With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Week of March 25, 2013


Up Front

Pete Seeger: "That Was the First Time I Met Reverend King..."
Kris Wood
Pete Seeger remembers the civil rights movement.
Tags: civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Pete Seeger, Rosa Parks

The Iraq War After 10 Years

American Anniversaries from Hell
Tom Engelhardt
What you don't know can hurt you.
Tags: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iraq War, war on terror
The Hell of Iraq, Ten Years Later
Dahr Jamail
Life in a country with no future.
Tags: Iraq, Iraq War, refugees, sectarian violence
Donald Rumsfeld: "What Will History Say?"
Carolyn Eisenberg
History will say Rumsfeld and his cronies were knaves, fools, and possibly war criminals, but the buck doesn't stop there.
Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Iraq War, war crimes
The Iraq War: A Failure of Presidential Leadership
Peter R. Mansoor
George W. Bush came up with a flawed strategy, then left it to the generals to fix it.
Tags: Iraq War, anniversaries, George W. Bush, strategy
Britain's Costly Iraq Blunder
Linda Colley
Not only will the Iraq War make British PMs more cautious in the future, it may contribute to the very unravelling of the UK itself.
Tags: Great Britain, Iraq, Iraq War, Scotland

Pope Francis

Papa Francesco: A New Era?
Steven M. Avella
The former president of the American Catholic Historical Association (and ordained priest) on the significance of the new pope.
Tags: Catholic Church, papacy, Pope Francis, popes
If Not for Muammar Gaddafi, This Guy Might Have Been Pope
Martin Kramer
Sergio Pignedoli was a frontrunner to succeed Pope Paul VI in 1978... then he went to Libya for an ill-conceived theology conference.
Tags: Sergio Pignedoli, popes, Muammar Gaddafi, Islam

News Abroad

Lockheed Martin at the Trough
Lawrence S. Wittner
The defense industry's addiction to corporate welfare.
Tags: corporate welfare, Lockheed Martin, Maryland, Montgomery County
The President, in Israel, Giveth and Taketh Away
Ira Chernus's MythicAmerica
Obama's Niebuhrian foreign policy.
Tags: Barack Obama, Israel, special relationship, Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Denying Islam's Role in Terror: Explaining the Denial
Daniel Pipes
Why do so many experts continue to deny the obvious?
Tags: Islam, Islamism, Middle East Quarterly, terrorism
A Brief History of Suicide Bombing
Jeffrey William Lewis
It isn't just for religious fundamentalists.
Tags: Origins, suicide bombing, terrorism, The Ohio State University
The Ever-Destructive Dreams of Air Power Enthusiasts
William J. Astore
Aerial warfare has never been cheap, nor surgical, nor decisive.
Tags: air power, bombings, drones, drone warfare

Historians & History

Channelling Ben Franklin
Thomas Fleming
The distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania's take on current events.
Tags: American Revolution, Ben Franklin, Channelling George Washington, Founding Fathers
Learning to "Lean In" from Our Nineteenth-Century Ancestors
Ellen Gruber Garvey
The first women to "lean in" were like Caroline Healey Dall.
Tags: Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg, feminism, Caroline Healey Dall

Culture Watch

Breakfast at Tiffany's -- Send It Back
Bruce Chadwick
Game of Thrones's Emilia Clarke makes a terrible Holly Golightly in this disaster of a play.
Tags: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cort Theater, Emilia Clarke, theater reviews
The 1905 "Bloody Sunday" Showdown in Russia
Bruce Chadwick
The New York Public Theater's taut retelling of the first Russian Revolution.
Tags: Bloody Sunday, Neva, Russian Revolution, theater reviews

Books

Review of Diane Brady’s Fraternity
Richard Canedo
Twenty young black men were admitted to the College of the Holy Cross in 1968... and they changed the world.
Tags: Clarence Thomas, College of the Holy Cross, Diane Brady, Fraternity
Review of Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Jim Cullen
A wonderful deconstruction of the self-help genre.
Tags: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, fiction, Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist