Person

Timothy Shenk

Bylines

“A Solemn Battle Between Good and Evil.” Charles Sumner’s Radical, Compelling Message of Abolition

The senator from Massachusetts and the birth of the Republican Party.

by Timothy Shenk via Literary Hub on October 24, 2022
How to Tell the History of the Democrats

What connection does the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson have to the party of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris?

by Michael Kazin, Timothy Shenk via Dissent on April 25, 2022
The Struggle for the Soul of the GOP

Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?

by Timothy Shenk via The New Republic on April 12, 2022
The Political Odyssey of Sean Wilentz

How one of America's original Bernie Bros became an outspoken critic of the left.

by Timothy Shenk via The Nation on May 20, 2019
Is Democracy Really Dying?

Why so many commentators share an overly grim view of America’s fate.

by Timothy Shenk via The New Republic on August 20, 2018
Ten Years After the Crash, We Are Still Living in the World It Brutally Remade

A seismic reading of the financial earthquake and its aftershocks, including those that still jolt us today.

by Christopher Caldwell, Malcolm Harris, Frank Rich, Timothy Shenk, Hanna Rosin, Rachael Combe, Sarah Leonard, Lauren Levy, Heather Havrilesky, Allison P. Davis via Intelligencer on August 5, 2018
The Troubled Rise of the Technocrat

The notion that a government’s chief obligation is getting stuff done is a fairly recent arrival on the historical scene.

by Timothy Shenk via The New Republic on November 20, 2017
Booked: The Origins of the Carceral State

Elizabeth Hinton discusses how twentieth-century policymakers anticipated the explosion of the prison population.

by Elizabeth Hinton, Timothy Shenk via Dissent on August 30, 2016
Our Fellow American Revolutionaries

When residents of the U.S. came to see Latin Americans as partners in a shared revolutionary experiment.

by Caitlin Fitz, Timothy Shenk via Dissent on June 30, 2016

Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy

Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics

Viewing 1–5 of 5

Democratic donkey necktie.

The Consultants Who Lost Democrats the Working Class

The rivalry of two men tells the story of how Democrats fumbled with their traditional base—and how they can win again.

by Ben Metzner via The New Republic on October 15, 2024

Political cartoon of Franklin Roosevelt pulling the Democratic Party donkey with Uncle Sam, Congress, and Republicans behind them.

Pitching the Big Tent

The secret, often missing ingredient to building a majoritarian progressive coalition.

by Nicole Hemmer via Democracy Journal on March 22, 2023

Then–Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama in Mitchell, S.D.

What Does It Take to Win?

A new history of American politics examines the past and future of political realignments.

by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on January 24, 2023

A political cartoon representing New Deal programs as children dancing around President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Timothy Shenk’s ‘Realigners’

Since the 18th century, American politics has functioned via coalitions between competing factions. Can alliances survive today’s partisan climate?

by Barton Swaim via The Wall Street Journal on October 7, 2022

Governor George Wallace stands defiant at the University of Alabama.

A View of American History That Leads to One Conclusion

For many historians today, the present is forever trapped in the past and defined by the worst of it.

by George Packer via The Atlantic on March 8, 2023

brought to you by

© Bunk History