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Fredric Smoler

Frederic Smoler has been teaching literature and history at Sarah Lawrence College since 1987; focusing on intellectual and literary history in Europe. He is the Adda Bozeman Chair in International Relations. In addition to his contributions to American Heritage, Smoler also writes for First of the Month, The Nation, and The Observer.

Articles by this Author

America’s Patrick O’Brian isn’t a writer; he’s a painter
Powered flight was born exactly one hundred years ago. It changed everything, of course—but most of all, it changed how we wage war.
Tank, October 2003 | Vol. 54, No. 5
Our common history isn’t all pleasant, but seeing it firsthand is deeply moving
To Plan A Trip, April/May 2003 | Vol. 54, No. 2
A soldier-historian looks at how the world has changed in the past decade and finds that America is both hostage to history and likely to be saved by it
Our government called the terror attacks on our country an act of war and replied with a declaration of war on terrorism. What can history teach us about our prospects in such a war?
A NOBLE PRIZE-WINNING ECONOMIST AND HISTORIAN SAYS WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF AMERICA’S MAJOR PERIODS OF REFORM
Past Tense, September 1999 | Vol. 50, No. 5
THE BEST OF TODAY’S ALTERNATE HISTORY ISN’T LIKELY TO CHEER YOU UP. BUT IT CERTAINLY WON’T BORE YOU.
National Memory’s Role in the Balkans
Have Americans slid backward since the sunny, prosperous years after World War II, as so many feel? To find out, an English-born historian compares our recent past with earlier times, and in the process learns something about our likely course into the next century.
A historian of the ancient world believes that in every era humankind has reacted to the demands of waging war in surprisingly similar ways, and that to protect our national interests today Americans must understand the choices soldiers and statesmen made hundreds and even thousands of years ago
A long-time Republican-party insider and close student of its past discusses how the party has changed over the years—for better and for worse —and where it may be headed.
For years people have argued that France had the real revolution and that ours was mild by comparison. But now a powerful new book says the American Revolution was the most sweeping in all history. It alone established a pure commercial culture—a culture that makes America the universal society we are today.
The fiercest struggle going on in education is about who owns the past. Militant multi-culturalists say that traditional history teaching has brushed out minority ethnic identities. Their opponents say that radical multiculturalism leads toward national fragmentation.
Those who believe America’s power is on the wane look to the example of Britain’s shockingly quick collapse. But the similarities may be less alarming than they seem.
What the past tells of America’s role in the current crisis is sometimes contradictory—but always worth listening to
Slam Marshall, who is regarded as one of our great military historians, looked into the heart of combat and discovered a mystery there that raised doubts about the fighting quality of U.S. troops. But one GI thought he was a liar…
VINTAGE 1929 Gallows Humor from the First October Catastrophe
A lifelong student of military history and affairs says that nuclear weapons have made the idea of war absurd. And it is precisely when everyone agrees that war is absurd that one gets started.

"WEB ONLY STORIES" BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR

This opinion piece is a response to "Plame Again," by John Steele Gordon. John Steele Gordon again warns against the dangers of using the justice system for political purposes. He is surely right that there is great danger in any such procedure, although it is not clear why he thinks this danger is…
John Steele Gordon makes a number of interesting statements about the origins of and possible solutions to our Federal deficits. He asserts that the eighteenth-century Founders, like other eighteenth-century Englishmen, thought that the King was expected to live off his own revenues. This was…
John Steele Gordon asserts that there is some profound difference between the Valerie Plame affair and all previous Washington scandals, that there is no scandal because “no one has endangered the Republic,” and that if Fitzgerald indicts anyone, this will be a case of the criminalization of normal…