve never voted for a major party presidential candidate. In 1988, the first time I was old enough to cast a ballot, I declined. Just shy of my 21st birthday, I was an angry young man living in a Midwestern college town. I was cynical. I was determined not to be anyone’s…
by Akim Reinhardt Historian Francis Jennings (1918-2000) didn’t take the fast track to academic fame. His first career was teaching high school English and Social Studies. After serving in World War II, he returned to the classroom and also became president of his union. Soon thereafter, he became a victim of the Red SCare; the…
by Akim Reinhardt As the Republican Party begins its national convention today in Florida, I offer this brief history of political conventions and examine their relevance to modern American politics. The generation of political leaders who initiated and executed the American Revolution and founded a new nation, believed in the concept of republican virtue. That…
by Akim Reinhardt I had come to suspect that Hillary Clinton was betraying us. That she was in fact a foreign agent, in service of a rival power. And those poor fools who think Barack Obama was born in Kenya? It’s a red herring! Why couldn’t they see that? Clinton herself was probably behind it,…
by Akim Reinhardt Last week, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stunned much of America. Normally associated with the court’s Conservative bloc, he jumped ship and cast the deciding vote in the 5-4 case of Florida v. Department of Health. His support allow the court to uphold the constitutionality of the individual mandate portion…