Popular Culture
Swearing Allegiance
Over the last few weeks, I’ve typed the words “swear allegiance” more often than I would have thought possible as I write the stories of the Empress Maud (aka Matilda, Lady of the English), Isabella of Castile, and Tamar of Georgia. In each case, a king forced his nobles to swear allegiance to his daughter…
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How the Wickedest City in the American West Created Frontier Justice In Spite of Itself
Tom Clavin opens Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town in the American West with Masterston stepping off the train in Dodge City, expecting trouble. The scene is tense; Clavin deliberately evokes the images of lawlessness, and violence associated with the city’s name. (Not to mention similar images attached to Masterston himself.)…
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Déjà Vu All Over Again: Grass Roots Organizing And the Abolition of the Slave Trade
The first popular political movement to use the techniques of what we call grass roots organizing was the movement to abolish the slave trade in the eighteenth century. The Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, were the first group to take a public stand against slavery and the slave trade, even though Quakers…
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