iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Ed Gitre

Tej Nagaraja @tejnagaraja.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

My new book is out this month! “Troop Movements: Labor, Race, and Global Freedom Struggles in America’s World War II” — by Tejasvi Nagaraja Buy it! Get in touch with me — if you have any ideas?: * book review * book-tour event * assigning it to teach * interview or podcast Thanks — Stay tuned!

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Mass Observation Archive @massobsarchive.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Exciting news (well we think so)! We are looking for new people to regularly contribute to our archive! We accept applications from anyone based in the UK who has an interest in sending us their thoughts and opinions about life in the UK. #Skystorians massobs.org.uk/write-for-th...

massobs.org.uk

Write for the archive - Mass Observation Archive

Writing for Mass Observation You can apply to write for the archive here. Current Observers If you are one of our current Observers you may find our handbook for new Observers helpful. This has all th...

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

If you've not read the "Federal Relations Strategy Quarterly Report" prepared for the AHA by Thorn Run Partners you really ought to. I found it an illuminating if also bracing read. 🗃️

chronicle.brightspotcdn.com

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

This is very true, though our history shows that White folks can go too far themselves. Violent White resistance to any form of integration in the 1940s backfired, ultimately, making it all but impossible for the federal gov't to continue supporting Jim Crow. White supremacists don't always win.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I recently learned that FDR's administration also used tax incentives on high corporate taxes to achieve policy aims, using amortization to underwrite the staggering expansion of physical facilities needed to prepare for and wage WWII.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The accumulation of failures, I would add, is making a full-scale ground invasion all the more improbable. There was lots of chatter in MAGA circles about reviving a draft. Tellingly, not anymore.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

True. Still WWII provides a counterpoint. The service vote in '42 was negligible, est. 0.5% of the eligible vote. MS Sen. Eastland rightly viewed the military absentee ballot plan in '44 a threat to white supremacy in the South. In the pres. election 2.8 million service votes were cast that year. 🗃️

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Andrew J. Huebner @andrewhuebner.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

www.cambridge.org/core/books/c... So our Cambridge History of War and Society is out and available! My co-editor Jennifer Keene and I are so appreciative of all our authors—see list in the image. We’re very proud of this volume and it’s because of all the incredible scholars who contributed.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Congratulations 🎊 @zooniverse.bsky.social on reachng this monumental milestone!

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

Despite my feelings about the @nytimes.com, this is refreshing perspective on the animalistic impulses juicing America's techno-military imperialism. Thank you @scottsandage.bsky.social for spreading the word. Jackson is again in fine form.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

"LEDO, ASSAI, INDIA-1st It Robert F. Higgins of Newton Highland, Texas, voting officer for the QM battalion (Mob) delivering federal ballots to men of that battalion, while S/Sgt Dennis Smith of Jacksonville, Florida casts his vote. (U.S. Signal Corps Photo from Bureau of Public Relations) 11-10-44"

Black and white photograph of several Black soldiers stationed in India lined up to vote at a make-shift polling station for the 1944 election.

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History of Social Science @histsocialscience.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

See the new issue of History of Social Science, just published! Half the articles are free, including @brad.bolman.com’s account of Bruno Latour’s blocked appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study and Chas Camic’s short bio of Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class muse.jhu.edu/issue/56614

muse.jhu.edu

Project MUSE - History of Social Science-Volume 2, Number 1, Winter 2026

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Listen to this episode. I am biased, but judge for yourself.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I'm so pleased our article on combat stress in WWII is now out, using data from americansoldierww2.org. One key finding: 62% of surveyed combat veterans in the Pacific Theater exhibited enough psychological distress that they would have been disqualified from induction. doi.org/10.1177/2156...

Bar graph with caption: "Figure 2. Distribution of psychological distress among combat soldiers in the pacific theater in World War II (data from five S100 surveys). The shaded bars represent distress scores that are high enough to have disqualified potential inductees for service in the army in 1944."

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Does World War II -- the "lessons," the institutions, the commitments, the sacrifices, the people who served, endured and died--matter anymore?

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Jason A. Higgins, Ph.D @jasonhiggins.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This guy steals all Nixon’s ideas. His threats are straight out of the Nixon’s “Madman Theory.” It did not work with Vietnam. It will not work with Iran. It’s like none of the lessons from the past 60 years of American war are ever learned.

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Peter Johnston @peterajohnston.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Another great pair of papers from @abbyswhitlock.bsky.social and @edgitre.bsky.social at #SMH2026, on Army Talks and GI Roundtables, and segregation and desegregation in the SWW respectively.

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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 17/03/2026

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Astute summation from @vermontgmg.bsky.social. "Instead, we have a government that has been repeatedly surprised by the most basic and foreseeable consequences of its own actions." I keep thinking of Eisenhower as well, and of Marshall.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

The US will pay the price. Some families have paid the ultimate price already.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Indeed a lesson hardly if ever learned. Certain WWII British officials urged the carpet bombing of German population centers because, they opined, it would break civilian morale. They asserted this after the German blitz had failed to break the morale of ... you got it... the British populace.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

One of the NEH grants I know well, a Library of Virginia WWII digitization project. Why was it flagged DEI? "Digitizing and making discoverable the WWII separation notices can provide accessibility to historical records, promoting inclusivity and diverse perspectives in humanities research." 😠

historians.org

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

With this war, POTUS is breaking decisively with the anti-interventionist America First tradition. Certain movement leaders were convinced at the outset of WWII that wealthy Jewish internationalists were behind the drive to get the US into the war. Hard to imagine how MAGA reconciles this cleavage.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Unconditional surrender = defeat & occupation. No diplomacy. Only military action. This was the Allied plan & objective for WWII Germany & Japan. We are going to need so many body bags.

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Reposted by Ed Gitre

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

On Presidents’ Day 2026, a 77-year-old federal judge in Philadelphia issued a ruling that blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to take down or otherwise excise information from Independence National Historical Park relating to George Washington’s ownership of slaves. Law Dork:

lawdork.com

A Presidents' Day lesson from Philadelphia

“Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history,“ Judge Cynthia Rufe wrote.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

So true. Carnegie Foundation funding of Gunnar Myrdal's study of race in the US wasn't a problem until the Supreme Court used it in support of Brown vs Board of Education.

Page 333 from 1956 Congressional Record of US Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, chaired by Mississippi Senator James Eastland, on Civil Rights Proposals.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

The most commented on characteristic of the first draft selectees in 1940 was the diversity of ethnicities. The ignorance of US history is remarkable.

Image of a newspaper article titled First Ten in Draft Spell National Life by Dorothy Thompson published in Oakland Tribune, 6 November 1940.

Image of newspaper photograph from 9 November 1940 with the caption Melting Post Soldier--Chan Chong Yuen, right New York Chinese laundryman, couldn't wait for his number in draft to be called, so he enlisted yesterday. He is being sworn in by Sing Lee, a Chinese veteran of the World War, who wears D.S.C. for bravery.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

McCarthy-era congressmen accused foundations of being captured by Communists. coxcommitteereport.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/.... They tore into Carnegie for funding Gunnar Myrdal's *An American Dilemma* after the landmark study of race in the US was cited in Brown vs Board. Mellon is in good company.

coxcommitteereport.weebly.com

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Kevin M. Levin @civilwarmemory.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

I am speechless. "The National Park Service has removed visitor brochures from the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument. Among the anticipated changes? No longer calling his murderer a 'racist.'" 🗃️ mississippitoday.org/2026/02/05/m...

mississippitoday.org

Medgar Evers’ killer was a Klansman, but Trump administration says stop calling him a racist - Mississippi Today

Among anticipated changes to a new visitor brochure for the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument is no longer using "racist" to describe the killer of the civil rights leader.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

I was looking forward to reading Shake's book. I find the history of civilian-military relations to be far more lively, overflowing with drama, conflict, politics, passion, and negotiation.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

This is a bit rich, isn't it? Moyn and his crew chastised anyone who dared make a historical comparison of precisely this sort, simply with a different political figure.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

"Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned."

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Someone else might need to see this as much as I did.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Homan "in theatre." ... Can't say we weren't warned. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

youtube.com

Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech Origins and Significance

YouTube video by US National Archives

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

“Freedom is not free. We have to work at it. Nurture it. Protect it. Even sacrifice for it.”

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Agreed. I've argued that the "crisis" of the humanities is not about its "irrelevance." Historical memory & scholarship is a threat precisely because of their social & cultural power. That is why history must be suppressed, erased & replaced with politically useful myths: it's too dangerous.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

From the stands yesterday. A new day with a new governor.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

History rhymes in other ways. The author of the pamphlet was forced out of the War Department for having written it. "Fascism" was, by May 1945 already, too divisive. The War Department needed to steer clear of "ideology." And the author couldn't be trusted, as a Russian-born Jew.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Great essay. Sparked a spirited, thoughtful debate in a research seminar I taught last year.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

"[T]he Margraten cemetery 'is not the appropriate venue for interpreting or debating broader societal issues, however real and significant those issues were and are.'" What is a more appropriate venue?

newsweek.com

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UNITED24 @u24.gov.ua · 19/12/2025

Another beautiful Shchedryk performance amidst ruins. It was set in what used to be a DTEK thermal power plant — now destroyed by russia. The contrast between russia’s destructive nature and the Ukrainian will to create beauty even in the darkest times is palpable.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I'd like to save you a few minutes. This op-ed is not worth your time.

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Ed Gitre @edgitre.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

A quick read worth your time.

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American Library Association @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month. This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory! Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...

ALL IMLS grants restored in every state & territory.

In response to a ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island, the Institute of Museum and Library Services reinstated all previously canceled grants in every state and territory. It's a huge win for libraries and our communities.

"The reinstatement of all IMLS grants means that libraries across the country will be able to resume vital services for learning, imagination, and economic opportunity. We are breathing a sigh of relief, but the fight is not over." ALA President Sam Helmick. Show up for our libraries, American Library Association.

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