Scott A. Sandage
Scott Sandage is a cultural historian at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in the nineteenth-century United States and in the changing aspects of American identity. He is the author of Born Losers: A History of Failure in America (Harvard University Press, 2005), and was recently named as one of America's Top Young Historians by the History News Network.
Updated January 2010
Stories from This Author
Old Rags, Some Grand
Jan. 15, 2010 • Scott A. Sandage
“These Colors Don’t Run,” I keep reading. Small wonder, after six months holding on by a thread to a speeding Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer. There used to be some rule about burning a flag when it gets torn or dirty. Does this mean it would be patriotic to torch a sport utility vehicle? By spring, the flags of September 11 looked like veterans of Ground Zero. Even Presidents’ Day sales could not move overstocks of red, white, and blue stickers, …
