IN PRINT...

The links below are to writings that I’ve done since about 2003 or so, when more things started to get posted on-line.  This is not a complete list of my writings, but it will have to suffice.  Anything I write after these articles (September 2009 is the cut-off here) will be found in the News section.  

“Jimmy Carter’s ‘Crisis of Confidence’ Speech Still Matters,” written for History News Service and printed under different titles in a variety of newspapers across the United States .  Here’s the HNS version:
http://www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/2009/070709a.html

 

“A Politics of National Sacrifice,” American Prospect, April 2009.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_politics_of_national_sacrifice

 

“Remembering John Patrick Diggins,” Dissent website, February 13, 2009 .
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=205

 

“Sarah Palin and the Sad State of American Politics,” Dissent Website, September 5, 2008 .
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=140

 

“Who’s Being Partisan: A Debate with Sean Wilentz about the 2008 election,” History News Network, posted June 8, 2008 .
http://hnn.us/articles/51035.html

 

There were three longer pieces I did about the American right at the time that my book, Rebels All!, was coming out.  Here they are:

On Jonah Goldberg:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR33.3/mattson.php

On David Frum and others:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1244

A broader view on the issue of conservatism, history, and politics:
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_02/2456

“The Two Cultures: Why Faculty Are Looking at The Top of the Pyramid and Doing Something About It,” Academe, July/August 2008 (with Joseph Bernt).
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2008/JA/Feat/matt.htm

I wrote a series of pieces on the 2008 Democratic primary as well as the general election for the Guardian USA.  Instead of listing each individual piece, here’s an overview:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/kevinmattson

On Bill Buckley:
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=remembering_buckley_for_the_right_reasons

 

More on the election of 2008 with my friend, John Gilliom (the title didn’t really work for us, but…):
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=where_both_democrats_went_wrong_in_ohio

 

Gotta love that Cold War: “Debating the Cold War with Joanne Barkan,” Dissent, Winter 2006.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=747

 

“History Lesson: Those who don’t know history are doomed to distort it – and our political discourse,” Democracy, Winter 2006.
http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6506

 

“An Age of Anxiety?” Boston Review, July/August 2006.
http://bostonreview.net/BR31.4/mattson.php

 

Here’s a little ditty on young movie makers:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=665

 

Of the numerous things I wrote about Upton Sinclair, there’s only one on-line:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0419-25.htm

 

“The Book of Liberal Virtues,” American Prospect, February 2006.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_book_of_liberal_virtues

 

“A Debate with Michael Kazin about William Jennings Bryan, the Left, and Religion,” American Prospect on-line edition, posted January 25, 2006 .
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=life_of_bryan

 

“Channeling History,” Dissent, Fall, 2005, now anthologized in Joan Gorham, ed. Annual Editions: Mass Media (McGraw Hill, 2007).
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=185

 

“Academic Freedom: Horowitz versus Mattson: A Debate,” Frontpage magazine, August 5, 2005 (try, if you can, to make it past the right wing clutter here).
http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=7699

 

“A Student Bill of Fights,” The Nation, April 4, 2005 .
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050404/mattson

 

“Goodbye to All That,” American Prospect, April 2005; reprinted in Current magazine, July/August 2005.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=9389

 

“Revisiting Arthur Schlesinger’s The Vital Center,” Dissent, Winter 2005.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=286

 

“Why Active Learning Can Be Dangerous to the Profession,” Academe, January/February 2005. 
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2005/JF/Feat/matt.htm

 

Two older pieces on Michael Moore:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=510
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=322