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Gore Vidal – Aaron Burr
Ah, a really wonderful book for anyone who likes their American Revolutionary Era and early 19th century history. Vidal, like any historical work that is tweaked into novel form, is forced into putting words into characters’ mouths. But Vidal’s scholarship was deep enough that the statements must have represented, to a large degree, reality. In…
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Ranking 60s Comics
A These were the series that I actively looked forward to reading: It seems like a ragtag group, but there are some similarities here. Doom Patrol and Fantastic Four had that “quirky family” vibe and a shared sense of wonder. Spider-Man and LOSH had a sense of variety and imagination — on the side of…
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Slow-Walking Around Every Big Issue; Forcing Myself to Commit.
It’s funny. I know very well the sort of lineage that I’m taking, ideologically. I also now have a good historical skeleton ready to roll (19 mini-eras inside 5 ages), alongside big historical events. But it’s like being confronted with something large right in front of you — where do you even start? I’ve dawdled…
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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…
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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…
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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…
Vital Historiography
A balanced centrist reading of history. Unity over division. Development over decay. Americanism as spirit, conviction, and purpose, not creed or birthplace.
Not Left. Not Left. Forward.
We like what the Forward Party and No Labels are doing.
They should merge.
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