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.

The Roundup Top Ten for February 5, 2021

Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda

by Jason Stanley

Not enough attention has been paid to the video shown to spectators at Donald Trump's January 6th "Save America" rally. A close look shows it to be a work of propaganda firmly in the tradition of fascism. 

When the Threat of Political Violence Is Real

by Joanne B. Freeman

Republican calls for unity refuse to claim responsibility and in some cases level the threat of further violence to bully colleagues out of holding Trump and his allies accountable for the Capitol riots of January 6. This is reminiscent of the climate of threat and violence in Congress in the 19th century ahead of the Civil War.

The Case for a Third Reconstruction

by Manisha Sinha

During their brief hold on power, so-called "Radical Republicans" used their power to build multiracial democracy in the South and punish white supremacist terrorism. We face the same challenges today and must learn from and complete the work begun in Reconstruction and renewed by the modern Civil Rights movement.

First-Person Shooter Ideology​: The Cultural Contradictions of Call of Duty

by Daniel Bessner

"Right now, this one game is teaching millions of young Americans about the epic struggle between their government and the Soviet Union, a century-defining cataclysm." But the lesson is one of cynical resignation to today's state of endless war. 

The Real Rosa Parks Story Is Better Than the Fairy Tale

by Jeanne Theoharis

“I don’t believe in gradualism,” she made clear, “or that whatever is to be done for the better should take forever to do.”

Americans Don’t Know What Urban Collapse Really Looks Like

by Annalee Newitz

"Having spent the past several years researching a book about ancient abandoned cities, I’ve come to realize that urban collapse is a modern-day version of an apocalypse prophecy: It’s always lurking just around the corner, seductive and terrifying, but it never quite happens."

The Commonality between Biden’s Education Secretary and Betsy Devos is a Warning

by Adam Laats

Public education has long been envisioned as a black box that can fix the social problems created by inequality in the United States. When it has failed to perform this miracle, the education system has been subjected to successive waves of wrenching reform. It's time to fix the society outside the school walls. 

Museums as Monuments to White Supremacy

by Ana Lucia Araujo

Recent protest and scholarship have highlighted the knowledge of major cultural institutions that artifacts in their collections were looted from Africa and other colonized places, and support calls to repatriate the artifacts. 

Amazon’s Cynical, Anti-Union Attack on Mail Voting

by Craig Becker and Amy Dru Stanley

Even before the pandemic, forcing unionization elections to be held at the workplace was the equivalent of holding a political election at one party's headquarters. Workplace democracy requires allowing workers to vote by mail to decide whether to be represented by a union. 

Graduate School is a Foreign Country

by Susan Ferber

"Collaboration—that didn’t seem to be a skill much prized in grad school": the author reflects on a career in publishing, and the cooperative work of bringing books into the world.