Millions of Americans have watched the reality show franchises Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Hoarders . The most recent issue of the journal Postmodern Culture features " Extreme Hoards: Race, Reality Television & Real Estate Value During the 2008 Financial Crisis " by Whittier College...Read more

The long and winding road celebrated in song by the Beatles can lead you to the door of an academic press, but sometimes authors lacking a Ph.D. or an academic position can find the process of getting a book into print makes them feel like a real nowhere man. My academic press journey came together...Read more

I originally intended to write a book on the 1840 presidential campaign, often hailed as the first modern election. As I researched, however, it became clear that 1840 marked the culmination, not the beginning, of a set of election practices that we can recognize in modern-day campaigns. The Coming...Read more

How is it possible to say something fresh about cowboys and cattle trails? This is a story that has been scrutinized by historians, hyped by novelists, and mythologized beyond recognition by filmmakers. Is this subject done and dusted? Taking the time to read a few original accounts of those trail...Read more

Here is a strange confession for someone who has been for most of the past forty years a historian of the early American republic: I have been fascinated by Theodore Roosevelt and his times since the age of fifteen. That year, as a tenth grader, I happened to find in my parents’ collection a book...Read more

As a graduate student in early American literature, I came across a mystery on the title pages of several hymnals from the US’s first decades. Many of these books shared a similar idea in their subtitles, variants of “for the use of religious assemblies and private Christians.” How did that work, I...Read more

Many people have asked me why I wrote the book and why I chose the title, The American Lab . Much of the motivation arose out of the events associated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s 50 th anniversary in 2002, the last major event that I organized as Director of the Laboratory...Read more

Most journalists believe in their heart that they “have a book in them.” Too often, however, events and circumstance prevent most reporters from digging into that compelling story. Reporting assignments pile up. Your editor says, “Leave of absence? Are you joking?” The entire media industry...Read more

Although “Franken” has in the cultural zeitgeist become a watchword for the power of science to destroy humanity, Mary Shelley had a far more open view of science. Don’t mistake the messenger, Victor, for the message. In fact, in her day, “science” had a lower status than the arts, and hardly...Read more