A Liberal Dose, July 25, 2024 "What a Couple of Weeks It Has Been"

 

A Liberal Dose

July 25, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“What a Couple of Weeks It Has Been”

 

At this rate, it is going to take me longer to talk about the Palestinian conflict than it’s taken them to have it. But it can’t be helped -there are too many significant events going on around us that I need to address. These multi-part, nuanced historical series are a lot easier to do when it’s not an election year.

Let’s start with the assassination attempt on Trump. I want to be absolutely clear: I condemn political violence, especially the kind that gets people killed, no matter who is perpetrating it. I was very sad at the many people on my own political side of the aisle I saw celebrating the incident, making jokes about it, or expressing regret it hadn’t worked. Several people were hurt, and a man was killed (not counting the shooter). There are still a lot of questions about the whole event. However, I was also disappointed by the sheer number of conspiracy theories that immediately sprang up, on both sides. I saw people on the right claiming the shooting was orchestrated by Joe Biden and amounted to a hit on Donald Trump (if Biden wanted to do that, he could’ve just used the military, since the Supreme Court has given presidents full immunity for such things). I saw people on the left saying it was rigged, or was a false flag event orchestrated by Trump himself to get votes. Both those ideas are ridiculous, and dangerous. Meanwhile, a lot of assumptions were also immediately made about the shooter’s political views -to wit, that he was a leftist terrorist who hated the right.

Here’s what we do know. The kid was a registered Republican, and his folks had Trump signs in their yard, while on the other hand he once donated fifteen dollars to a Democrat. It’s hard to nail down. Law enforcement has discovered, in his computer records, that he had tracked the travel itineraries of several famous politicians, including Biden and a member of the Royal family. As Trae Crowder (Upper Cumberland native and Tennessee Tech graduate) pointed out, the last time a president was shot in this country (Reagan) it was not politically motivated -John Hinkley, Jr. just wanted to impress the movie star Jodie Foster. It is really seeming more and more like the shooter in this case just wanted to kill a political figure to get famous, and Trump happened to be the one that came closest to his house.

So there’s that. There’s also Joe Biden dropping out of the race, which at the time I am writing this happened just a few hours ago. Kamala Harris at this point looks all but certain to take his place on the ticket- by tonight (Sunday) four states had already pledged all their Democratic delegates to her. Tennessee was the first state to do so, by the way.

What is this going to mean for the election? Polls at this point have Harris doing slightly better against Trump than Biden was, but not by much. I think the difference is going to be this: the Democratic base was beginning to despair after Biden’s debate performance, and an air of certain defeat was setting in; now that base has been instantly energized and their hope renewed. Biden’s contributions had dried up in the weeks since the debate; within a few hours after he announced he was dropping out, Democrats raised over 30 million dollars, making it possibly the biggest one-day fundraising in Democratic Party history. The base is now going to get out and vote like you would not believe.

It is also going to mean a reframing of the competition. Before, the race was between two men that most of America did not want to have to choose from. They both have their baggage, and they are both the oldest presidential candidates in history. If Trump were to win, by the end of his term he would be older than Biden is now… and he is noticeably slipping, day by day. Many voters were saying they’d rather have ANYBODY but these two… and now they do. Kamala Harris is only 59 years old -she graduated college in 1986 -so those who favored Trump over Biden because of age no longer have that issue to fall back on. TRUMP is the old geezer now. Joe Biden, by ending his candidacy, might have saved democracy… again.

And, of course, there’s also the matter of J.D. Vance. But THAT is going to take a whole column.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, July 18, 2024 "A Brief History of Israel and Palestine Part 6"

 

A Liberal Dose

July 18, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A Brief History of Israel and Palestine, Part 6”

 

So much is going on, I debated with myself whether to return to my ongoing series about the history of Palestine this week. I decided to do so, for two reasons. One, whether we’re looking at Biden’s age issues and the fate of his campaign or the assassination attempt on Trump, it is all still unfolding as I write this. Two, it might be a good idea for all of us to review the history of Palestine and the violence associated with it, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of what can happen when hate prevails in a region and what it can lead to.

Last time, we had finally reached the nineteenth century, a time during which the Ottoman Empire of Turkey had ruled over Palestine for 400 years. The Turks were Muslim, but many Arabs chafed under the rule of the Ottomans. A growing sense of Arab nationalism was developing by the late nineteenth/early twentieth century; many adherents to this philosophy wanted Arabs to have control of their own lands, while others remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire but wanted Arab rights recognized. There were also different types of Arab nationalism. To some, this meant that the whole Arabic-speaking world was one nation. To others, it meant that Arab groups in individual countries ruled over by the Turks should have a strong sense of nationalism to those countries and make them independent from the Ottomans, under Arabic rule.

You might be surprised to learn that Russia played a significant role in what happened next.

In the Russian Empire, Jews were viciously persecuted and were frequently the target of pogroms -from a Russian word meaning destruction. The dictionary defines a pogrom as a violent riot with the goal of massacring or expelling Jews from a region. This activity was especially heightened in the 1880s, which is when the word first appeared -but antisemitic violence had been common throughout Europe for many centuries. Nonetheless, it intensified in Russia at this time. Countless Jews were murdered, sometimes whole communities. This contributed to large numbers of Jews fleeing the Russian Empire, many of whom immigrated to the United States (even the mouse-versions, if you know your Fievel). It also led to a growing sense among many Jews that they needed the safety and security of a country of their own, something they had not had since the Roman Empire and the diaspora (or dispersal of Jews to many regions of the world).

Whereas some Jews proposed forming a colony elsewhere in the world, such as in Africa, eventually a majority of people calling for a Jewish homeland supported making it in Palestine, the location of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah from which their ancestors had been exiled. This movement quickly became known as Zionism, for Mount Zion -a large hill in Jerusalem, which in the Hebrew scriptures and later tradition referred symbolically to all of Israel. The movement even designed their own flag in 1891, the very same flag used by the modern nation of Israel today.

This goal was initially pursued by buying land in Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, and establishing Jewish settlements there. Many local Muslims resented their Turkish rulers selling away their land to outsiders, who were growing in number, which heightened tensions between the Ottoman Empire and Arab-speaking peoples in the Levant. To complicate matters further, Russia was ALSO viciously persecuting Muslims in the Russian Empire, causing many of THEM to migrate -and most were migrating to the Ottoman Empire, introducing even more Muslim diversity in the region and even more nationalism and resistance to the Turks. Since the Ottoman and Russian Empires were arch-enemies, the Turks were very suspicious of the new Muslim immigrants coming from Russian territory.

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire/Turkey entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers (primarily Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Various Arab nationalist groups united during the war, and -encouraged by Britain -revolted against Turkey, fighting on the side of the Allies in hopes of establishing a single Arab nation that would stretch from Syria to Yemen. Britain promised to recognize such a new nation, in return for the Arabs’ help in the war (this is what the movie Lawrence of Arabia is about).

Instead, when the war was over, Britain joined other European powers in dividing up the Middle East among themselves. And, before fighting had even stopped, Britain promised to help establish a Jewish national homeland… in Palestine.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

 

A Liberal Dose, July 11, 2024 "Supreme Court Declares Trump King"

 

“Supreme Court Declares Trump King”

 

At this rate, I may never get that historical overview of Palestine finished. Three or four weeks ago I interrupted it to comment on Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts (and how richly deserved they were). The day after that column came out, someone pretending to be me called the electric company and asked for my power to be cut off -I’m sure that was a complete coincidence.

This week, I have to set space aside to comment on the Supreme Court decision about Trump that came, with incredible irony, on the week of Independence Day. 248 years ago, we declared ourselves a nation -a nation without a king. Eleven years later, in 1787, we approved a Constitution laying out the powers of that nation’s government. Throughout the process, all the “founding fathers” agreed that the executive office of president is not the same as king, and that in America no one -no one -was above the law. Richard Nixon argued that “if the president does it, it’s not illegal” -but legal scholars did not agree. The very idea, in fact, has been unthinkable -to the extent that, when Donald Trump started making such claims to the Supreme Court -most informed people believed SCOTUS took the case on as a way to run out the clock until after the election so as to ensure his chances for victory. Almost no one believed that they -even they! -would actually give him what he asked for, because there was no Constitutional basis whatsoever to do so.

Joke’s on us.

Mere days before the 4^th of July, the conservative Court majority ruled -from whole cloth, with no connection to precedent, not that that’s stopped them recently -that no president can be prosecuted for things he (or she, someday) did as “official actions” while in office. Accept bribes, order execution of political rivals, inspire insurrections to remain in office… all immune, if said president said they were doing it for the country. But wait, says the suddenly-sensitive-to-criticism Chief Justice Roberts, we’re not saying the president is above the law- he can still be prosecuted for UNOFFICIAL actions. But the Court gives no suggestion as to what those might be. And, even worse, this Court ruled that -even if a president’s unofficial actions were criminal -no court can use as evidence of that criminality anything that president said to any of his subordinates.

In short, they have declared Donald Trump, if elected in November, King.

I say they have declared TRUMP king. Because, with the hyper-partisan-to-the-max track record of this Court, you know -you KNOW -that if Biden, or any other Democratic president, were charged with anything they would rule it prosecutable without even deliberating it. Because these actions are not about the office of president, or the good of the country. They are to protect the agenda of Donald Trump, like everything else these conservative Justices, and virtually all Republican officials, do anymore.

This is an ex-president who makes no secret about the fascistic plans he has for this country if he gets the chance, nor of his plans for political revenge against all perceived enemies. The dictatorial “Project 2025” plan details strategies to remove all governmental guardrails that prevented Trump from doing everything he wanted the first time around, and now SCOTUS has pre-approved his every illegal intention. And, assuming our democracy survives an even more deranged second Trump term, what about the future? This Court has enabled the possibility of everything the framers of the Constitution feared and warned about.

We are living in an age when one portion of the American public, and the politicians who rely on their votes, and (as we’ve been learning) the Justices grown accustomed to millions of dollars in bribes, are willing to burn down everything this country was founded on, every hope of generations to form a more perfect union… because it hasn’t gone the way they’d like it to go. “Oh, but people and their pronouns! And drag queens! And minorities! Someone needs to take a firm hand to fix all this!” Constitution be hanged, despite their claims to revere it. For that matter, Christ and morality be hanged, despite their claims of religion.

I’m not going to get through to people who think this is all hunky dory. But there are still plenty of people, right here in White County, who know it isn’t right. Stand up and speak, and get out and vote. It’s only a Republic if you can keep it.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, July 4, 2024 "A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 5"

 

A Liberal Dose

July 4, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 5”

 

We are slowly making our way, a few centuries at a time, to the situation in modern Palestine. I am going to start this week’s installment by quoting the final paragraph from last time, as a summary:

“In the eleventh century, the region was invaded by the Seljuk Turks -who were also Muslim -and they took Jerusalem in 1073. The Turks ruled tyrannically for a quarter-century, crushing any attempts at resistance and at different times killing most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Gaza. They were finally driven out in 1098 by the Fatimid Caliphate.”

As we discussed earlier, the Byzantine Empire -that is, the eastern half of what had once been the Roman Empire -had been fighting against the Persian Empire for control of the Levant, finally winning that long series of wars and retaking Jerusalem. Then came the Seljuk Turks and took Jerusalem away from them, and by 1098 the Fatimid Caliphate took it away from THEM… just as the Byzantine Empire was making THEIR move to get it back.

In 1094 the Byzantine Emperor appealed to Pope Urban II in Rome for aid in retaking Jerusalem, at that time still controlled by Seljuk Turks, in the name of their shared Christianity. A Crusade was declared to “retake the Holy Land”. Armies from various Western European lands marched to the Levant to join the Orthodox Christian Byzantines in their fight against the Turks. By the time the forces fought their way to Jerusalem -many of them killing Jews they encountered along the way in pogroms -the Fatimids had taken control of the city, so the Crusaders attacked them in a siege in 1099. It was during this siege that the Crusaders truly earned their reputation for cruelty and barbarity. They eventually took all of the Levant, as well as parts of what are now Syria and Turkey, dividing it all into four “Crusader Kingdoms”: the Principality of Antioch, the Counties of Edessa and Tripoli (in northern Lebanon, not the one in Libya)… and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which would be controlled by (mostly French) Crusaders for the next 200 years. Those two centuries were marked by waves of invasions and counter-invasions of the region, not only by the European Crusaders but by the two principal Muslim powers in the area, the Fatimids (Shiite Muslim) and the Seljuk Turks (Sunni Muslim).

About halfway through that period, in the 12th century, a Kurdish-born Sunni Muslim named Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub rose through the Seljuk ranks. He is usually called Salah ad-Din, or Saladin. He eventually rose to power in his own right, unifying the Muslims in the region and establishing his own dynasty headquartered in Egypt. Saladin then led the forces under his command against the Crusaders, winning a huge victory over them in 1187 that restored most of the Levant -and the city of Jerusalem -to Muslim rule (though the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem held on for another century, confined to a tiny strip of land, before finally falling as well.) There were very few Jews left in Palestine, but they fought on the side of the Muslims against the Crusaders.

Saladin’s Ayyubid Dynasty was short-lived in Egypt, being overthrown in 1250 by mamluks (enslaved soldiers) who set up their own Mamluk Dynasty in Egypt… just in time to defend Palestine from invasion by Mongols, who -in an effort begun by Ghengis (or Jingis) Khan, had already conquered much of the known world. The Mamluks eventually succeeded in repelling the Mongols, but -as had so often been the case -the people of Palestine suffered heavily during the conflict. With both the Mongols and the Crusaders chased out, though, Palestine would have a couple of centuries of relative peace and rebuilding. The region was taken away from the Mamluks by the Empire of the Ottoman Turks in 1516, but -compared to the Crusaders and the Mongols -it was a relatively quick process with much less death and destruction.

The Ottoman Empire would control Palestine for 400 years, until World War I. Most of the region’s inhabitants were Arab Muslims, with some Christians, Druze, and a small number of Jews. Most of the world’s Jews were living in Central and Eastern Europe.

Near the end of that period, in the nineteenth century, two movements arose that would set into motion -along with WWI -events leading to our current situation: Arab nationalism and Zionism.

To be continued.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

A Liberal Dose, June 27, 2024 "A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 4"

 

A Liberal Dose

June 27, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 4”

 

After taking a week off from this space to finish producing my lecture videos for my summer class on the American West, I am now back in the saddle (see what I did there?) to resume our exploration of the history of Palestine. When we left off two weeks ago, it was the end of the fourth century and Rome had divided into Western and Eastern (with capitols at Rome and Byzantium, the latter exercising control over Palestine and the Middle East). Jews were now a minority in the region, with most native inhabitants being Christian (as both halves of the Roman Empire were).

The Byzantines’ chief rival in the Middle East was Persia (in case you didn’t know, Byzantium is now called Istanbul, Turkey, and Persia is now Iran). In the early seventh century -over a century after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West- the final war between the Byzantine and Persian empires took place, and Persia invaded Palestine. The Jews of Palestine fought on the side of Persia, hoping to get independence for Jerusalem and Jewish control over it out of the deal; the Persian-Jewish alliance captured Jerusalem and Caesarea, and the Jews destroyed the Christian churches there and took their holy relics as trophies. Unfortunately for them, the Persians lost the war -and Christian Byzantium retook control of the Levant, and were vey angry at the Jews of the region. All Jews were expelled from Jerusalem and their leaders were executed. This was the year 629 C.E.

Seven years earlier, the prophet Muhammed -persecuted in his home city of Mecca, where he had been gaining followers for over a decade -migrated to the city of Medina (both cities are in Saudi Arabia) and began to unify the tribes of Arabia under his teachings. Under Muhammed’s leadership, the spread of the religion of Islam by conquest began. Muhammed returned to Mecca in triumph in 630 and ordered the destruction of all idols in the city. He died in 632, but his Muslim successors continued his mission.

In 636 they invaded Palestine, and conquered it by 640. (Orthodox) Christian Byzantium was now out of power in Palestine, and the Muslims were in. However, Muslims considered Jews, Christians, and Samaritans as “People of the Book” -basically servants of the same God- and Muslims considered both Moses and Jesus to be prophets. As a result, Jews, Christians, and Samaritans were accorded far more latitude under Muslim rule than were members of religions in the other places they conquered. Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem, synagogues and churches were allowed, and European Christians were still permitted to come to Jerusalem on pilgrimages. Still, though, non-Muslims had a secondary status and had to pay a special tax (as did non-Arabic Muslims).

About twenty years later, a new dynasty took over the Muslim caliphate, the Umayyad. The first Umayyad caliph was installed to power in a ceremony held in Jerusalem, which demonstrates the high regard in which they held the city. According to the Koran, Muhammed was once mystically transported from Mecca to Jerusalem, to the site Jews call the Temple Mount as it was the physical location of the destroyed Temple, and from that site the Prophet was transported briefly to heaven where he met God, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus. At the end of the second century, Umayyad caliphs had the Dome of the Rock constructed on the site, and it remains the oldest existing Islamic monument. This one site in Jerusalem, therefore, has profound religious significance for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.

During this era two Arabic tribal groups, the Qays and the Yaman -essentially stemming from the northern and the southern Arab tribes -began a feud that would last for centuries, not abating until the nineteenth century and in some ways echoing into the present in Palestine. So North vs. South is not just something we do here. Meanwhile, in the following few centuries -depending on the caliph in charge -the status of Christians in Palestine went back and forth from tolerance to persecution and back again.

In the eleventh century, the region was invaded by the Seljuk Turks -who were also Muslim -and they took Jerusalem in 1073. The Turks ruled tyrannically for a quarter-century, crushing any attempts at resistance and at different times killing most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Gaza. They were finally driven out in 1098 by the Fatimid Caliphate.

And then came the Crusades.

To be continued.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 

A Liberal Dose, June 13, 2024 "A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 3"

 

A Liberal Dose

June 13, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 3”

 

As of last week, we had reached the tenth century BCE and established the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the cities of Philistia. That was the southern Levant. After the Bronze Age Collapse of around 1200 BCE, there was a shuffling of powers in the northern Levant. The seafaring Phoenician city-states in Lebanon -cities like Tyre, Sidon, and Beirut -prospered in the following centuries, establishing colonies in other parts of the Mediterranean world, most notably the city of Carthage. In modern Syria, Damascus -which had previously been batted back and forth between the Hittites and the Egyptians -became a prominent city under the Arameans (who spoke Aramaic). To the northeast of Syria, the Assyrians became a major power, their central cities being Assur (from which they got their name) and Ninevah, in modern Iraq. Egypt, of course, remained a power far to the south.

For the next thousand years, the area formerly known as Canaan, later as Palestine, would be frequently caught in a tug-of-war between various empires. In the ninth century BCE, the Aramean king of Damascus (Hazael) expanded his kingdom into a proto-Empire, but a century later was crushed by Assyria… who also conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and (according to the Bible) took the inhabitants of the Israelite capitol, Samaria, into captivity, never to return home. By 605 the Assyrians had been greatly weakened, and were themselves crushed by an alliance including the Medes (from modern Iran) and the New Babylonians (Chaldeans from Iraq). Eight years later the Babylonians conquered Judah and destroyed Jerusalem, taking many of the Jews into captivity in Babylon. They also conquered the cities of the Philistines and took them into captivity, as well. The Philistines maintained their identity while captive for over a century, but eventually faded out of history. Their cities were resettled by Phoenicians (remember, descendants of Canaanites). About half-a-century after the Jewish captivity had begun, Babylon was conquered by Persia -who allowed the Jews to return home, escaping the fate of the Philistines. By 539 BCE Persia controlled The Levant. The returned Judeans spoke Hebrew and there were some Arabs in the area speaking their own language, but the common tongue of the whole region was Aramaic.

Whew. Got all that?

In 480 BCE the Persian westward advance was checked by the Spartans in Thermopylae. In 330 BCE the Persian Empire was crushed by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, and now Greeks were in charge of The Levant. When Alexander died in Babylon at age 32, his vast empire was divided among his top four generals, with Seleucus (and his descendants) in charge of Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and Ptolemy (and his descendants) in charge of Egypt -both at one time or another exerting influence in The Levant (and all the rulers, essentially, Greek even though they were being called Syrian and Egyptian). Koine Greek became the official language of the area, and was spoken by rulers and administrators, while most of the common people spoke Aramaic and their local languages.

By 167 BCE, Seleucid king Antiochus IV was suppressing the culture and religion of the Judeans, which led them to (successfully) rise up in revolt under the leadership of the Maccabee family.  The Seleucids were being tested at the same time by several of their conquered peoples, which helped enable the Maccabees to win Judean independence and establish the Hasmonean Kingdom, which ruled most of The Levant for a hundred years.

And then, in 63 BCE, Rome showed up. They destroyed the Seleucid empire, then ended the Hasmonean kingdom and divided it into three provinces: Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Judea was allowed to have its own king, though: Herod. Throughout the first century CE, Jewish zealots sporadically led insurgencies against the Romans, erupting into full-scale rebellion in 66 CE… and leading to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Romans deported 30,000 Jews to Carthage and sold 100,000 into slavery, with many thousands more leaving on their own steam. Two generations later, in 132 CE, there was another Jewish rebellion that led to more death and destruction. At that point Rome changed the name of the province from Judea to Syria Palaestina. When the Roman Empire divided into West and East (Byzantine) in 391, The Levant was under the control of the Byzantine Empire -often at odds in the area with the Persians, with both sides having Arabic allies. Jews had become a minority, and most people in the area were now Christian.

To be continued.

 

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE