Essays - Website of David A. Bell, Department of History, Princeton University

"The Toxic Legacy of Jean-Marie Le Pen," The Nation, January 8, 2025 

“Macron is No De Gaulle” UnHerd magazine, December 9, 2024 

“Can Kamala Charm Swing Voters?” UnHerd magazine, October 1, 2024.

“Napoleon, Tocqueville, and the Writing of History in a Democratic Age,” in David A. Bell and Colin Jones, eds., French Revolutionary Lives, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2024, pp. 227-40.

“La guerre totale est le cadeau empoisonné des Lumières: Entretien avec David A. Bell,” L’Histoire, nos. 521-22, July-August 2024. 

“The Crisis of the Two Presidents,” The New Statesman, July 20, 2024.

“The Fall of Macron’s Personality Cult,” UnHerd magazine, June 28, 2024.

“Le Spartacus des Caraïbes. Toussaint Louverture: Un stratège insurrectionnel,” Le grand continent, May 22, 2024.

“The Arrogance of Scientific History,” UnHerd magazine, May 22, 2024.

“In My Mother’s Archive,” The New York Review online, February 20, 2024.

“The Anti-Liberal,” Liberties, vol. IV, no. 2 (2024)

“Bourgeois Enlightenment Revivified,” French History , June, 2024.

“Elise Stefanik, Dean of Faculty,” Chronicle of Higher Education Review, April 24, 2024.

“Election Chronicle”: A series of articles on the 2024 presidential election for tbe Tocqueville 21 web project in English, and Le Grand Continent in French and Spanish translation

“Should Nations Have a Right to Conquest?” UnHerd magazine, January 30, 2024.

“Will Marine Le Pen Defend French Jews?” UnHerd magazine, November 23, 2023.

“Why We’re Still So Obsessed with Napoleon,” Time magazine online, November 22, 2023.

“Why Napoleon Still Has Star Power,” The Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2023.

“DeSantis Has Failed America’s Charisma Test,” UnHerd magazine, July 31, 2023.'

“As France Burns, the Far Right Rises,” UnHerd magazine, July 3, 2023. 

“          Where Does Your Department Stand on Abortion? Antiracism? Immigration?” Chronicle of Higher Education Review, June 26, 2023.

“Macron’s Extreme Center Will Not Fall,” UnHerd magazine, March 30, 2023.

“Hommage à John Merriman," Revue d’histoire du dix-neuvième siècle, no. 65 (2022), pp. 159-60 

“The First Total War? The Place of the Napoleonic Wars in the History of Warfare,” in Alan Forrest et al. (ed.) The Cambridge History of the

Napoleonic Wars, vol. II, Cambridge Univ. Press (2023), pp. 665-81.

“American Exceptionalism,” in Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer (eds.), Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past, Basic Books (2023), pp. 13-24.

“So You Want to Be a History Professor,” Chronicle of Higher Education Review, January 5, 2023.

“The Triumph of Antipolitics,” Liberties, vol. 3, no. 2 (2023), pp. 96-116. Translation forthcoming in Letras Libres (Mexico City). 

“Citadels of Neoliberalism or Bastions of Wokism: What Elite Higher

Ed’s Critics on Both the Left and Right Get Wrong,” Chronicle of Higher

                                      Education Review, December 9, 2022.

Two Cheers for Presentism,” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 23, 2022.

“Napoleon Bonaparte in Modern European Political Culture,” Ricerche di storia politica, vol. 22, no. 2 (2022), pp. 117-29.

“Does Putin’s War Mark a New Period in History?” Foreign Policy magazine (Summer, 2022).

Introduction, co-written with Hugo Drochon, to Marcel Gauchet, Robespierre: The Man Who Divides Us the Most, Princeton U. P. 2022.

"For a New Social History of the Enlightenment: Authors, Readers, and Commercial Capitalism," Modern Intellectual History, 2022.

"Marat/Zemmour," Liberties magazine, volume 2, no. 3 (2022).

"The Zelensky Myth: Why We Should Resist Hero-Worshipping Ukraine's President," The New Statesman, March 24, 2022.

“Tocqueville, Napoleon and History-Writing in a Democratic Age,” The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville, Vol. 42, no. 2 (2021), pp. 43-55. 

“Revolutionary France as Nation-State and as Imperial Formation: The Need to Make Distinctions,” H-France Salon, vol. 13, no. 19/4 (2021).

“Le nouvel autoritarisme américain,” Le grand continent, August 22, 2021. 

                     “Napoléon, ou le charisme en politique,” L’Histoire, no. 482, April 2021.

“The Greek Revolution and the Age of Revolution,” in Paschalis Kitromilides (ed.), The Greek Revolution in the Age of Revolutions (1776-1848). Reappraisals and Comparisons, Routledge, 2021, pp. 32-42.

“Pinker’s Technocratic Neoliberalism, and Why It Matters,” in Philip Dwyer and Mark Micale (eds.), The Darker Angels of our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence, Bloomsbury, 2021, pp. 73-86. 

 “The Atlantic Revolutions,” in David Motadel (ed.), Revolutionary World:

                           Global Upheaval in the Modern Age, Cambridge Univ Press, 2021, pp. 38-65.

"Learning the Scholar's Craft," H-Diplo discussion list, January, 2021.

"The Case for Political Exile for Donald Trump," Politico, November 13, 2020.

"Fascism or Caesarism?" in Public Seminar and Eurozine, September 2, 2020.

"Trump is a racist demagogue, but he's not a fascist," in The Washington Post, August 2020.

"What Donald Trump and George Washington Have in Common," Foreign Policy, August 2020.

“Why female leaders are faring better than ‘wartime presidents’ against

                                    COVID-19," Fortune Magazine, August 2020.

"Connaître Limbaugh et Hannity pour comprendre Trump," France Culture, May 20, 2020

"La 'guerre’ au virus: Le passé d’une métaphore," Le grand continent, April 7, 2020.

 "L’âge des révolutions, rebonds transnationaux” (with Joanna Innes, et al.),

  Annales historiques de la Révolution française, no. 397 (2019), pp. 193-223. 

"The French Revolution, the Vendée, and Genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research, online, August 15, 2019.

 "Daniel Bell at 100," Dissent magazine online, May 10, 2019.

“For Emmanuel Macron, How Did Things Get So Bad, So Fast?” The Nation online, December 13, 2018.

“Macron Finds the Immoral Way to Remember World War I,” Foreign Policy online, November 9, 2018. 

“Lilla, Liberalism, and American Politics,” roundtable on Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal, Tocqueville21, September 4, 2018.

“When the Farce Is Tragedy,” Dissent magazine online, January 30, 2018.

“Response to Richard Drayton and David Motadel,” co-written with Jeremy Adelman, Journal of Global History, vol. 13

(2018), pp. 16-21.

“Is it Still Okay to Venerate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?” The Washington Post online, August 17, 2017.

“What Can Emmanuel Macron Accomplish as France’s President?” The Nation online, May 9, 2017

“France, Round One: The Left’s Continuing Dilemma,” Dissent magazine online, April 24, 2017.

“France: The Death of the Elephants,” Dissent magazine online, February 2, 2017.

“Donald Trump Is Making the Great Man Theory of History Great Again,” Foreign Policy online, January 12, 2017.

“What Next for Donald Trump?” The National Interest, January-February 2016.

“Fake News Is Not the Real Media Threat We’re Facing,” The Nation online, December 24, 2016.

“On the Institut d’Histoire de la Révolution Française,” H-France Salon, September 7, 2016.

"2016: The Theory Behind a Very Bad Year (and It’s Only Half Over)," Foreign Policy, July 20, 2016.

"France on the Brink," Dissent, July 18, 2016

"Mr. Boswell Goes to Corsica: The Surprising Origins of Modern Political Charisma," Princeton Alumni Weekly, May 11, 2016.

"A Moral Abdication," Dissent, April 25, 2016

"The Sound of Munich," The National Interest, April 25, 2016.

"Booked: Is it Time to Retire the Term Revolution?" (An interview/podcast with Tim Shenk), Dissent, April 7, 2016.

"In Defense of Criticism," H-France Salon, vol. 7, no.  20.

"Five Myths About the French Revolution," The Washington Post, July 9, 2015.

"The French Dilemma," Dissent, Spring 2015.

 "Peter Gay: A Remembrance," H-France Salon, vol. 7, no. 3

"On The New Republic," Los Angeles Review of Books, December 29, 2014.

"Questioning the Global Turn: The Case of the French Revolution," French Historical Studies, vol. 37, no. 1, 2014.

"Double Entendre: The Paradox of France's Humanitarian Interventions," Foreign Affairs, January 15, 2014,

"Inglorious Revolutions," The National Interest, January-February 2014.

"The Culture of War in Europe, 1750-1815," in Julian Swann and Joël Félix, eds., The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy: France from Old Regime to Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 147-165.

"The War in Mali is a Reminder of France's Grand Malaise." The New Republic, January 15, 2013

“François Hollande’s Apology Tour—and What Americans Should Learn From It,” The New Republic, October 19, 2012.

"The Bookless Library: Don't Deny the Change, Direct it Wisely," The New Republic, August 2, 2012.

"Happy Birthday to Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Why the World's First Celebrity Intellectual Still Matters," The New Republic online, June 22, 2012.

"Midnight in Paris: The Implosion of the French Right," The New Republic, May 24, 2012.

“What We’ve Lost With the Demise of Print Encyclopedias,” The New Republic online, March 19, 2012.

« Autour de la guerre totale », Annales historiques de la Révolution française, no. 366, Fall 2011, pp. 153-70. In collaboration with Hervé Drevillon and Olivier Forcade.

"The Case Against Referendums: From Greece to California, They Always End Up Undermining Democracy," The New Republic online, November 3, 2011.

“Why We Can’t Rule Out an Egyptian Reign of Terror,” Foreign Policy magazine, online, February 7, 2011.

“Political Columnists Think America Is In Decline. Big Surprise.” The New Republic online, October 5, 2010.

 “The Intricacies of Spousal Hiring,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 14, 2010.

“A la recherche d’un nouveau paradigme?” H-France Salon online, no. 1 (2010).

 “Reimagining the Humanities: Proposals for a New Century,” Dissent, Fall 2010, pp.       69-75.