People interested in personal growth rarely turn to historians for guidance. This isn’t surprising. Whereas personal growth is seen as an inner journey, history is largely about external forces. Personal growth starts with the individual. History is about nations and economies. Or so the thinking goes. Yet all of us…

I’ve been reluctant to write in depth about the October 7 massacre and the war in Gaza and Israel for three reasons. First, I’ve been wrestling day and night with 101 moral and political dimensions of this conflict. Clarity has been hard to come by. Second, everyone I know is…

If you consider yourself a citizen of the world, patriotism may seem quaint. Love of country made sense for your grandparents, but today it’s mostly for evangelical Christians and people in the heartland. Patriotism is like your varsity sports jacket from high school — best forgotten or stored in your…

Two powerful ways of seeing “race” and improving lives A pivotal step in creating a better America, especially around the knotty and ever-perplexing topic of “race,” and improving people’s lives is expanding our view: inventing new ways of seeing that unlock stuck conversations and open possibilities for action. In this essay, I invite you to consider two perspectives that…

This is the Part Two of a talk I gave in September 2022 to the Counterweight Conference on Liberal Approaches to Diversity and Inclusion. Part One is here. What if we were to direct our attention to the deepest purposes and highest potential of D&I? What if D&I were about…

This is Part One of a talk I gave in September 2022 to the Counterweight Conference on Liberal Approaches to Diversity and Inclusion My name is Amiel Handelsman. I will start with a few short stories. The MBA program I attended in the mid 90s had twice the percentage of…

“Earlier eras, with their wars, famines, and revolts, were deprecated as times when mankind was still immature and unenlightened. But now it was merely a matter of decades until the last vestige of evil and violence would finally be conquered, and this faith in an uninterrupted and irresistible “progress” truly…

This is Part Two of a two-part excerpt from Reimagining American Identity, a free ebook about Albert Murray’s Omni-American vision that I coauthored with Greg Thomas and Jewel Kinch-Thomas. Read Part One here. Get the free ebook here. Amiel Handelsman: What we are responsible for is what we do in…

This is Part One of a two-part excerpt from Reimagining American Identity, a free ebook about Albert Murray’s Omni-American vision that I coauthored a year ago with Greg Thomas and Jewel Kinch-Thomas. Get the free ebook here. Greg Thomas: You told me that a good friend of yours mentioned that…