An alphabet of insidious analogies

Historians instinctively employ many insidious analogies without a second thought—or maybe even a first one. All of the following examples have caused trouble: Addled Parliament, Augustan age, avant-garde, Axis, Babylonian captivity, Barnburners, blank check, Boxer, Bloody Assizes, brinkmanship, Bubble Act, cameralism, capitalism, Carbonari, Cold War, cordon sanitaire, Croix de Feu, Dark Ages, Depression, Digger, doughface, Enlightenment, Fabian, Fauve, Federalist, feudalism, filibuster, Founding Father, Fronde, gag rule, gentlemen’s agreement, Good Neighbor Policy, Grand Peur, Guelph, Hats and Caps, Heavenly Kingdom, imperialism, Industrial Revolution, Ironsides, Jacquerie, jazz, jeremiad, Judas, Know-Nothing, Kulturkampf, Lebensraum, Leveller, Locofoco, logroller, Methodism, mother country, the Mountain, muckraker, mugwump, New Light, Old Believer, Open Door, papacy, Pact of Steel, puppet ruler, purge, Puritan, Quaker, quisling, Reconstruction, Renaissance, revolution, Rump Parliament, Roi de Soleil, Sea-Beggar, Spartacist, squatter, Take-Off, trust, Tory, the Sick Man of Europe, underground, university, Utopia, vernacular, vigilante, Village Hamden, wobbly, Whig, Xanthippe, yahoo, yellow-dog contract, zambo, Zouave, Zionist.

—David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies