Making (and Remaking) History
Abolitionist alliances, decolonizing Daniel Defoe, where our money went in 2021, and more
February 10, 2022
Abolition
“If you’re trying to have an upright relationship with a person of another race in America, this book has pretty much all the elements you need to learn how to do it.” Linda Hirshman talks with Claire Potter about her brand-new book, The Color of Abolition, and how Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Maria Weston Chapman (known as “the Contessa”) worked together to promote emancipation. (February 9, 2022)
Read an excerpt of The Color Of Abolition: How a Printer, a Prophet, and a Contessa Moved a Nation, which published yesterday with Mariner Books. (February 9, 2022)
Public Seminar is accepting new essays, reviews, and interviews for our online magazine.
Classics Revisited
“It isn’t hard to see why A Journal of the Plague Year has enjoyed renewed attention in recent times. But to invoke it without considering Defoe’s support for British imperialism and the expanding Atlantic slave trade is to make literary history complicit with colonial and racial injustice.” Anna Neill explores our renewed interest in Daniel Defoe’s eighteenth-century account of life in a pandemic. (February 9, 2022)
Money Matters
Kasia Tarczynska looks back on 2021 and finds a year of wasted economic opportunity. “When small businesses were still closing en masse and many were unable to afford even rent, large corporations across the country got billions of dollars in tax breaks and other public support.” (February 8, 2022)
“Intel will receive more than $2 billion from Ohio taxpayers—in the form of a $600 million “onshoring grant” (whatever that means), $691 million in infrastructure, and $650 million over 30 years in income tax breaks. That total doesn’t account for the fact that Intel will pay no property taxes to the city of New Albany, where it will be located, for 30 years.” Pat Garofalo tracks the escalating bidding wars between states eager to host semiconductor plants. (February 7, 2022)
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The Unicode Consortium recently rolled out dozens of new emoji, including a pregnant man, a melting face, and multiple family configurations. The Past Present reviews the history and politics of those ubiquitous little pictographs.