Jim Downs
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Author of Maladies of Empire & Sick from Freedom; GilderLehrman NEH Prof at Gettysburg Coll; Editor of Civil War History; www.jimdownsofficial.com/
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Articles by Jim Downs
On the Public Historians Reminding Us How Easy It Is to Repeat the Mistakes of the Past
A recent essay in The New Republic asks why historians have become such visible public voices during the Trump era. Katherine Kelaidis argues that figures such as Heather Cox Richardson, Jill Lepore, Joanne Freeman, Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Kevin Kruse have become a new class of liberal public intellectuals, translating the past into political commentary. She identifies a real phenomenon. Historians have become more visible in American public life than they have been in decades.
Slavery was central to the presidency, and the President’s House |Opinion
Last Thursday, the National Park Service removed a series of informational signs about slavery from the President’s House site at Sixth and Market Streets in Old City Philadelphia. Installed when the site opened in 2010, the signs documented the lives of the enslaved people who lived and labored in the home of Presidents George Washington and John Adams.
Opinion | A Sweet, Sexy, Happy Love Story Between Two Men. Revolutionary.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. This article contains spoilers for the Crave/HBO Max series “Heated Rivalry.” “Heated Rivalry” has become a breakout hit.
A Sweet, Sexy, Happy Love Story Between Two Men. Revolutionary.
The "Best Action Trilogy of the 21st Century" Lands New Streaming Home It's rare for an action movie to remain a standalone story. When an action flick does well, the studio usually wants to milk the IP for all it's …
The Horniest Show on TV Actually Has a Weirdly Conservative Message. Don’t Fall for It. Original
Skip to the content Outward Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Heated Rivalry tracks three hypercompetitive National Hockey League players as they pursue secretive same-sex relationships.
Skating in Circles
15 hours ago Northern California is enjoying its Hollywood moment. In 2024, the Leonardo DiCaprio action-comedy “One Battle After Another” filmed in Humboldt County and in Sacramento bars, hotels and grocery stores. Now, as that picture shapes up to be an Oscar frontrunner, another major project is preparing to …
Guest Essay: Let's give children the safe childhood they deserve
As adults, perhaps our biggest responsibility in our lifetime is to protect our children, and the uncertainty of the world today has made that more important now than ever before.
Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine
(Author) FORMAT Paperback$19.95$18.55(English) Buy new or used from an indie through our partner Biblio: Price Condition Seller "Maladies of Empire has a captivating writing style, is exhaustively researched, and is persuasive in argumentation.
Honoring Anarcha
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Honoring Anarcha
(0)eLetters eLetters is a forum for ongoing peer review. eLetters are not edited, proofread, or indexed, but they are screened. eLetters should provide substantive and scholarly commentary on the article. Embedded figures cannot be submitted, and we discourage the use of figures within eLetters in general. If a figure is essential, please include a link to the figure within the text of the eLetter. Please read our Terms of Service before submitting an eLetter. Log In to Submit a Response
Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine
Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London's 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology. Florence Nightingale's contributions to the care of soldiers in the Crimean War transformed hospitals from crucibles of infection to sanctuaries of recuperation. Yet histories of individual innovators ignore many key sources of medical knowledge.
Guest Column: Join the Hockomock Area YMCA for five days of action to prevent child abuse
As adults, perhaps our biggest responsibility in our lifetime is to protect our children, and the uncertainty of the world today has made that more important now than ever before.
The Afterlife of Slavery: On Carole Emberton’s “To Walk About in Freedom”
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Late Breaking: Bridging the Divide between Historians and Journalists
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Choosing a Paper Writing Service
If you’re having trouble with your college application and you don’t find the time to compose yourself, try engaging a paper writing service. They provide writing services of superior quality at reasonable prices. They also offer a variety of additional services like time-sensitive deadlines, as well as protection for privacy. You can be sure that the documents they write will be completely unique.
The Roundup Top Ten for August 19, 2022
; 8/19/2022 Roundup History Exposes the Fraud of Marco Rubio's Populism by Sean Wilentz The Florida senator engaged with an ingnominious tradition of disparaging expertise and knowledge as "elitist" when he condemned a meeting between President Biden and a number of historians, including the author.
Asking Gay Men to Be Careful About Monkeypox Isn’t Homophobia Original
An aspiring dramatist named Emlyn Williams watched the rain fall from his bed in his New York City apartment. He had just turned 22 and had performed in a play the night before, but—as he recalled years later in his autobiography—“the feeling of being alone darkened into loneliness.” Then a thought darted across his mind. Unlike in London, where he had spent time after graduating from Oxford, there was a place for him to go in New York City: the Everard Baths.
Review of: Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine, by Jim Downs
Review of: Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine, by Jim Downs Review of: Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine,
Gay Men Need a Specific Warning About Monkeypox
A disproportionate number of cases in the recent monkeypox outbreak have shown up among gay and bisexual men. And as public-health authorities investigate possible links to sexual or other close physical contact at a Pride event in the Canary Islands, a sauna in Madrid, and other gay venues in Europe, government officials are trying hard not to single out a group that endured terrible stigma at the height of America’s AIDS crisis.
Without context, COVID tallies are misleading, by Jim Downs
Without context, COVID tallies are misleading, by Jim Downs Since the start of the pandemic, public health authorities have been fastidiously counting the number of people infected with the coronavirus.
DOWNS: Without context, COVID tallies are misleading
Since the start of the pandemic, public health authorities have been fastidiously counting the number of people infected with the coronavirus.
The Roundup Top Ten for December 23, 2021
HNN DONATION DRIVE 2021 This is our last Roundup Top Ten of 2021. All year we've been selecting the best opinion, long-form, and "thinkpiece" writing by historians (and some other scholars too) from around the web each week. Our Roundup features the best of established and emerging voices in the profession, and is a vital part of the service we provide our community of readers to offer historical perspective on the news.
Without context, COVID tallies are misleading
Updated December 22, 2021 12:00 PM Since the start of the pandemic, public health authorities have been fastidiously counting the number of people infected with the coronavirus.
10 important books to read on the HIV/AIDS crisis
Culture From moving memoirs to powerful autobiographical storytelling, we’ve included a comprehensive list of recommendations for readers to delve into HIV/AIDS history. WORDS BY ZOYA RAZA-SHEIKH 1st December 2021 The HIV/AIDS crisis disproportionately affected the LGBTQ+ community, yet the history behind the epidemic is not commonly taught. For many of us, this can be a whole new era to understand and learn about.
Right-Wing Donor Interference at Yale?
At The New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler reports that Beverly Gage, director of the Grand Strategy program at Yale, has resigned from that position over what she felt was meddling from the administration. The short version is this: When two donors, Nicholas F. Brady and Charles B.
Queer History Should Focus on Queer People
In 1972, a group of New York lesbians turned their Upper West Side apartment into the first-ever lesbian archive. They collected photographs, T-shirts, buttons, candlesticks, and letters; stuffed them into shopping bags; and went to teach in lesbian bars and homes. These women later founded what would become known as the Lesbian Herstory Archives, one of the few repositories in the world committed to the documentation of a queer past. We’re sorry. Something went wrong.
Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine
Price: $29.95 In stock Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine quantity Overview Standard histories of infectious disease celebrate brilliant minds such as Florence Nightingale, John Snow, and Robert Koch. In this unorthodox telling, Jim Downs focuses on a forgotten group of contributors: the conscript soldiers, colonial subjects, and enslaved people whose bodies were the experimental matter on which medical progress relied.
Jim Downs - HBS Channel - Harvard Book Store
September 13, 2021 Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes JIM DOWNS—the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College—for a discussion of his latest book, Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. He will be joined in conversation by SVEN BECKERT, acclaimed author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History. Details Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes.
Virtual Event: Jim Downs
presenting Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine in conversation with SVEN BECKERT Date Sep 13 Monday September 13, 2021 7:00 PM ET Location Join our online event (or pre-register) via the link in the event description.
Journals of Plague Years | Jim Downs
We don’t know the name of the laundress who washed the dirty linen of travelers quarantined on the Mediterranean island of Malta in the 1830s—travelers who had arrived by ship from plague-ridden cities like Alexandria. We do know that she lived in Valletta, the capital of British-controlled Malta, probably near the gardens that overlooked the harbor.
How Transatlantic Slave Trade Shaped Epidemiology Today
September 2, 2021 4:20 PM EDT Since the outbreak of COVID-19, many have been frustrated by the ways in which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) keeps changing its rules and response to the pandemic. What most don’t understand is that the field of epidemiology is always like that. Protocols about how to control an epidemic mostly develop in the middle of crises.
Rediscovering Eve Adams, the Radical Lesbian Activist
In 1925, Eve Adams, a Polish-Jewish émigré who had spent the past four years travelling across the United States selling leftist radical literature, opened a tearoom in Greenwich Village. Eve’s Hangout, as it was sometimes known, was situated in the basement of 129 MacDougal Street. The small, sparingly lit cellar quickly became a destination among the city’s bohemian contingents—artists, poets, activists, gay men, and lesbians.
Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in North America
Connexions Histories of Race and Sex in North America New ways of viewing the tableau of history Connexions investigates the ways in which race and sex intersect, overlap, and inform each other in United States history. An expert team of editors curates thought-provoking articles that explore how to view the American past through the lens of race and sexuality studies.
Pandemics End When We Stop Caring About Their Victims
In the years after the Civil War, smallpox spread throughout the South, mainly infecting Black people. The story of an outbreak of a disease long since eradicated may seem remote from our own times. But the smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics end. Terms such as pandemic and epidemic are biomedical explanations designed to define suffering and inordinate mortality, but they also have a narrative element embedded within them.
Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine
Description Reviews About the Author More Details Description A sweeping global history that looks beyond European urban centers to show how slavery, colonialism, and war propelled the development of modern medicine. Most stories of medical progress come with ready-made heroes. John Snow traced the origins of London's 1854 cholera outbreak to a water pump, leading to the birth of epidemiology.
Sick from Freedom
Bondspeople who fled from slavery during and after the Civil War did not expect that their flight toward freedom would lead to sickness, disease, suffering, and death. But the war produced the largest biological crisis of the nineteenth century, and this book reveals, it had deadly consequences for hundreds of thousands of freed people.
The Gay Marriages of a Nineteenth-Century Prison Ship
In 1842, a court in Lancaster, England, convicted a young lawyer, George Baxter Grundy, of forging payment, and promptly sent him to serve a fifteen-year sentence in Bermuda, “beyond the seas.” The British Empire was expanding rapidly and was in desperate need of labor; by the time Grundy arrived, thousands of prisoners had been sent to the island to fortify British defenses in North America, hauling and cutting limestone to support military operations.
Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections
"Following the model of the first book in the "History in the Headlines (HiH) series (Catherine Clinton's Confederate Statues and Memorialization), Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections offers an enlightening, history-informed conversation about voter disenfranchisement in the United States.
Where You Can Donate & What You Can Read To Kick Off Pride Month
Physical pride parades may be canceled this month due to COVID-19 safety precautions, but there are plenty of ways you can support the LGBTQ+ community, give back, and even participate in events. You can first start by checking out these remote Pride events you can attend all month long from your living room. After you’re done adding these to your Google calendar, let’s move on to the next point, because it’s a really crucial one.
The Epidemics America Got Wrong
Government inaction or delay have shaped the course of many infectious disease outbreaks in our country. March 22, 2020 By late March 1863, hundreds had died in Alexandria, Virginia. The mortality rate had almost doubled in just one night, and even quadrupled in other parts of the country. Three thousand people were dead in less than a month in North and South Carolina. The numbers in Louisiana, Georgia, and parts of Mississippi were equally as high.
Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop
History Craig Rodwell, an active member of the Mattachine Society of New York, suggested that Mattachine open a bookstore that would also have offices and space for community meetings. When Mattachine rejected this idea, Rodwell decided to do it himself, despite the fact that he had no experience running a bookstore. At the age of 26, Rodwell rented a very public storefront on Mercer Street near Waverly Place.
Roundup Top 10!
by Nick Alexnadrov We misread the past each November, when we consider our country’s earliest phase. We like to think tolerance, a love of liberty and a democratic impulse motivated English colonists. But history tells a different story.
In Defense of Harold Bloom?
Jim Downs is an assistant professor of History and American Studies at Connecticut College. His books include Taking Back the AcademyandWhy We Write. His forthcoming book, Sick from Freedom: The Deadly Consequences of the American Civil War, will be published by Oxford University Press. He also has a blog on the Huffington Post.
Think Pete Buttigieg Is “Robotic” or “Fake”? You Need to Understand the Gay Archetype He Represents.
Life Buttigieg is getting slammed for being a type of gay man America doesn’t understand. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg participates in the Black Economic Alliance Forum at Charleston Music Hall on June 15 in Charleston, South Carolina. Sean Rayford/Getty Images Podcast Episode Who Owns Queer Aesthetics?
How Craig Rodwell's Bookshop Created Stonewall
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series about the gay-rights movement and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. On July 4, 1965—four years before Stonewall—39 activists from D.C., New York, and Philadelphia marched on the place where the Declaration of Independence had been signed roughly two centuries earlier. They wanted to remind the nation that their rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” had been denied.
Writing Gay History
By the mid 1960s, the tides had begun to change in how scholars told the history of slavery. For generations, historians propagated the narrative that slavery benefited people of African descent because they were innately indolent, inferior, and in need of white supervision. Beginning in the 1940s, scholars began to challenge that view by uncovering accounts of slave revolts as well as compelling evidence of everyday acts of resistance and defiance.
Writing Gay History
Digital Feature How the story itself came out. Published on June 27, 2019 By the mid 1960s, the tides had begun to change in how scholars told the history of slavery. For generations, historians propagated the narrative that slavery benefited people of African descent because they were innately indolent, inferior, and in need of white supervision.
An American Revolution
The Stonewall uprising, 50 years later.
Uncovering a Queer Renaissance, Fifty Years Later
Alma Routsong was browsing through a folk art exhibit on a tour of upstate New York when she discovered a captivating image of a mermaid. When she got closer to this picture, she read the placard. It stated that the artist, Mary Ann Willson, lived and worked with her “farmerette” in Greenville Town, Greene County, New York, circa 1820.
Trump protests have reinvigorated the American radical tradition.
Hundreds of protestors rallying against Donald Trump gather outside of Trump Tower on Nov. 9 in New York City. Drew Angerer/Getty Images In the shadow of Trump Tower, protesters carried signs that read, “Gay Rights are Human Rights” and “This is the Best Protest, No Protest Has Ever Been Better,” (a sarcastic reversal of Trump’s signature superlatives). From among the throng, a young Asian woman, no more than 24 years old, no taller than 5 feet, pushes by me to photograph the protest.
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