Rick Herrera
@herreramilhist.bsky.social
Senior Historian, George Washington Leadership Institute | Ret. Prof., US Army War College | Military historian | 18c & 19c America | Author | Californian in PA | My views mine alone | https://www.amazon.com/author/raherrera
Getting into the holiday spirit. Sort of.
November 29, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Getting into the holiday spirit. Sort of.
If you’re shopping today @usni.org is running a big holiday sale with 50% most books, including On Tactics, On Operations, and 21st Century Ellis.
www.usni.org/press/books
www.usni.org/press/books
November 28, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Rick Herrera
Taste history: That Thanksgiving bottle of cabernet sauvignon is a tasting trip back in time 🍷 https://bit.ly/3Mcbh0Q
Cabernet Sauvignon’s Long Memory Revealed
UC Davis scientists find chemical "switches" that control gene expression in cabernet sauvignon remain stable across hundreds of years of clonal reproduction.
bit.ly
November 26, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Taste history: That Thanksgiving bottle of cabernet sauvignon is a tasting trip back in time 🍷 https://bit.ly/3Mcbh0Q
Reposted by Rick Herrera
Here's your periodic reminder that my book makes a great, relatively inexpensive gift for the praying Christian or Christian-prayer-curious person in your life. ⚓️
shop.forwardmovement.org/product/2623
shop.forwardmovement.org/product/2623
Seek and You Will Find
shop.forwardmovement.org
November 25, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Here's your periodic reminder that my book makes a great, relatively inexpensive gift for the praying Christian or Christian-prayer-curious person in your life. ⚓️
shop.forwardmovement.org/product/2623
shop.forwardmovement.org/product/2623
Indeed.
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Indeed.
If you're going to be near Valley Forge on 2 December, come join us for a panel discussion about Ken Burns's "American Revolution."
vista.today/2025/11/ken-...
vista.today/2025/11/ken-...
Explore Ken Burns’s 'The American Revolution' at a Special Valley Forge Park Alliance Event
Join the Valley Forge Park Alliance on Dec. 2 for an expert panel exploring Ken Burns’s "The American Revolution" at Oaks Center Cinema.
vista.today
November 25, 2025 at 9:12 PM
If you're going to be near Valley Forge on 2 December, come join us for a panel discussion about Ken Burns's "American Revolution."
vista.today/2025/11/ken-...
vista.today/2025/11/ken-...
Reposted by Rick Herrera
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition
One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved
newsletter.dancohen.org
November 25, 2025 at 4:35 PM
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
Super excited that a new edited volume, Bend But Do Not Break, is coming out, edited by Jaron Wharton, @klkuzminski.bsky.social @jkdemp.bsky.social @mzmargulies.bsky.social Keith Carter, and @carriealee.bsky.social
And it’s apparently doing well on the amazons
And it’s apparently doing well on the amazons
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Rick Herrera
I remember asking @katecarp.bsky.social if @draftingthepast.bsky.social was a confessional space...I think it is, and I was giddy to get to talk with Kate about the joy of writing history -- and my tremendous good fortune to get to do it. draftingthepast.com/podcast-epis...
Episode 76: Karin Wulf Keeps Her Brain Humming Along - Drafting the Past
In this episode, Kate is joined by Karin Wulf, the director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library, to discuss her new book, Lineage, and her research and writing process.
draftingthepast.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:20 AM
I remember asking @katecarp.bsky.social if @draftingthepast.bsky.social was a confessional space...I think it is, and I was giddy to get to talk with Kate about the joy of writing history -- and my tremendous good fortune to get to do it. draftingthepast.com/podcast-epis...
Karl Jacoby taking one for the team. Little known fact. I had an on campus interview at Hillsdale 25 or more years ago. Best ever interview. I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, which, in retrospect, was victory. I needed a job. Glad it wasn’t that one.
As a historian, I have been torturing myself by watching some of the series that the White House in cooperation with Hillsdale College produced about American Independence (tellingly, they avoid the word "revolution").
There are so many errors that it is hard to know where to begin. But I'll try
There are so many errors that it is hard to know where to begin. But I'll try
November 25, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Karl Jacoby taking one for the team. Little known fact. I had an on campus interview at Hillsdale 25 or more years ago. Best ever interview. I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, which, in retrospect, was victory. I needed a job. Glad it wasn’t that one.
Culture. Fascinating thread by @brasidas.bsky.social
These schmucks are approaching what I like to call a "reverse Afghanistan" sexuality here:
November 24, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Culture. Fascinating thread by @brasidas.bsky.social
Count me in.
Ken Burns Revolution documentary drinking game where you take a shot every time you recognize the author of a primary source before the narrator tells you.
November 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Count me in.
Great read.
@smh-historians.bsky.social
@smh-historians.bsky.social
Why did convoys work?
With apologies for the Buzzfeed-style subtitle...
#navalhistory
evanmwilson.substack.com/p/why-did-co...
With apologies for the Buzzfeed-style subtitle...
#navalhistory
evanmwilson.substack.com/p/why-did-co...
Why did convoys work?
The answer might surprise you (sorry)
evanmwilson.substack.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Great read.
@smh-historians.bsky.social
@smh-historians.bsky.social
Reposted by Rick Herrera
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
"The humanities really are a resource — a confidence for living in our times.” Dean Sara Guyer on the modern utility of humanities degrees
This interview originally appeared on the Division of Arts
bit.ly
November 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
Reposted by Rick Herrera
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Important piece by @markhertling.bsky.social
“What Americans Should Understand About the Military Disobeying Illegal Orders”
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
“What Americans Should Understand About the Military Disobeying Illegal Orders”
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
What Americans Should Understand About the Military Disobeying Illegal Orders
And why it matters there are two military oaths.
open.substack.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Important piece by @markhertling.bsky.social
“What Americans Should Understand About the Military Disobeying Illegal Orders”
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
“What Americans Should Understand About the Military Disobeying Illegal Orders”
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
Reposted by Rick Herrera
This has gotten very little coverage in the US, but on Monday US military contractors or troops or some other paramilitary group placed signs on a beach in Mexico, claiming it as US territory. (The contested location is close to the SpaceX base outside Brownsville)
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
‘Restricted’: Did US troops try to cordon off a Mexican beach?
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum seeks the International Boundary and Water Commission intervention.
www.aljazeera.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:59 PM
This has gotten very little coverage in the US, but on Monday US military contractors or troops or some other paramilitary group placed signs on a beach in Mexico, claiming it as US territory. (The contested location is close to the SpaceX base outside Brownsville)
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
November 19, 2025 at 10:18 PM
"War studies becomes a shadow play... that echoes official narratives, calibrates policy assumptions and mistakes methodological rigour for intellectual audacity..., offering not challenge but compliance. Strategy becomes branding. Critique becomes consultancy."
This is a hell of an article about war studies that pulls no punches. CC: @teaandtactics.bsky.social @sodrock.bsky.social
www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/stra...
www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/stra...
Strategy and the Last Manager: The Case for Dissenting War Studies - Military Strategy Magazine
Applying James Burnham’s theory of the ‘managerial revolution’ to the evolution of war studies, this article argues that the field has been captured and reshaped by a managerial class more concerned w...
www.militarystrategymagazine.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:38 PM
"War studies becomes a shadow play... that echoes official narratives, calibrates policy assumptions and mistakes methodological rigour for intellectual audacity..., offering not challenge but compliance. Strategy becomes branding. Critique becomes consultancy."
Reposted by Rick Herrera
A little brainteaser I wrote:
Writing 'not unlike' is not unlike writing 'like', unlike writing 'unlike', which, unlike writing 'not unlike', is not like writing 'like'.
#WritingCommunity #BookSky #WriteSky #WordPlay
Writing 'not unlike' is not unlike writing 'like', unlike writing 'unlike', which, unlike writing 'not unlike', is not like writing 'like'.
#WritingCommunity #BookSky #WriteSky #WordPlay
November 18, 2025 at 9:05 PM
A little brainteaser I wrote:
Writing 'not unlike' is not unlike writing 'like', unlike writing 'unlike', which, unlike writing 'not unlike', is not like writing 'like'.
#WritingCommunity #BookSky #WriteSky #WordPlay
Writing 'not unlike' is not unlike writing 'like', unlike writing 'unlike', which, unlike writing 'not unlike', is not like writing 'like'.
#WritingCommunity #BookSky #WriteSky #WordPlay
Reposted by Rick Herrera
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Submit a Claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Reposted by Rick Herrera
I spent October traveling to schools throughout the South talking to students about American history. What I found were young people who understand we can tell a story that includes both the positive and the negative. As one 8th grader in Memphis said, “Doesn’t seem that hard, just say both things.”
Tell Students the Truth About American History
We owe it to Americans of all ages to be honest about the country’s past, including its contradictions.
www.theatlantic.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I spent October traveling to schools throughout the South talking to students about American history. What I found were young people who understand we can tell a story that includes both the positive and the negative. As one 8th grader in Memphis said, “Doesn’t seem that hard, just say both things.”
I’ve had the chance to preview portions of “The American Revolution.” I’m much less concerned than I had been and I look forward to the full series. It’s art, humanities, and public history.
As a historian of the 18th c and an American, I've always known 2026 would be a critical moment. This doc is worth watching, and thinking through. Begins and ends w Indigenous contexts, conveys the horrors of a civil war wrought w racism + the ideals of liberty and equality we keep reaching for. 1/
_The American Revolution_ offers a look at how complex and violent — and also inspiring— the American founding was. Getting huge coverage, it may give folks time to digest that complexity as 2026 commences. Premieres tonight + PBS has preview clips of all episodes. www.pbs.org/show/the-ame...
November 16, 2025 at 10:38 PM
I’ve had the chance to preview portions of “The American Revolution.” I’m much less concerned than I had been and I look forward to the full series. It’s art, humanities, and public history.
As one of “many more” (I can’t help myself, hell I won’t!), I wholeheartedly endorse this.
In time for the holidays, now pre-orderable, the long awaited Oxford Handbook of American Military History, edited by Sam Watson. 32 chapters by top scholars in the field, including @bethbailey.bsky.social , @notabattlechick.bsky.social , @karadixonvuic.bsky.social, yours truly, and many more.
global.oup.com
November 16, 2025 at 10:33 PM
As one of “many more” (I can’t help myself, hell I won’t!), I wholeheartedly endorse this.