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HistoryNovember 15, 2022
The Life and Afterlife of the Paris Commune
It was one of the most radical political experiments in European history. It was also one of Europe’s most tragically short-lived.
David A. Bell
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HistoryMay 2, 2022
What Is Left of History?
Joan Scott’s On the Judgment of History asks us to imagine the past without the idea of progress. But what gets left out in the process?
David A. Bell
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HistoryAugust 23, 2021
Emma Rothschild’s Family Sagas and Microhistories
Can one tell the story of a country through one family?
David A. Bell
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HistoryApril 6, 2021
Are We Living in an Age of Strongmen?
A new book by Ruth Ben-Ghiat discusses the past and present challenges posed by authoritarianism, but misses the social and economic conditions in which it arises.
David A. Bell
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June 12, 2019
Adam Gopnik and the Cul-de-sac of 21st-Century Liberalism
In his new book, the New Yorker writer sets out to defend liberalism from its critics, but only ends up revealing its current limitations.
David A. Bell
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HistoryJanuary 24, 2019
Where Does Truth Fit into Democracy?
In modern democracies, who gets to determine what counts as truth—an elite of experts or the people as a whole?
David A. Bell
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December 13, 2018
For Emmanuel Macron, How Did Things Get So Bad, So Fast?
The fault lies with both the French president himself and the political and cultural elite that formed him.
David A. Bell
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August 29, 2018
The Afterlives of Charles de Gaulle
A new biography claims his vision was a stabilizing synthesis of France’s monarchical and republican political traditions. But was it?
David A. Bell
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March 7, 2018
Waiting for Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment
The genre that Pinker’s latest book most closely resembles is not 18th-century philosophie but a TED Talk.
David A. Bell
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January 25, 2018
What Causes Some Cities to Become Sites of Revolution?
To understand the American and French revolutions, one must look not simply at their origins in the wider world but also at how particular environments could become crucibles of intense and rapid political change.
David A. Bell