Justin F Jackson, Ph.D.
@justinfdjackson.bsky.social
justinfjackson.com Historian, author of The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines (UNC Press, 2025)
This is a fantastic book - in case my blurb wasn't clear... 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
Hurst Publishers@hurstpublishers.bsky.social · last wk.‘Empire with a Vengeance’ by @mark-condos.bsky.social : ‘A genuinely pathbreaking work of comparative & trans-imperial history that should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in historical questions of violence and empire.’ @kimatiwagner.bsky.social Sample 👉 tinyurl.com/5n93zbsa
Kim Phillips-Fein's new book has something to say about this. 🗃 wwnorton.com/books/978132...
Country of Lords
A Pulitzer-finalist historian charts a 250-year-old intellectual and political tradition—the conviction that all Americans are NOT created equal., Country of Lords, Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwi...
wwnorton.com
Rachel Gilmore@rachelgilmore.bsky.social · last wk.Very cool that Shopify’s CEO thinks the poor should have far less of a vote than the rich. Still worth that ad read money, folks?
I'll just note that my own contribution really is about two contingencies: a brief debate in the 2nd Continental Congress in April 1775 over modifying the positions the 1st Congress had adopted in Oct. 1774; and a counterfactual speculation over what would have happened had the North ministry /1/
Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5)@gauthamrao.bsky.social · 2w agoAn incredible forum in the latest William and Mary Quarterly, spearheaded by Jane E. Calvert and @jgienapp.bsky.social. The contingency of the revolutionary moment can’t be clearer.
Remembering Silas Soule, born OTD in 1838. American abolitionist, conductor on the Underground Railroad, military officer, and hero for disobeying orders to participate in Sand Creek Massacre and then giving evidence against his commander. Murdered 1865. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_S...
On the "shadow tradition" of anti-egalitarian thought in American history - gift link to @jenszalai.bsky.social review of Kim Phillips-Fein's new book. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/b...
The Men Who Believed Some Men Are More Equal Than Others
nytimes.com
Elizabeth Freeman was a very revolutionary American! Come to Great Barrington, Mass., and check out the new Du Bois Freedom Center exhibit on Freeman at 309 Main St.! The Enslaved Woman Who Sued for Freedom and Emancipated Herself www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The Enslaved Woman Who Sued for Freedom and Emancipated Herself
nytimes.com
Great fun! Study occupation? Attend the next talk by Dr. Tammy Proctor on her timely book!: global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com
Occupation Studies Research Network@occupationstudies.bsky.social · 3w agoA big thank you to @justinfdjackson.bsky.social for sharing an in-depth look at his new book, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines" during today's book talk. Our next book talk will take place on 10 September - more details soon!
"The Hobo achieves the very best of history, providing not only new information about an old story, but new concepts to understand it.”—Todd DePastino, author of Citizen Hobo The Hobo by @robertsuits.bsky.social is out now (11 Aug UK pub)! Read a free preview: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
A thoughtful reflection on the value of studying history, written by an excellent historian meditating here on one of the greats. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/o...
Opinion | “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” Isn’t Saying What You Think It Is (Gift Article)
In the same year as America’s founding, Edward Gibbon wrote “Decline and Fall.” 250 years later, it still holds lessons for us.
nytimes.com
Scholarly folks who have ever received federal funding: today is the deadline for public comment on proposed revisions that will decimate our national research capacity and replace expertise with political whim. Please consider throwing in your 2¢. See below for some useful links and encouragement.
Our Statement on the White House Report was in the USA Today article "Controversial White House report targets Smithsonian. What's going on?" Read the article: https://ow.ly/H1fq50ZmRjY Read the statement: https://ow.ly/m38S50ZmRjX
July 2, indeed! Don't forget the boys from Maine.
Angry Staff Officer@pptsapper.bsky.social · last mo.Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate
The NY Times searches Paris for traces of Benjamin Franklin, revolutionary diplomat... ...but Israel Potter, a Rhode Island patriot turned spy (for England!) found Franklin there, in 1777. Herman Melville dramatized their encounter in his eponymous novel: www.berkshireeagle.com/history/melv...
Herman Melville’s ‘Israel Potter’: The American Revolution’s greatest novel begins and ends in the Berkshires
Herman Melville’s 1855 novel “Israel Potter” used a Revolutionary War veteran’s dubious memoir to mock heroic myths about Bunker Hill, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen and other founders.
berkshireeagle.com
So excited to talk to the Occupation Studies Research Network folks about the book! Join us - and if you’re a student of occupation, join!
Occupation Studies Research Network@occupationstudies.bsky.social · last mo.Join us for our next online talk on 13 July at 3 p.m. CEST as we welcome @justinfdjackson.bsky.social to discuss his new book, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines", published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2025.
Happy to have contributed the entry on US law of war! Congrats Gautham Rao!
Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5)@gauthamrao.bsky.social · last mo.My nine years editing my favorite journal, Law and History Review (@lawandhistrev.bsky.social), are coming to an end this summer. What's next? I'm thrilled to share my new multi-year initiative with Oxford University Press: Oxford Bibliographies in Legal History academic.oup.com/reference/62...
At SHAFR? Can’t make it? Check out this new research on US expansionism and the Wars of 1898, from junior historians and doctoral candidates!
Reading this alongside Julian Go’s Policing Empires could make a useful survey of the deep origins of modern law enforcement…which then goes global (see Stuart Schrader, Badges without Borders).
Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5)@gauthamrao.bsky.social · last mo.My book currently discounted @bookshop.org! bookshop.org/p/books/whit...
Check out this crucial new book (and author interview w/Prof. Liza Black!) lawcha.org/2026/06/19/c...
Colleen O’Neill on her new book, Waging Sovereignty | LAWCHA
In Waging Sovereignty: Native Americans and the Transformation of Work in the Twentieth Century, historian Colleen O'Neill examines the rise of wage work
lawcha.org
Chris Appy is here! @chrisappy.bsky.social Follow him and keep up with his work on the Ellsberg Institute for Peace and Democracy. www.eipad.org
Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy
Our mission is to promote public understanding, scholarship, and activism in support of compelling, democratic, and sustainable alternatives to militarism, authoritarianism, and environmental degradat...
eipad.org
Christian G. Appy@chrisappy.bsky.social · 3mo agoHappy finally to join Bluesky, months after my X account was cancelled without my consent.
It’s a real honor to be awarded this recognition from SHAFR for _Catastrophic Diplomacy_, but it’s all the more sweet to be in such incredible company with the brilliant @lizingleson.bsky.social! Congratulations Lizzie, and congrats to all of this year’s SHAFR award winners!
Nathan Ellstrand@nellstra.bsky.social · 2mo agoCongratulations to @juliairwin.bsky.social and Elizabeth O'Brien Ingleson on receiving the Myrna F. Bernath Book Award from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations ( @shafrhistorians.bsky.social )!!
SHAFR President Jay Sexton in Foreign Policy with a teaser to Saturday’s Presidential Address In trying to restore order after World War II, U.S. leaders drew lessons from a dark chapter in their country’s history. foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/23/a...
From Bloody Kansas to the Rebuilding of Europe
In trying to restore order after World War II, U.S. leaders drew lessons from a dark chapter in their country’s history.
foreignpolicy.com
Lemuel Haynes! Visions of America: The Revolution As You’ve Never Seen It Before www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Seven Everyday Founders
For the 250th anniversary, the Times Magazine asked leading historians to profile founding-era Americans whose roles in the drama have been often overlooked.
nytimes.com
Worried about the tarps covering up the Kennedy Center in DC?… Well, a few US Army commanders covered up the biggest atrocity of the entire Philippine-American War: the 9th Infantry’s mass execution of 27 Filipino prisoners, at Tarlac, in Luzon, March 1900: academic.oup.com/jah/article-...
The Empire of Military Necessity: General Orders No. 100, Atrocity, and the Law of Occupation between the Civil and Philippine Wars
Lt. Edgar F. Koehler, U.S. Army provost marshal for the Province of Tarlac in the central Luzon region of the Philippines in early 1900, knew that a Civil
academic.oup.com