With Good Reason

John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 in Ford’s Theater in Washington.  But Booth had been part of a long standing conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln.  Terry Alford (Northern Virginia Community College), an expert on Booth, investigates who were these conspirators, their motives at the end of the war and whether [...]

The American Civil War has produced a number of mythical characters. Perhaps there are none like the notorious Champ Ferguson, a Confederate guerrilla who claimed to have killed over 100 Union soldiers and sympathizers. Brian McKnight (University of Virginia’s College at Wise) says Ferguson was both a skilled fighter and a ruthless murderer who exploited [...]

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 [...]

When it comes to national security threats, where are we most vulnerable?  Risk analyst researcher Barry Ezell (Old Dominion University) says the possibility of cyber attacks keep him awake at night. He says the computers that control our gas plants, water supply and energy grid are old and unprotected. Also featured: If a government ever wanted to [...]

From potable water to the forgotten impact of things like weather and horses on the outcome of the war, With Good Reason will bring you highlights from the 2011 Signature Conference of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission.  Some of the country’s most eminent Civil War scholars including  James Robertson, Jr. (Virginia [...]

Two years after his 1959 speech at the Havana Labor Rally Fidel Castro declared that the age of racism and discrimination was over. Geoffroy de Laforcade  (Norfolk State University) and William Alexander (Norfolk State University) discuss the validity of Castro’s declaration in today’s Cuba. This summer, they will be leading students from the United States [...]

When faced with a court order to integrate, Prince Edward County in Virginia closed its entire school system in 1959 rather than integrate. The closure lasted five years and was part of a larger policy enacted by the state called Massive Resistance.   Larissa Smith Fergeson (Longwood University) speaks to people who were students in [...]

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 [...]

Scholars from around the world gathered recently for George Mason University’s forum Beyond Golden Age and Decline: Muslim Societies and Global Modernity, 1300-1900.  Some of the scholars joined With Good Reason to talk about the legacy of Muslim societies in today’s world.  Giancarlo Casale (University of Minnesota) says in its heyday, the Ottoman Empire was [...]

New research examines how postwar German history textbooks addressed the traumatic events of the Second World War.  Brian Puaca (Christopher Newport University) explores how the textbooks first depicted Germans as victims and how these books gradually incorporated a frank and honest account of National Socialism and Nazi atrocities. He challenges those who have argued that [...]