The Brion McClanahan Author & Historian Blog

What legislation led to the woke madness of modern America? Christopher Caldwell points to the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. This is near heresy in 2021. Suggesting that anything the civil rights crusaders did was detrimental to American society is almost like nailing the 95 Theses to the door in Wittenberg. You cannot challenge leftist dogma. But, if anyone reviews what the opponents of …more

Should we abolish judicial review? That’s a tricky question. It’s easy to argue that the practice was never intended to be used. Jefferson said as much after John Marshall kept sticking his nose into every constitutional question, both at the federal and State level. Marshall wasn’t the first to do it. The Supreme Court declared a federal law to be constitutional long before Marbury v. …more

Did America really have a “founding”? It depends on how you frame the question. If America was a “proposition nation” as Lincoln and modern politicos on both the left and right argue, then yes, the United States had a distinct “founding” based on new principles. But what if it was a continuation of the Anglo-American tradition or a byproduct of Western Civilization? What if the …more

John Grove published an excellent piece on political power the other day at Law and Liberty. If you don’t read that website, you’re missing out. It’s one of my favorite intellectual corners on the Web. It’s a great piece because Grove channels M.E. Bradford, and you can never go wrong when you rely on the man who forced George Will into an apoplectic fit. Historians …more

Victor Davis Hanson can’t help himself. Just when you think he might have turned the corner, Hanson decided the South and the Confederacy probably should be expunged from American history or at the very least attached to his political enemies. You see, to Hanson, the Straussians, and their neoconservative cousins, the South represents everything bad in American history. They establish a straw man–the evil South–and …more

Most Americans probably think that contentious political debates from the early 19th century don’t have any relevance to modern American society. Take for example the Old Republican opposition to “federally funded internal improvements.” We have virtually abandoned any opposition to such expenditures. Just look at the massive amount of federal cash the Congress just authorized for the “infrastructure” bill. No one questions if this is …more

Following Charlemagne’s death in the 9th century, most Frankish kings did not have grand titles. The Franks became very good at naming kings for their shortcomings: Charles the Bald, Charles the Fat, Louis the Sluggard. This continued into the modern era. Francis I was known as “Francis the Big Nose.” Perhaps we should adopt this practice in the United States. The Vice-Presidency is an irrelevant …more

Anyone who has listened to my Podcast or read my material knows I am hard on most “establishment” historians, and for good reason. They don’t do much that is worthy of any accolades, let alone the prestigious awards some of them are handed annually. You might say to yourself, “McClanahan, you are just jealous they aren’t reading your stuff.” Nope. Most of these people are …more

If you’ve been caught up in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial (found not guilty on all counts), you might have missed one of the most bizarre news stories in recent years. So many States have sued over Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate that the justice department had to use a lottery to select which federal circuit court would hear the case. You read that right. We are …more

If you listen to the neoconservatives like Allen Guelzo or the talking stiffs at Fox News, the North heroically saved the United States from the evil South and ushered in a new birth of freedom in America. Guelzo goes so far as to thump his chest and proclaim that he is a Yankee of the highest order, meaning that he carries no guilt for the …more