Tag Archives: History Department
It began in Boston
In her new book, Boston College alumna Brooke Barbier tells the story of how Boston radicalized itself against the world’s most powerful empire and helped found the United States of America. Covering the period from 1763 to 1776, Boston in … Continue reading
Book award for alumnus
Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston (New York University Press, 2016) by BC alumnus Jared Ross Hardesty has been named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice, the premier review journal of new academic titles. Hardesty, a faculty member at Western Washington University, also … Continue reading
Best Book Award
Associate Professor of History Ling Zhang‘s book The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048-1128 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) has received the 2017 George Perkins Marsh Prize as the best book on environmental history … Continue reading
International adoptions in America
Although international adoption has become a commonplace practice in the United States, many Americans know very little about how or why it began. On Mar. 1 at noon at the Boisi Center, Associate Professor of History Arissa Oh, author of … Continue reading
Book review by BC prof
Political historian Heather Cox Richardson recently reviewed The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith. LeHand, FDR’s private secretary, is described as a child of Irish immigrants who rose “to … Continue reading
Immigration control has a long history
Historian Hidetaka Hirota, a Boston College alumnus, has published Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (Oxford University Press, December 2016), a groundbreaking work that fundamentally revises the history of American immigration policy. … Continue reading
Nouveau literacy
Associate Professor of History Dana Sajdi was recently interviewed about her book The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford University Press). Her book looks at the life and work of Shihab al-Din Ahmad Ibn Budayr, a … Continue reading
Review for Understanding and Teaching American Slavery
In a review for Education Week, contributor Kate Shuster writes that the new book Understanding and Teaching American Slavery, co-edited by Associate Professor of History Lynn Lyerly and BC alumna Bethany Jay “has the potential to change the way that slavery is taught in … Continue reading
Bill Clinton’s presidency
Professor of History Patrick Maney offers an in-depth perspective on the 42nd president of the United States and the transformative era over which he presided in his new book, Bill Clinton: New Gilded Age President (University Press of Kansas, 2016). Maney examines Bill … Continue reading
How to teach about slavery
How can teachers get students to understand the racist underpinnings of slavery—and to acknowledge its legacies in contemporary America? Understanding and Teaching American Slavery (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), co-edited by Associate Professor of History Cynthia Lynn Lyerly and Bethany Jay … Continue reading