You can help pay for work on this resource -- just use the blue door as a portal to Amazon.com, and anything you buy on this visit will result in 4% contributed to this project.  No cost to you.

Click here for main page of: Tales of the Early Republic, a History Resource or check out: What Was the Cold War? a project just getting started..

Or go through the yellow  door to Early Republic Books, (my "day job").  I can't fill all your needs like Amazon but you might find something while browsing our more specialized selection.

Essays on Broad Subjects

A Collection of Essays on History (esp. of the Early American Republic), Science, Language, Thinking, and Sometimes on Myself, by a half-baked Historian/Philosopher.

(Note: "half-baked", as used here is a technical term, not a term of self abuse.)
 

Social Reform, Instrumental Reason, and "Ends" of History:
Groping for a Usable  Anything in the Sphere of Social Action

Ways of Thinking About History

Microhistory or "master narrative", atomism or organicism, reductionism or holism.  To systemize or not to systemize.

Big Ideas in the History of the Early Republic

An overview of historiography, "history with a purpose", master narratives, and all that.

---

"Southern Honor", Transcendentalism, and Refusal to Be a "Cog in the Machine"

 If you're looking for a short one, this is it.

An Overview of Readings (esp. online) on Jacksonian America

Some day, perhaps, the beginnings of an encyclopedic bibliography for study of the early American republic.  Most, but not all, of the material is from Jacksonian Miscellanies. The section on religion is by far the most complete.

American Self, and the Relevance of History of the Early Republic

Thoughts on Howe, Daniel Walker, Making the American Self (Harvard U. Press, 1997), with a wild digression or two.

The Predictive, the Normative, the Volitional, the Promissory

Ways of saying something about the future, or about possible futures:
• Predictive: The stone which I threw in the air will fall to earth.
• Normative: No one should be a slave. One should not {steal, eat pork, have sex with ones sister/brother}.
• Volitional: I will be a millionaire by the age of 30.
• Promissory: I shall/will return the $1,000 with interest on or before March 1, 1999.

Speech Acts and Self Creation

Every now and then, someone has an exhilarating moment in which they "speak" a new self into existence; they suddenly start doing what they always thought needed to be done, and any sense of inadequacy drops away, e.g. John Brown, in response to the killing of Lovejoy, declaring "I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery." (This is not always a good thing)

Why Write About History, and Particularly that of the Early American Republic?

This is about me and my "life quest" or something like that.

My early Intellectual Influences

The "Life of the Mind" (such as it was) when I was a wee lad.

Rapture of the Deep

Besides the more common "bends", foolish young divers sometimes succumbed to the exotic "Rapture of the Deep", and had to be rescued by veteran diver Lloyd Bridges, on the old weekly TV show "Sea Hunt".  Seems like a good metaphor for an old vice of mine. [this essay is barely begun]

Science and Coherence

The question of whether, or to what extent, science is a "force for good" leads to the exploration of coherence (or integrity) vs. incoherence, as manifested in particular broad conversations (like the study of physics, or American history), in individual psyches, in nations, and who knows what else. In individuals, incoherence or lack of integrity is apt to show up as "self sabotage". If we knew how to maintain individual psychological integrity (an example of lack of same: "wanting" to lose weight and being "unable" to), might there be a general principle there to help us avoid blowing up the planet?

On Making a "Frontal Assault on Knowledge"

No flank attack here; we're looking for a "theory of everything".  What mathematics, psychology, and history have in common.

Rough Beginning of an Autobiography

This piece of writing may serve as a cautionary tale, humorous character sketch, or the trajectory of a soon to be great life. Or it may not serve at all.

Coming Soon:

The Declaration of the Month Syndrome

half-baked Amateur Philosophy, and Is it Oxymoronic to be a Professional "Lover of Philosophy"?