As mentioned previously here, the book Self-Evident Truths: Contesting Equal Rights from the Revolution to the Civil War was published in 2017.  (Disclosure again: The author, Richard D. Brown, is my father.)

Recently, Self-Evident Truths received the New England Historical Association (NEHA) Book Prize. 

Last month, the National Catholic Reporter published a two-part review—by Michael S. Winters—of the book, which examines religious liberty among other issues (such as ethnicity, race, class, and gender in law and practice) in U.S. history.  Recent scholarly reviews include, for example, those in the American Historical Review and the Journal of the Civil War Era.

Sadly, the last week has seen murderous bigotry in places including Kentucky (a grocery store, after the shooter attempted to enter a predominantly black church) and Pittsburgh (a synagogue).  Reports of hate crimes are on the rise since 2015.

Edward Ball (now of New Haven), with family ties to Charleston, South Carolina, wrote in the New York Review of Books about the 2017 trial of the racist 2015 Charleston church killer.

An August 25 post below discussed climate change and the book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.  Now, there is news of growing recognition that such a drawdown effort will be needed, as urgently as possible; a New York Times article notes that “scientists push for a crash program to scrub carbon from the air.”