Reverberations of the Photography of Jazz
By Jeffrey Mifflin
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Racial Epistemology and its Discontents: What Really Makes Concepts "Divisive"
Guy Lancaster
American whiteness has always included a kind of epistemic closure, refusing testimony about the world from nonwhites. Today, it is this epistemic closure that makes some state legislatures legislate against "divisive" ideas.
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The Rebuilt Berlin Palace Embodies the Tensions of the City's History and Future
Barney White-Spunner
While Berliners have incorporated the city's notorious wall into museums and public art, restoring the site of the Berliner Schloss of the Hohenzollerns and then the Palast der Republic of the East German government has been much more contentious. The Humboldt Forum has been criticized, but its design and reception exemplify the tensions inherent in democracy.
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FDR's Indispensable Right-Hand Woman Portrayed Unfairly – Again
Kathryn Smith
A new PBS series on the Norwegian Royal Family's contact with FDR at the outset of World War II takes some liberties with the facts, but is particularly unfair to Marguerite LeHand, who was Roosevelt's de facto chief of staff for years.
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Are Republicans Courting Disaster with Trumpist Loyalty Tests?
Michael Landis
The Antebellum Democratic Party purged itself of members who were insufficiently dedicated to slavery and white supremacy. It ended badly for the party and worse for the country. Will the Trump-dominated Republicans today heed the warning?
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Vaccine Skeptics Should Heed George Washington’s Example
Robert Brent Toplin
With the American Revolution hanging in the balance, Washington ordered the mass inoculation of the Continental Army against a smallpox pandemic. Would today's vaccine skeptics accuse him of trampling freedom?
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Historians' Perspective on Media Bias: Where it Came from, and What Can be Done?
Walter G. Moss
Historical perspective shows that media bias is nothing new, but the stakes for democracy are high today. Can historians teach and practice better ways of reading and debating to fight polarization and misinformation?
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Blog
Obama's Reputation With Scholars and the Public Likely to Rise
Ronald L. Feinman
There are many reasons why Barack Obama's ranking among the presidents is likely to rise. Some deal with the perceptions of the raters, but a key factor will be if scholarship reevaluates his r...
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75 Years of CARE Demonstrate Americans' Potential for Compassion
William Lambers
CARE, along with a group of charities, calls for world leaders to dedicate at least one day’s worth of military spending toward food aid. There should be less resources for heavy armaments and more for programs like infant feeding.
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The Roundup Top Ten for May 14, 2021
HNN Staff
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith
Philip Jenkins
Temporary climate catastrophes have been an understudied contributor to changes in religious doctrine and practice throughout history. These episodes may preview spiritual and communal upheavals as climate change progresses.
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India's COVID Crisis Has Roots in its Colonial-Era Tax Structure
Roderick Matthews
India's COVID crisis is being exacerbated by a health system that uses an anemic 3.5% of GDP. Continuities from the era of the British Raj, when powerful rural landowners went untaxed, are a big part of the problem.
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Reflections on Russia's "Victory Day"
Nadya Williams
Russia's observance of Victory Day prompts reflection on the ways Holocaust survivors and their descendants lived lives shaped by this trauma.
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A CIA Historian’s Photos of the Afghan War Tell the Story of Those Being Left Behind in Afghanistan
Brian Glyn Williams
A historian who advised the US military in Afghanistan and traveled extensively in the country warns that America's Afghan allies may pay a terrible price from Biden's proposed troop withdrawal.
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Are Campus Bookstores Undermining Student Learning?
Elizabeth Stice
Today’s undergraduates are increasingly being cornered into ongoing financial commitments for everything, while they never take possession of anything. Rejecting digital book programs run by campus bookstores outsourced to third parties could help reverse this trend.
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Mudlarking: Searching for Lost Treasure – and History – on the Banks of the Thames
Jason Sandy and Nick Stevens
The Thames River's silty bottom and tidal patterns make its banks a repository of historical artifacts. Today's "mudlarks" have turned the old tradition of scavenging the banks for subsistence into a public archaeology project.
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Experiments With Reality: New Histories of the Magical
Ed Simon
A history of magic as a way of seeing the world offers perspective on the urgent need to reconsider humanity's relationship to the natural world.
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The Roundup Top Ten for May 7, 2021
HNN Staff
The top opinion essays by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Remember The Essential Workers After COVID: They Deserve Better
Joshua B. Freeman
All of us literally owe our lives to our essential workers. Let’s not forget it. Giving them a fair shake is not only a moral obligation, it will make a better city for all of us.
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Another Bite at the Apple: Isaac Newton's Time as a Man of Politics and Economics
Patricia Fara
Isaac Newton's life has been retold according to the values of successive historians. Until now, most have shied away from Newton's second career at the Royal Mint, during which he was part of the growth of a British prosperity that was rooted in colonialism and slavery.
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Locating the Present in the Past: a World History Teaching Challenge
Peter N. Stearns
I have always believed that the primary goal of world history teaching was to help students place the world around them today in context of the past.
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Aidez Madrid!
Andy Robinson
The embrace of the far-right Vox party by Madrid's conservative coalition promises to drive the region's politics toward nativism, climate denialism, and reckless COVID policies.
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Elijah Lovejoy Faced Down Violent Mobs to Champion Abolition and the Free Press
Ken Ellingwood
In 1837, Elijah Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois, and the press he used to publish his abolitionist newsletter was thrown into the Mississippi River. Lovejoy's championing of both abolition and the free press should inspire us today.
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The 1940s Fight Against the Equal Rights Amendment Was Bipartisan and Crossed Ideological Lines
Rebecca De Wolf
Discussion of the ERA often focuses on the way the New Right stopped ratification by the states in the 1970s. But earlier opposition to the proposed amendment involved a bipartisan and ideologically diverse coalition in Congress.
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The Fateful Choice: Nuclear Arms Race or Nuclear Weapons-Free World
Lawrence Wittner
Nuclear-armed nations face a choice: to push ahead with a wasteful course that raises the risk of nuclear war, or to lead toward a world without nuclear weapons.
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FDR's Court Packing Plan Backfired in the South. Will Biden Repeat The Error?
James C. Cobb
FDR's court packing efforts were based in a miscalculation of the president's political capital, especially with southern Democrats. It seems like Joe Biden is working to avoid similar overreach.
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The Roundup Top Ten for April 30, 2021
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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