With Good Reason

In spite of the current state of the economy, the next 25 years will see an unprecedented rise in human wellbeing. That’s the argument Philip Auerswald (George Mason University) makes in his new book The Coming Prosperity. He argues that four centuries of technological change are spreading prosperity to new populations in the world and [...]

In the 18th century it was hard cider, not beer, that was the alcoholic beverage of choice. Even children often drank hard cider with breakfast and dinner because it was safer than the water. So how did this preference for hard cider disappear from the American palate? David Williams (George Mason University) investigates the demise [...]

The Victorians photographed their dead before burial.  Abraham Lincoln’s death might have popularized embalming.  Some people today have their ashes made into diamonds. Bernard Means (Virginia Commonwealth University) studies how and why we bury our dead – and how that’s changed over the last few centuries. Plus: A trip to some orphan graveyards – forgotten places [...]

How many Victorian books would you have to read to know the Victorians? What if you could read all 1.7 million? Fred Gibbs (George Mason University) co-created a project that does just that. Using digital tools, he can search and then chart how frequently certain words—like “God,” “love,” and “science”—appear in all of 19th-century British [...]

The election of Abraham Lincoln as President touched off a secession crisis in the South.  In his book Showdown in Virginia, Bill Freehling (Virginia Foundation for the Humanities) focuses on turning points in Virginia’s months-long, bitter battle over whether to secede from the Union. Also: Historians estimate that of the nearly 5,000 pirates who terrorized America’s [...]

The Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage trail in northern Spain, continues to attract tens of thousands of travelers each year. Among those are George Greenia (William & Mary, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities), who for years has walked the 500-mile route with his students. George studies the relationship between medieval and modern pilgrimages. He [...]

In 1951 a group of African American students at Robert R. Moton High School in Prince Edward County, Virginia, organized a strike to protest the substandard school facilities provided for black students. The walkout, led by 16 year old Barbara Johns, is one of the great stories in the struggle for Civil Rights—a story of courage [...]

Halloween is just around the corner.  Haunted houses, graveyards, and ghost walks – paranormal tourism is more popular than ever.  Teresa O’Bannon (Radford University) is an expert on what she calls “dark side tourism.”  Then, With Good Reason will also do a little ghost-busting of its own. Also featured: The Shenandoah Valley is prehistoric home of mastodons and giant sloths, [...]

Circuses have long been a part of human culture, starting with the Romans, and circuses have been in America almost since the birth of this country. Lavahn Hoh (University of Virginia) teaches the only accredited course in the U.S. on the history of the American circus and is the author of “Step Right Up!  The [...]

25th United States Colored Troops, February 1864 To mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the nation’s finest historians gathered at Norfolk State University to discuss the role of race and slavery in the war that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. With topics including the myth of black Confederates, the quest for [...]