Review of This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

William Kent Krueger’s novel This Tender Land is a new release in historical fiction, appearing in September of 2019. To see my other recent reviews in historical fiction, please see: The Impossible Girl, by Lydia Kan The da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor […]

The Métis and Manifest Destiny – 3 of 3

Minnesota and the Métis Our last post left our story at the potential of the Red River Rebellion bringing Manitoba into the United States. However, we must now describe the relationship between the Métis and the state of Minnesota. Much of the state’s early commerce involved the Red River Métis. Recall, the Métis sustained themselves […]

The Red River of Manitoba & Manifest Destiny – 2 of 3

The Red River Resistance This is a continuation of the previous post detailing how half of Canada nearly joined the United States in 1869. The theater of action was the Red River of the North, the river dividing North Dakota from Minnesota. We left off by establishing that the Canadian government had a powerful need […]

Manifest Destiny & the Red River of Manitoba – 1 of 3

This is part one of a three-part series on how half of Canada nearly joined the United States in 1869. That year, one of the most underappreciated but vastly important events in the history of North America took place in today’s Canadian province of Manitoba. Because of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the fate of […]

American Christianity & Providential Design, Part 2

In our last blog, we introduced the religious doctrine of providential design. Now, it is time to examine all the ways this religious viewpoint poisoned attitudes in American Christianity toward African Americans in the US for many years. We left off by stating that it absolved slaveholders from individual responsibility for the horrors of slavery. […]

Providential Design & American Christianity, Part 1

The doctrine of providential design arose in the United States after the Civil War and the end of slavery. It was, perhaps, the most perfect combination of racism and religion ever created in the United States. To understand the full importance of this pernicious doctrine, let us lay out what its beliefs were. How to […]