The Latest 
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The COVID Era is the Latest Episode of Medical Scapegoating of Asian Immigrants
Catherine Ceniza Choy
From smallpox to COVID, Asian Americans have been blamed and attacked for supposedly causing disease, while their contributions to American health have been ignored. This medical scapegoating and the violence that often follow it demonstrate the need to teach more Asian American history.
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A Writer Reflects on Four Enlightening and Challenging Lunches with the Father of Black Liberation Theology
J. Chester Johnson
The author shared Arkansas roots with the influential theologian and teacher, from opposite sides of the color line. Their exchanges showed the possibilities of reconciliation and the height of the barriers created by racism in Americans' shared history.
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Healing a Divided Nation
Carole Adrienne
From specialized trauma care to emergency transportation to board certification of physicians, when we encounter the medical system today, we are experiencing Civil War medicine.
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Why Should War Criminals Operate with Impunity?
Lawrence Wittner
When major military powers like Russia, China and the United States withhold participation in the International Criminal Court, it allows war criminals to do as they please. Leading a more stable international order means joining fully with the ICC.
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Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?
Wallace Hettle
An introduction to the core ideas of the Critical Race Theory movement and its founding thinkers suggests the right today isn't mad about ideas, but wants a new and scary-sounding term to justify their ongoing opposition to racial equality.
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On Putin's Vacant Moral Imagination
Walter G. Moss
Russia's stances toward Ukraine and the west in general reflect its leaders' inability, perhaps nurtured by the Soviet system, to view world affairs through another's perspective.
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For 38 Years of American History, There Has Been No Vice President
Cary Heinz
The frequency with which the vice presidency has been vacant shows the historical insignificance of the office.
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A Primary Source Shows the Connection Between 1920s Flappers and Social Media Youth Organizers Today
Jason Ulysses Rose
While youth are often dismissed as frivolous, their media often reveal engagement, creativity, and wisdom that ther political elders would be wise to heed – in the 1920s as today.
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The Roundup Top Ten for August 5, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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The Highland Park Horrors Won't Break the Gun Cult's Mythic Hold on America
Thomas Lecaque and J.L. Tomlin
The myth of the armed citizen has little to do with the American revolution or the vision of the founders. It's all about the right's desire for a revolution to come.
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Weaponizing Bad-Faith History is a Conservative Tradition from Jim Crow to Alito
Charles J. Holden
"Conservatives’ invocations of history often mixed wishful thinking about the past with bad faith in interpreting it. And it was always done with the present-minded purpose of maintaining elite white male rule, especially on matters of race."
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Don't Call them Conservatives
Alan J. Singer
As we confront what is happening in this country, we need to stop calling the MAGA movement conservative.
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Kathryn Olmsted's "Newspaper Axis" Shows Media Extremism Nothing New
Kathryn Smith
FDR's success in promoting the New Deal and rallying Americans to the defense of Europe against fascism was a triumph over the nation's right-wing newspaper barons.
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Collegiality, Interdisciplinarity, and the Historian's Work
Elizabeth Stice
Universities should encourage, and scholars should embrace, opportunities for collegial cooperation that encourage the lowering of the barriers to cross-disciplinary conversations. Both the researcher and the university will benefit.
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Time to Amend the Constitution
Don Fraser
Significant changes are needed to the Constitution in order to preserve any semblance of democratic government.
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Interview: Joyce Berkman on the Value of History and the Historian's Mindset
Erik Moshe
“It’s much better to develop one’s mental toolbox, one’s skills, rather than necessarily master huge bodies of knowledge.”
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What Does the Perot Phenomenon Tell Us about Andrew Yang's Third Party Prospects?
William Kertzman
Third parties can temporarily capture the public if they meet a moment of discontent with resources and a compelling personality; building for the long-term is something very different.
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The Roundup Top Ten for July 29, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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For America, Let's Send the Adults Back to School
David Chamberlain
The lyceum movement of the 1800s offers a model to reestablish desperately needed civic education and communal interaction across the lines that divide Americans.
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The Thirty Meter Telescope Project Exemplifies Scientific Progress and Indigenous Dispossession
Marissa Gavin
The narrative of progress inspired by a new astronomy project clashes with the ongoing reality of indigenous dispossession in the selection of Mauna Kea, sacred to native Hawaiians, as the telescope's site.
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The Republicans' Holocaust Problem
Steve Hochstadt
"New Republican laws and their emboldened approach to white supremacy will inevitably lead to an attack on any Holocaust teaching which goes beyond the discussion of prejudice to analyze the power of embedded racism and Christian white supremacy."
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Learning About Stalin from His Books: An Interview with Geoffrey Roberts
Aaron J. Leonard
Researchers who access Stalin's books will find the dictator's library a source of insight into his political thinking and engagement with ideas (and his pithy marginalia), but not a Rosetta Stone for understanding his capacity for atrocity.
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At 75th Anniversary, What Can Anne Frank's Diary Teach Today's Teens?
Naomi Yavneh Klos
A project that trains middle school student docents to lead peer discussions of Anne Frank's diary unlocks the power of empathy and experience to impart lessons about the Holocaust and about the broader concerns of human dignity and security for adolescents strained by the pandemic, violence, and identity-based demonization.
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Blog
Abortion and Birth Control Have Always Been Linked
Skipped History with Ben Tumin
I spoke to Dr. Kelly O'Donnell and Professor Lauren MacIvor Thompson, two experts on reproductive history, to learn how the Dobbs v. Jackson decision could affect birth control access...
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Putin's "Mad Gamble" Isn't Atypical for Oil Dictators
Guy Laron
There is a logic to Vladimir Putin's territorial ambitions. Unfortunately for him, it has led down a destructive and ultimately futile path, if the histories of other oil dictatorships are a guide.
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Kentucky Fried Vice President?
Cary Heinz
Despite his advanced age, could chicken entrepreneur Colonel Harland Sanders have been an effective running mate for George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign? Would he have been the ultimate celebrity politician?
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The Roundup Top Ten for July 22, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
News
- Orban's American Apologists
- After Winning as An Activist Preacher, Can Warnock Win Again as an Effective Pragmatist?
- Youngkin's Neoconfederate Nominee to State Historical Board Resigns
- Commission Recommends Change to Massachusetts State Seal, Motto
- History's Greatest Barrier to Climate Action—the Senate—May Have Fallen
- Alex Keyssar on the Need to Reform the Electoral Count Act
- Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner David McCulloch Dies at 89
- How Toxic is Masculinity, and Whose Job Is it to Fix It?
- Barbara Smith on Reproductive Freedom Organizing
- Katherine Stewart Joins Jane Coaston to Discuss the Rise of Christian Nationalism