Jim Ambuske

Photo of a cuneiform tablet fragment shaped a bit like an irregular diamond. It preserves nearly 20 incomplete lines of text separated by a horizontal ruling

There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends.

It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.

Few historians know the Constitution’s history better than
@jrakove.bsky.social, and fewer still are able to offer such a warning.

Read Rakove’s take on James Madison’s constitutional maneuvering in the latest essay for
@inpursuitusa.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/inpursui...

Nathan Cavanaugh Deposition in ACLS-AHA-MLA Lawsuit About the NEH, Part 1 of 6 YouTube video by American Historical Association

Honestly I need historians to be the plaintiffs in every case I cover because if they make it to discovery you just KNOW those primary sources are going public.

Exhibit A: The American Historical Association uploading video depos of the DOGE bros to YouTube.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkCz...

A good overview of the incompetent and nonsensical (but not unexpected) way DOGE ripped apart the NEH last spring, leading to hundreds of cancelled grants for petty reasons. I'm grateful to @historians.org and co-plantiffs for challenging these actions in federal court.

I’d say all at once. People will take a break when they need to. And might be fun to experiment.

Spontaneous listener survey: I have one very cool extra long episode coming up next month. As a listener, would you prefer just to have the whole long episode (about 1.5 hours) at once, or would you prefer it broken into parts 1 and 2?

I'm excited to share great job news: I started this week as Executive Director of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation (a Preservation Virginia site)! Everyone has been very kind, welcoming, and, thankfully, patient this week.

Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America.

Episode 13: The Massacre Podcast Episode · Worlds Turned Upside Down · S1 E13 · 1h 27m

On March 5, 1770, British Redcoats fired on British civilians in Boston. Learn what happened and why on Worlds Turned Upside Down.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

A Great Revolution in Church and State <p><b>The untold story of how church and state were remade in Revolutionary America</b></p><p><i>A Great Revolution in Church and State</i> rewrites t

Dr Alyssa Penick's new book 'A Great Revolution in Church and State' is now available for preorder through @uvapress.bsky.social. Looks like a must-read for #skystorians of the colonial and Revolutionary eras and early republic www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10211/

She's like Yosemite Sam, without the crediblity.

The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life by Sophia Rosenfeld

Sophia Rosenfeld

Many congratulations to Sophia Rosenfeld, whose book The Age of Choice has won @standrewsiih.bsky.social's István Hont Book Prize! Her acclaimed work is a sweeping history of the rise of personal choice in the modern world and how it became equated with freedom.

Grab your copy: hubs.ly/Q0453n9-0

Author @jmbeatty.bsky.social will be talking about her book. 📚

Seeking the High Ground with Matthew Mason | NACBS Join NACBS to celebrate the publication of Matthew Mason’s recent book Seeking the High Ground: Slavery and Political Conflict in the British Atlantic World. Eliga Gould will join Matthew in discussio...

📢Book event!

Join us online next Thursday to hear more about Matthew Mason’s newest book, Seeking the High Ground: Slavery and Political Conflict in the British Atlantic World

📅Thus March 5
⏰12pm EST/ 9am PST / 5pm GMT
Free and open to the public

RSVP: www.nacbs.org/event-detail...

Declaration of Independence - The Papers of Thomas Jefferson This exhibit invites exploration of two elements of the Declaration’s creation. Drafting the Declaration illuminates the successive stages of the text. Building Blocks traces the paths by which some p...

For 2026, my project (the Jefferson Papers) put together a new exhibit on the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and its connections to some earlier documents. Check it out! jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/declaration-...

Congrats to my pals Philip Herrington and Loren Moulds on publishing a fascinating article about AI-assisted handwritten text recognition that highlights the possibilities of the technology while keeping the humanities and historical inquiry centered.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The Writing on the Wall with Madeleine Pelling Podcast Episode · Revolutions in Retrospect · March 3 · 1h 4m

Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0Hc7...

Website: www.revolutionaryhistories.com/revolutions-...

The Writing on the Wall with Madeleine Pelling I Revolutions in Retrospect YouTube video by Primary Source Media

At some point in our lives we all face The Writing on the Wall. Fortunately @maddypelling.bsky.social is here to help explain what all that scandalous graffiti means, & why the 18th century is the best century.

Check out our conversation on Revolutions in Retrospect
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kai3...

cc: @dhowlett1692.bsky.social

Thomas Jefferson by Andrew M. Davenport Dream of the Future

Historian Andrew M. Davenport of Monticello explores the future that Thomas Jefferson could see, and the future he could not, in the latest essay from @inpursuitusa.bsky.social

inpursuit.substack.com/p/thomas-jef...

The image shows a rooster pulling on a British flag against a map backdrop.

The exhibition “1776 Across the Americas: A Hemispheric History from the Collections of the John Carter Brown Library” is now open to the public during regular Reading Room hours.

For more information, visit jcblibrary.org/news/1776-ac...

Flyer for event on Defending Democracy in the Stacks, free virtual event on 3/4

📚 🗃️ Super excited for this FREE Wed. 3/4 virtual event, when I’ll be in conversation with Tamela Chambers, Colleen Shogan, and Laura McEnaney on #libraries, #archives, & freedoms. Join us for “Defending Democracy in the Stacks” Register here: umass-amherst.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The Association of American Publishers Announces 2026 PROSE Award Winners for Excellence and the R.R. Hawkins Award - AAP Cambridge University Press, Simon and Schuster, and Stanford University Press honored with PROSE Awards for Excellence Top PROSE Awards Honor, the R.R. Hawkins Award, goes to Cambridge University Pres...

I had the privilege of serving as a judge for this year's AAP PROSE Awards. Many fantastic books made for many hard choices, but as an early Americanist I am thrilled to see David Eltis, Atlantic Cataclysm: Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trades, win the top award.

publishers.org/news/the-ass...

Image of a book jacket for Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions by Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth.

Full book jacket just dropped, and we're pretty happy with it. Huge thanks to @cecilefromont.bsky.social, @soccerpolitics.bsky.social, Alice, and Andrés for your generous words! #earlymodern #BeyondTheOcean global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Thank you!

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Thank you!

Check out this lovely conversation between @lynnprobbins.bsky.social and Professor Mary Eyring on the history of grief in Early America. @uncpress.bsky.social @oieahc.bsky.social

youtu.be/g499aa99rEk?...

And if you are interested in Thomas Paine, Common Sense, & the American Revolution, my predecessor as ITPS Scholar in Residence @lmchervinsky.bsky.social & I talked about it all for @inpursuitusa.bsky.social

(No, I don't know why YT chose that awkward thumbnail)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cB7...

Thanks in particular to @noraslonimsky.bsky.social for creating this possibility!