Vital Historiography

A balanced centrist reading of history. Unity over division. Development over decay. Americanism as spirit, conviction, and purpose, not creed or birthplace.

  • Now Reading Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865

    Now Reading Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865

    I’m about 5% through Margaret Leech’s book, Reveille in Washington, 1860 – 1865. It covers the evolution of Washington D.C. as it made its way through the Civil War. I’m a big fan of reading about the life of cities throughout various historical eras, especially the Five Points in New York City and Chicago circa…

  • Finally, Some Structure

    Finally, Some Structure

    I motivated myself to give the wiki area some structure. There’s currently nineteen mini-eras to populate. They don’t exactly align to American history, but I think they provide some decent exclusive buckets of time. I also pulled my text dump from the wiki. I need to think harder about how I tackle things. A wiki…

  • Initial Wiki Dump, from The Grey Area to Vital History

    Initial Wiki Dump, from The Grey Area to Vital History

    I started to write a book years ago, called The Grey Aria. It was a history of American politics encapsulated in an attempt to chart a new (non-ideological?) path. The name was an oblique reference to The Gray Lady, a pseudonym of the New York Times – renowned for its objectivity (I was writing over…

  • The Point of Vital Historiography

    The Point of Vital Historiography

    The point of this blog is to develop a vital centrist reading of history. By that, I mean a view of our national development focused on the wide swath between the center-left, center, and center-right of American thought. It: …as inimical to the American experience. We’re pretty clearly in an American society of increasing division…

Not Left. Not Left. Forward.

We like what the Forward Party and No Labels are doing.

They should merge.

Forward Party
No Labels

About Me

I have a BA in Political Science and a Master of Public Administration degree. I have about 15 years of experience as a public servant, specifically in data analytics and research.

I’m definitely passionate about the power to data to solve problems. I read a lot of history, philosophy, and political non-fiction.

Like most Americans, I am not happy about where politics is in the United States. Reading Geoffrey Kabaservice’s Rule & Ruin several years ago inspired me to try to break through the political left’s and political right’s marketing pitches. I’m a no-teams American.

M. Gonzalez

The Writer