Category: Uncategorized

Racism is not merely the problem of the twentieth century.  It is also the solution of the modern age.  Russell Wilson, quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, had to negotiate the question last month as tensions in the team’s locker room grew during an uneven start to their season.  Percy Harvin, a star wide receiver, had…

November 4 is coming.  The voters’ decisions about the state legislatures and Congress will determine the immediate future of the United States.  Governor Tom Corbett hasgoverned to undermine the great cities and towns across the commonwealth in ways that have sabotaged new business creation, disrupted a cohesive educational agenda, and threatened public health and safety…

The Age of Global Crisis Dr. Walter Greason Norristown Times Herald 14 October 2014   From October 9 to 12, the University of Pennsylvania hosted the Urban History Association’s conference on “metropolitics” – the study of cities and their surrounding suburbs over the last five centuries.  Hundreds of scholars from countries around the world gathered to…

Virtual Labor Dr. Walter Greason Norristown Times Herald 7 October 2014 During the Great Depression, celebrated writer W.H. Auden wrote an essay reflecting on the changing nature of human activity during Industrialization.  He identified two types of activity that had shaped earlier generations – labor and play.  Labor was the drudgery of a daily occupation,…

The core narrative about American slavery has received its largest challenge in three generations over the last decade.  The work of scholars between 1950 and 1980 forced new bodies of evidence and new standards of analysis into a debate that largely relied on the explicit hatred of Africans and their descendants for the previous century. …

Engineering Enterprise Dr. Walter Greason Norristown Times Herald 30 September 2014 Ben Franklin was not just a funny, fat guy.  No, he wasn’t just a guy standing out in a thunderstorm.  Without Franklin, there is no United States.  He literally built the ideas and institutions that made the next century of national growth possible.  In 1748, he wrote a…

You’re Doing It All Wrong: Wealth in American History Dr. Walter Greason 30 September 2014 Are you tired of being broke?  Is it frustrating to walk around your community and see struggling small businesses, not mention hundreds of other families desperately trying to make rent and pay mortgages every month?  Stop.  Stop now.  Your daily behavior feeds the cycles…

Don’t lament the youth.  Millions of young adults around the world are helping to save lives every day.  Martina Harris of American History High School in New Jersey is just one of these superstars.  This past summer, she won the Miss Africa – New Jersey pageant.  Miss Africa is an organization dedicated to women’s empowerment across the African diaspora.  The…

Defining Democracy Dr. Walter Greason Norristown Times Herald 17 September 2014 Memory is a tricky thing.  In an era where every news cycle is filled with meaningless detail, the process of remembering holds a special importance.  In 2001, an unqualified neophyte in the Oval Office allowed the worst terrorist strike in American history, crippling the most important…

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger offered a bleak assessment of the emerging world system in the twenty-first century last week.  In his view, the prevailing order of the twentieth century was collapsing as the United States and its European allies struggled to adapt to crises in Eastern Europe, western Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.  His column reminded…