History

Tourist in Your Own Town

About ten years ago, there was an annual program called “Be a Tourist in Your Own Town” organized by the Lowell Historic Board, Greater Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitor Bureau, National Park Service, and others. It was a franchise-type operation like the various “First Night” celebrations around the country. I…

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Cambodian History: A Brief Review

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote by the Lowell City Council to renounce the upcoming visit to the city by Hun Manet, a general in the Cambodian Army and the son of that nation’s prime minister, a number of non-Cambodian residents have expressed their unfamiliarity with Cambodian history and politics.…

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Primary Rant

New York, California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oregon, Indiana, Connecticut, Maryland, Arizona, and many other states have not yet held primaries or caucuses for the presidential race, and yet the media experts are in a rush to declare victors on both sides. This is what’s wrong with the approach used every four…

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Parker Lecture: Empire of Cotton

Last evening, I joined an overflow crowd at Lowell National Park Visitor Center to hear Harvard history professor Sven Beckert talk about his bestselling book, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (chosen by the New York Times as one of the ten best books of 2015; also a finalist for…

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