And of course they are likely to keep killing people in the same way in the coming months.

I don’t know if supporting the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre polled well in 1969 but I’m sure many operatives and journalists happily argued that it did.

I look forward to a detailed discussion of whether bombing the survivors of shipwrecks polls well.

But I’m not appealing to “the judgement of history” because it won’t save any lives now and therefore it isn’t any consolation. I hope the British government I voted for - and the U.S. government I paid taxes to - stop arming war criminals and start using their vast influence for good.

I’m very happy to answer questions about life at A.U.B.G. but in short I like it very much and it’s a great place to work!

I’m confident that one day the war crimes of 2023-5 will be seen in the U.S. and Europe in exactly the same light as the My Lai massacre, the napalming of Vietnam, and all the worst imperial atrocities we are all familiar with (of course, outside the U.S. and Europe, they’re already seen this way)

U.S. presidents prove how tough and decisive they are by killing vast numbers of innocent people on the far side of the world.

But it does seem crystal clear that Israel’s bombing of Gaza, and Biden and Trump’s support for that bombing, is a crime completely in line with the worst moments of U.S. empire, and completely consistent with the rest of that bloody history.

I don’t necessarily think that being a historian of violence and imperialism gives me any special expertise or insight into violence and crimes which happen in 2025.

It’s worth noting that the Washington Post published a very similar story two months ago, and the bombing has not stopped since, so of course, 18,500 will be a vast underestimate of the true total.

Thanks Adam, and same to you!!

If I’m lucky, the dissertation will be a book at some point. After I’ve left it alone for a long time and gained the strength to cut it ruthlessly and hammer it into better shape. Drop your pre-orders now, or wait for my next very long thread to drop in c. ten years’ time….

…but it is very interesting that European Christians were so focused on these emotional transformations. What strange predicaments did Africans find themselves in as a result?

My assumption is that these transformations did not actually happen - I have no reason to believe that slaveholders succeeded in “remoulding” enslaved people on a religious or an emotional level, and I think most people would be rightly sceptical of that idea -…

Jesuit writers in particular speculated about how they could transform the emotions of enslaved people, to make those people better Christians.