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Rob Rakove

@robrakove.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1.7K following 3.7K posts

Historian at Stanford University, author of "Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nonaligned World" and "Days of Opportunity: The United States and Afghanistan Before the Soviet Invasion." It's good to have options.

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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Much deserved! Congratulations!!
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Renata Keller @renatakeller.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
I am floored and delighted and so, so honored to announce that The Fate of the Americas won the Friedrich Katz Prize in Latin American and Caribbean History from @historians.org! This is definitely a career highlight. Huge thanks to the committee and the AHA. www.historians.org/perspectives...
historians.org
American Historical Association Announces 2026 Prize Winners – AHA
The American Historical Association is pleased to announce the winners of its 2026 prizes.
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Patrick Iber @patrickiber.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Every time you make a Jacobin article the main character for the day you are obligated by BlueSky Terms & Service to subscribe to Dissent, thanks for your attention to this matter www.ezsubscription.com/dis/subscribe
ezsubscription.com
DISSENT | Subscribe
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Postscript: a local reviewer is *not* impressed.
stanforddaily.com
The Love Hypothesis’: Fake dating is a problematic premise
Set at Stanford, "The Love Hypothesis” leaves much to be desired, like modern romance itself.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Lest we forget, Brooks was at a writers retreat on Tierra del Fuego when ads depicted Max Cleland as linked to Saddam Hussein and bin Laden.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Does it always rain during deciding games in Cleveland?
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
By itself, Freeman's involvement in Food for Peace makes the case for a serious biography.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hits differently when a last name is a preexisting noun.
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Amanda Demmer @amandademmer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The written version of my Bernath Lecture is now available! Read on to learn more about the intersection of war, human rights, humanitarianism, NGOs, and moral authority! You'll also get sneak peak of the subject of my current in-progress biography, Ginetta Sagan. academic.oup.com/dh/advance-a...
academic.oup.com
Suffering and Sovereignty: Moral Authority and Diplomatic Norms in the 1940s and 1970s*
In February 1945, Italian fascists took Ginetta Sagan into custody.1 A twenty-one-year-old civilian, Sagan stood at less than five feet tall, weighed appro
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
WWHAD (What Would Hap Arnold Do)?
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
That dramatically understates our confidence in our climate and palm trees.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Brick interiors seemed like a tell.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Those interiors look bogus.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I dimly recall conduct like this in the waning days of 2020: the Biden campaign visibly having more difficulty with them.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Someone emailed me repeatedly about creating one for my first book. Since it's been fourteen years, I don't see any particular urgency. It didn't help that they thought my first name is "B."
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Did you respond to one of those messages offering to create one??
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joey-stabile.bsky.social @joey-stabile.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Really enjoyed the opportunity to review @augustacaesar.bsky.social's great new book 'Saving Apartheid: White Internationalism at the End of the Cold War' Many thanks to @patrickobrienstrickland.com + @inkstickmedia.com for the opportunity to write about it!
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For variety's sake www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s7d...
youtube.com
A Passage To Bangkok
YouTube video by Rush - Topic
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Luke Johnson @ljohnson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Important conversation with @emmanuellechaze.com on the humanitarian catastrophe in #Oleshky publicsphere.news/p/q-and-a-59...
publicsphere.news
Q&A #59: Journalist Emmanuelle Chaze on the Humanitarian Catastrophe in Russian-Occupied Oleshky
Russia is engineering a humanitarian crisis in occupied Ukraine
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It was a whole saga. The relative who looked after the child died suddenly and the university daycare was full. He was already driving an hour to school. No good alternatives emerged. He'd have *loved* free day care and he'd think the article is nonsense.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My first full teaching year, I had a student whose entire semester hinged on finding care for his four year old.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Zoom just sent me a summary of my neighbor's conversation with a repairman (my window was open during a guest-free office hour).
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Extortion?
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Passport @passportshafr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The countdown has started! Our new website will be arriving on Monday, October 5, 2026. We're so excited to share this new step in Passport's journey with you! P.S.: Keep an eye out for a sneak peek later this week.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Nathan Fillion's Blasé Look
Alt: Nathan Fillion struggling to find words
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
No blood for Agamemnon
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
There's good discussion of an inadvertent February 1944 bombing of Nijmegen at the Market Garden museum outside the city.
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Hi folks. If you saw this, you know the administration plans to only accept white South Africans next year. Tomorrow is Congress's formal say before the determination is signed. Please check this brief thread on why I'd like you to speak out for the Afghan people still in limbo...
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The pathos of seeing pseudo-Newsweek reducing this issue to a listicle . . .
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
All of which will still be read in fifty years, while Stephens will be lucky to be forgotten.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Better work on your Gordie Howe trivia, sir.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I also doubt that Kemal left all that many Turkish communists around for his successors . . .
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
They're going to make us bring back printed course readers, aren't they?
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This feels like a good indie comedy premis: his limo driver knows someone able to change USD for rubles and misadventure ensues.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I'd thought folks of his age cohort would always, always bring cash. And maybe travelers checks.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The New Yorker's AI narration is often quite bad.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I'm hazy on the procedural details, but does this risk excommunication?
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Dr. Todd Arrington @btarrington.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
President James A. Garfield died OTD in 1881, nearly 80 days after being shot by Charles J. Guiteau on Jul. 2. Here’s part 2 of a 2-parter I wrote about the Garfield assassination. For more on Garfield’s election to the presidency, see my book on this subject. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700636037/
werehistory.org
The Assassination of President Garfield, Part II
Partisanship, Insanity, and Murder
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I had my first ever trip to the National Archives in San Bruno today. It’s a great facility with very friendly staff. Sadly it faces an uncertain future, as the present NARA leadership plans to close it and disperse its records.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
My favorite (only) Rasmussen story is the time that the firm's founder told a bunch of us at UVA that Hillary Clinton had the 2008 nomination in the bag.
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Waitman Wade Beorn, PhD, FRHistS @waitmanwbeorn.com · 02/09/2026
Terrible news today! Konrad Jarausch was a towering scholar of German history. He was also on my dissertation committee and so influential in making me the scholar that I am today. His graduate writing seminar was the single most important class I ever took. www.newsobserver.com/news/local/c...
newsobserver.com
Noted UNC history professor drowns in Chapel Hill lake
Chapel Hill police said the call about a missing swimmer came in around 11 a.m. Tuesday.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Whom the gods would destroy, they give permanent columnist gigs.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
static.klipy.com
Miss Piggy & Link Hogthrob in Muppet Show Opera
ALT: Miss Piggy & Link Hogthrob in Muppet Show Opera
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Go Card!
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Plus the Barron Strait.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I’ll just reiterate:
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
My first submission drew a loose insinuation of plagiarism because I favored some of the same documentary quotes as another author.
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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
For Doomsday Machines this week I wrote about one of the most remarkable early-20th century “end of the world” science fiction stories I have read — E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (1909). It is impressively prescient and relevant to our present moment.
doomsdaymachines.net
Rage against the Machines
E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (1909)
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Poseidon is not a fan of name changes.
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Rob Rakove @robrakove.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I don’t despise it, but No Country has a serious flaw.
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