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Brian DeLay

@briandelay.bsky.social
3.2K followers 949 following 193 posts

Berkeley Historian. Author of War of a Thousand Deserts. For Norton, finishing Aim at Empire: An international History of American Revolutions, through the Barrel of a Gun. Also 2nd Amendment cases. Birds, too. history.berkeley.edu/brian-delay

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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 4h
So, so happy to see Ariel Ron and Liz Ellis honored and empowered this way. (For the record, I knew they were geniuses before the MacArthur Foundation figured it out)
macfound.org
MacArthur Fellows - MacArthur Foundation
The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, we work to ...
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
In 2015, my brilliant @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social colleague Stuart Russell issued a call in Nature imploring AI researchers and scientific societies to take a stand on the peril of autonomous weapons.
nature.com
Robotics: Ethics of artificial intelligence - Nature
Four leading researchers share their concerns and solutions for reducing societal risks from intelligent machines.
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David Fedman @dfeds.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
My department is hiring an assistant professor of (post-1945) Korean history. Come work with me! recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF10290 Please don't hesitate to reach out with questions about the position. And I'd be ever so grateful if you could spread the word to potentially interested parties.
recruit.ap.uci.edu
Assistant Professor of Korean History (post-1945)
University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Berkeley History is hiring: The Mediterranean and its Hinterlands, 500-1500 CE. Our third search this year (!). Please help us spread the word aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05501
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant or Associate Professor – Mediterranean and its Hinterlands, 500-1500 CE - Department of History
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Berkeley is hiring in Modern European Intellectual History - please help us spread the word 🙏
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor – Modern European Intellectual History - Department of History
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
My friend (&, believe it or not, former student) Garret Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social has been an indispensable voice in this epoch of cruelty, stupidity, national humiliation, sabotage, & generational vandalism. Somehow he's also found time to write a hopeful book about our past & (maybe) future 🙏
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Berkeley History is hiring in African History. Please help us spread the word😎 aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05494?app...
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
Assistant Professor – African History - Department of History
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
A few years ago, in a seminar on American Revolutions, my students wondered why anyone in the 19th c. wanted constitutional monarchy. I asked them whether anyone could possibly fill that role today in our divided country. Secret ballot. Three of us came up with the same name. RIP Queen Dolly.
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enslavedtexas.bsky.social @enslavedtexas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Working hard creating an interactive map of Texas that visualizes the forced migration of enslaved people into Texas from 1800 to 1865. Check us out at enslavedtexas.org We are about halfway in this initial stage, so visit us often for updates! debbie@enslavedtexas.org
enslavedtexas.org
Enslaved Texas
Visualizing the forced migration of ~48,000 enslaved people into Texas (1800-1870) based on Freedmen's voter registration records.
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Jake Charles @jacobdcharles.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Permit less carry rapidly spread over the last decade and a half. Because of its recency, there’s been little systemic research on its effects. This new paper finds that it makes society meaningfully worse off.
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Jonathan Gienapp @jgienapp.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
The issue is out! Once it’s available online (it’ll be open access for thirty days!), I’ll post about the forum on the Dickinson documents discovery that I was so excited to help organize.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 08/07/2026
Breaking News: The nation’s largest group of scholars of U.S. history denounced a White House report attacking the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
nyti.ms
Historians Reject Trump Administration’s Criticism of Smithsonian Museum
The nation’s largest group of scholars of U.S. history denounced a White House report attacking the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
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Mark Anthony Frassetto @mark-frassetto.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I recently wrote an article for the Alabama Law Review in which I argue that in the 18th and 19th century mass violence was generally not committed by individuals, but instead by armed groups who collectively would commit horrific acts of mass violence. law.ua.edu/wp-content/u...
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Andrew Weinstein @andrewjweinstein.com · 30/06/2026
The real headline from the birthright‑citizenship case isn’t the outcome. It’s that four Supreme Court justices signaled they believe a president can effectively rewrite the Constitution through executive order.
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Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Please read and share widely this first ever interview between two writers with non-speaking autism. (One is my son, the other is his good friend Woody Brown, a Columbia MFA and the author of the best-selling UPWARD BOUND.) lareviewofbooks.org/article/wood...
lareviewofbooks.org
Nonspeakers Speaking Out | Los Angeles Review of Books
Woody Brown discusses his debut novel and the challenges those with nonspeaking autism face today.
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Catherine Fletcher @catherinefletcher.info · 22/06/2026
Lovely to see this review of The Firearm Revolution in the WSJ
wsj.com
‘The Firearm Revolution’ Review: Shots Heard Around the World
On 16th-century battlefields, formidable mounted cavalry were overwhelmed by a military innovation: lines of foot soldiers armed with long-barreled guns.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
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Jack Rakove @jrakove.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
His first book was fundamental to everything I have done since I started grad school--indeed the first thing Bud Bailyn had me do in his grad seminar in the fall of 1969 was to go to the Widener archives to read his dissertation. Fortunately I was too young to grasp what a profound project it was.
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
A giant. Gordon Wood spent decades arguing productively & provoking productive argument in response. If you haven't read him yet, "Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality & Deceit in the Eighteenth Century" is a marvelous place to start: www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1... RIP
jstor.org
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
My friend & colleague Francisco Barbosa died too young. Thanks to the tireless Erika Blum, Francisco's wonderful book is finally being published. INSURGENT YOUTH is an inspired history of the young people who powered the Nicaraguan Revolution. 40% discount code: BARB26. #@lasabluesky.bsky.social
upcolorado.com
Insurgent Youth
Insurgent Youth
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Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 23/05/2026
THREAD 🧵 An Al Jazeera investigation has found that military goods from at least 51 countries were sent to Israel, even after the ICJ warned in January 2024 of a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and ordered states to help prevent it. 🔗: aje.news/2f90pn | #Infograph
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
UC Berkeley Law creates new AI policy that bans AI for "conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit" or exams because "thinking remains the sine qua non of good lawyering (and of a quality legal education)." That's what I'm talking about.
Rule:
The use of AI is prohibited for aid in conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising,
translating, or editing any work submitted for credit. AI use is prohibited for any use for
any purpose in any exam situation. Students may not upload course
materials—including assignments, readings, slides, class recordings, or other class
content—into generative AI systems. AI can be used for research on papers ONLY for the
limited purpose of identifying sources, such as cases, statutes, or secondary sources.
Students are responsible for the accuracy of their research and all other aspects of their
submitted work. Citations to sources that do not exist will raise a presumption of
prohibited AI use
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
So excited to see FREEDOM ROUND THE GLOBE out in the world, by my brilliant friend Sarah Pearsall. It's *really* good. But don't take my word for it...
Picture of the new book, Freedom Round the Globe: A World History of the American Revolution, by Sarah M. S. Pearsall
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Catherine Fletcher @catherinefletcher.info · 30/04/2026
Delighted to be able to share a first teaching and research resource relating to The Firearm Revolution: a compilation of links to primary sources - visual, objects and translations of texts that I cite in the book #academia #earlymodern #skystorians
catherinefletcher.info
Primary sources for The Firearm Revolution
Are you teaching with The Firearm Revolution? Or perhaps you’re an independent researcher with an interest in the history of firearms. With the help of my PhD student Guy Reynolds, I’ve …
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
"The Premier [Lord North] has advanced too far to recede with safety...In common life, to retract an error, even in the beginning, is no easy task; perseverance confirms us in it, & rivets the difficulty. But in a public station, to have been in an error & to have persisted in it when it is detected
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Historians: The Trump administration wants to issue oil and gas leases across the greater Chaco landscape. They've given the public ONE WEEK (till 4/7) to weigh in on the future of this immensely important place. Please tell them what you think: eplanning.blm.gov/Participate-...
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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Listen to the Ideas Podcast with Emilie Connolly and Miranda Melcher, @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social host. They discuss the long history of Native land dispossession and unequal dividends of colonialism in the US. press.princeton.edu/ideas/ideas-... #history #podcast
Listen to the Ideas Podcast with Emilie Connolly and Miranda Melcher, @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social host. They discuss the long history of Native land dispossession and unequal dividends of colonialism in the US.
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Varieties of Democracy is out with its annual global report. Here's their index for "Liberal Democracy" in the United States, 1789-2025. (h/t Pippa Norris on Twitter). In 2025 the US is back to the liberal democracy score it had in 1963. That's what Trump meant by Make America Great Again.
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
The borderland arms dealer "scrolled through listings of weapons for sale on WhatsApp and fielded requests like a call-center operator, dispatching orders in real time: Kalashnikovs, AR-15-style rifles and lots of ammunition." He's a high-school student in Phoenix, handling around 20 gun orders/week
nytimes.com
Inside the Supply Line Delivering American Guns to Mexican Cartels
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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
A total collapse. The National Institutes of Health went from 756 funding announcements published to 14 in two years. One example of the effects: emerging threats will become harder to address quickly. Response to future health emergencies (like Covid) will be slower and less coordinated.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
"The footage appears to contradict US President Donald Trump’s claim that it was an Iranian missile that hit the school on Feb. 28." - @bellingcat.com
bellingcat.com
Video Shows US Tomahawk Missile Strike Next to Girls’ School in Iran - bellingcat
New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area. The footag...
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
For the first time since @projectsaltbox.bsky.social launched their DHS warehouse acquisition tracker, the number of canceled sales is higher than any of the other warehouse-related figures. We've reached a tipping point, folks. lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/b0...
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Mónica A. Jiménez @monijimenez.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
As a faculty member of UT's distinguished African and African Diaspora Studies Department, I am angry at the disingenuous way UT is characterzing us and our scholarship. But as an alum of UT (MA, JD, PhD) I am sad to see my alma mater debase itself to curry favor with the ignorance of the right.
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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
This is a genuinely huge, sweeping victory today for the University of California—or rather, for us, its faculty, acting through our faculty associations, while the UC itself maintained a strict policy of deer-in-headlights silence. The Trump admin has given up its appeal of a powerful injunction:
latimes.com
Trump administration drops appeal of court order blocking $1.2-billion UCLA settlement
The Trump administration dropped its appeal of a major higher education case in which a federal judge blocked its $1.2-billion settlement proposal to UCLA over alleged civil rights violations. It will...
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Bobby Lee @bobbylee.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
It’s a great time to study the US from an ocean away. So apply for the 3-year Mellon postdoc in American History at Cambridge. Closes March 1. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/mellon-...
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
In 1765, people across the 13 colonies (minus Georgia🙁) organized to prevent neighbors from working as collectors for Parliament's hated new Stamp Act. It worked. Today, people across the US are organizing to stop concentration camps going up in their backyards. It's....working?
google.com
Proposed ICE Warehouse Locations - Google My Maps
Proposed sites for industrial warehouses to be used as mass detention centers by the US Department of Homeland Security. Descriptions include current status of each site, and any response from local...
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
@thetrace.org continues to do indispensable work on guns in America
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John Garcia @jgarc.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Now online and accepting applications. The 2026 AAS Summer Seminar in the History of the Book— “Paper Relations: Hisrories and Futures of Indigenous Print Cultures” Led by Katie Walkiewicz and Kelly Wisecup. Deadline to apply is April 3!
THE RED MAN'S REBUKE.
BY SIMON POKAGON
Pottawattamie Chief.
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Jimmy's new book MIXED-BLOOD HISTORIES is fantastic.
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Jake Charles @jacobdcharles.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Very excited that @gelbach.bsky.social & I will be publishing "Bruen's Tenth Amendment Problem" in the @uchilrev.bsky.social! Our central arg is that Bruen's erasure of unexercised powers violates the 10th Am's preservation of existing State power. Comments welcome! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
PLEASE REPOST 🥺🙏 The Canadian Letters & Images Project is an online digital archive of Canadians’ experience during wartime at home & in battle. It contains thousands of personal letters & photos that reveal people’s experience through their own words & eyes. www.canadianletters.ca/content/abou...
The homepage for the Canadian letters and images project. It shows soldiers posing for a photograph and there is a search bar in the centre. In the about section below, which cannot be seen in this image, it provides this information: 

The Canadian Letters and Images Project, created in 2000, is an online digital archive of the Canadian war experience, both home front and battlefront, from any conflict in which Canadians have participated.  The focus of the project is on the personal materials of participants, such as letters and photographs, which permit us to experience the war through their eyes and their words.  These are very often the stories of ordinary Canadians, largely forgotten and overlooked. Our mission is to digitally preserve and continue to make freely accessible this important part of Canada’s heritage for this generation and future generations.

The vision of the project is to continue to expand this repository of Canadian archival materials by collaborating with Canadians to preserve and share the individual and collective stories that have shaped our past

Accessibility to the past is key to understanding who we are as a nation.  We are committed to free access for everyone to the materials of the project.
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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
“The problem is that we have accelerated into a consuming and exclusive narrative about science in the national interest.” Some day I’ll stop sharing my v personal perspective on how devastating humanities has in fact devastated science. Not today. scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/06/26/d...
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
Did My Father’s World Die with Him? Grieving the Incalculable Costs of “STEM.” - The Scholarly Kitchen
Grieving my father's death feels inextricably tangled with grieving the catastrophe overtaking the whole of our research infrastructure.
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
"Ammunition dealers told undercover government investigators that the armor-piercing bullets could shoot down a helicopter or penetrate an armored limousine. In effect, 'the U.S. military is indirectly arming civilians with some of the most powerful and destructive ammunition currently available'"
nytimes.com
Mexican Cartels Overwhelm Police With Ammunition Made for the U.S. Military
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Powerful essay by @jrakove.bsky.social "The idea that this is a time for uncritical celebration has become a historical absurdity. The real observances are occurring in the streets of every community where citizens mobilize spontaneously against the abusive acts of government..."
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Omg. WTF is Happening? @lalahaenzy.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
When Bezos bought @washingtonpost.com commentators framed it as the civic-minded act of a billionaire concerned with his reputation; or maybe even someone who felt a sense of gratitude and obligation for the country that made him so rich.
slate.com
If Anyone Can Save the Washington Post, It’s Jeff Bezos
If I worked at the Washington Post—or even I just lived in Washington and yearned for the prosperity of my local paper—I’d be concerned about one line...
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nitasha tiku @nitasha.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power
cover of The Washington Post on Wednesday Feb 4, 2026. Headline on bottom, right: Musk wanted to hook users; his chatbot got more sexual
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The Trace @thetrace.org · 02/02/2026
Gun sales to the general public have been falling for years. In 2025, firearms companies found a lucrative new opportunity: arming the Trump administration’s deportation operation. Read more: thetr.ac/dptey
thetr.ac
Gun Sellers Have Made Millions From Trump’s Deployment of Immigration Agents
Last year, the Department of Homeland Security spent a record sum on guns and ammunition, a Trace analysis found.
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Brian DeLay @briandelay.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Amplify Garrett's inspired reporting on decades of wrongdoing at CBP and ICE. Nearly 5000 officers & agents arrested over last 20 years. See his 50-page report documenting decades of criminality & corruption, & the threat these rotten institutions pose to democracy drive.google.com/file/d/1o4z6...
drive.google.com
IAC-Statement.Graff.Jan312026.pdf
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Andrew Morral @andrewmorral.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
We just released our last scheduled update to The Science of Gun Policy, our review of the evidence on the effects of gun laws. {thread} www.rand.org/research/gun...
rand.org
Informing the Gun Policy Debate
New resources from RAND's decade-long Gun Policy in America initiative include a visualization tool that allows users to explore how state-level firearm mortality rates relate to a range of social and...
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