Historians in the News
Highlights
- Expelled historian laments subverted rule of law
- Presidential Historian: Time to Release JFK's Files
- 2009 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction: T. J. Stiles's 'The First Tycoon'
- Pamela Crossley's " The Wobbling Pivot, China Since 1800: An Interpretive History"
- Interview With Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland" [video]
- Wales is a country of grant junkies, claims historian
- Kimberly Kagan on How Taliban and Al-Qaeda Differ
- Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship Endowment Still Needs Support
- LGBTQ Taskforce Statement
- Renowned historian angers Scottish World War II veterans
WEEK OF NOVEMBER 16, 2009
Alan Philps: Shlomo Sand 'cleared away a lot of 19th century debris'
Kevin Wright hosts talk, "1609--A Country That Was Never Lost,"
2009 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction: T. J. Stiles's 'The First Tycoon'
Pamela Crossley's " The Wobbling Pivot, China Since 1800: An Interpretive History"
Interview With Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland" [video]
Robert Byrd, longest-serving Congress member, considered historian
Arabs Hostile Approach to Iran is a "Big Mistake." an Arab Historian says
From the archives: Oklahoma woman historian who struggled to rise above prejudices
Drake Bennett: How historians are looking deeper at the fall of the Berlin Wall
WEEK OF NOVEMBER 9, 2009
Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian and Accused Holocaust Denier
Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian and Accused Holocaust Denier
Historian John Hope Franklin to Be Honored with Memorial Conference at Brooklyn College
Historian insists that finance minister apologizes for saying "feudal old men" (Bulgaria)
Historian Can Keep His Manuscript on Tobacco Studies, Judge Rules
Ferriero Confirmed by Senate as Archivist of the United States
Historian links fall of Berlin Wall to rise in religious extremism in Pakistan
Conservatives Feel Seminar Organized by Historian Gabriel Piterberg 'demonized' Israel
Friday, November 20, 2009
Alan Philps: Shlomo Sand 'cleared away a lot of 19th century debris'
Source: The National (11-19-09)
It is not often that an Israeli history book is translated into Arabic with a view to finding a mass readership. And it is even rarer when that book is to be translated into two other major languages of the Islamic world, Turkish and Indonesian, not to mention Japanese, Russian, German, Italian and Portuguese.
The work is The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand, a professor of history at Tel Aviv University. When it was first published in Israel last year, it spent 19 weeks in the bestseller list, thanks in part to furious denunciations by academic historians. It has just appeared in English, and the provocative title does not disappoint...
... Sand is a specialist in European history, so his work has been treated with condescension by specialists. Simon Schama, the historian and documentary maker, writes with academic hauteur that serious historians stopped believing in the exile many years ago, so Sand is presenting “truisms as though they were revolutionary illuminations”.
But this is to miss the point. Sand himself is the first to say that there is nothing new in his book: he has merely organised existing material in a way that Israeli historians did not care to, for fear of appearing unpatriotic, and western historians shied away from, wary of being called anti-Semitic. The point is not what is known in the ivory towers of historians, but what sustains the popular consciousness. The narrative of exile and return is still at the heart of Israeli self-belief, and remains firmly implanted in the western mindset.
Sand has cleared away a lot of 19th century debris. The narrative of a people exiled and returning, so heroically projected in the 1958 novel Exodus, which was made into a film starring Paul Newman two years later, is relegated to the realm of belief, not historical fact...
... Sand writes that books do not change the world, “but when the world begins to change, it searches for different books. I may be naive, but it is my hope that the present work will be one of them”...
... His conclusion is that Israel has to become a democratic state of all its citizens, including the 20 per cent who are Muslims and Christians, not a state of all the Jews. This book must be as seen as a milestone on that road – but it will still be a very long journey.
Expelled historian laments subverted rule of law
Source: The Australian (11-18-09)
ACADEMIC duty and a sense of outrage drove Brij Lal to speak out against Fiji's military-installed prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, for expelling Australian and New Zealand diplomats over alleged judiciary interference two weeks ago.
Retribution was swift. The Indo-Fijian Australian citizen was soon detained. His three-hour interrogation included an hour of haranguing by a lieutenant-colonel, after which Lal agreed to leave Fiji within 24 hours.
"I take the view that if we don't speak up for certain fundamental values of civilised society, then who will?" the Australian National University history professor says. "I think it's the role intellectuals, academics, responsible citizens everywhere have.
"There is something fundamentally wrong when a military overturns the verdict of the ballot box and if we keep quiet in those circumstances then we have failed our duty."
Lal was born in Fiji and has made its study his life's work. He was on a four-person panel convened in 1995 to make recommendations for a new, non-racial constitution .
"We toured around the country and took 800 oral and written submissions from people, so we conducted a kind of national dialogue about what kind of political arrangement was right for Fiji."
The 1997 constitution that resulted was not reframed exactly as Lal and his colleagues recommended. In it, 46 of 71 seats were reserved on the basis of ethnicity and 25 were open, the reverse of their suggestion. But it was still an important step from what had gone before, giving formal recognition and independence to the Great Council of Chiefs (and thus depoliticising it) and mandating that any party that won more than 10 per cent of the vote would be represented in government.
That was the momentwhen Fiji had a chance of becoming a liberal parliamentary democracy, Lal says. "There was a real possibility for an element of power-sharing, but the constitution was not given long enough to prove its worth," he adds...
Kevin Wright hosts talk, "1609--A Country That Was Never Lost,"
Source: North Jersey (11-19-09)
Park Ridge - The Pascack Historical Society will host guest speaker Kevin Wright, a noted historian and author, whose talk is titled, "1609 – A Country That Was Never Lost," on Sunday, Nov. 22 at 2 p.m.
Wright is past president of the Bergen County Historical Society and his presentation coincides with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage and the release of Wright's new book, which bears the same name as his lecture.
The Society advises that Wright will carefully construct the native world that Hudson encountered during his fateful 1609 voyage. He will describe the Native Americans' original homelands and culture and will bring the culturally diverse native societies "to life" for attendees.
Wright says that his book had its genesis in a childhood curiosity. In his home in Newton, his grandfather had a cellar display of Indian artifacts, which he and his father had collected. These worn stone tools and decorated shards of earthenware deeply connected Wright to the land and ignited his lifelong interest in who lived here.
Presidential Historian: Time to Release JFK's Files
Source: PR News Channel (11-18-09)
The late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts prevented the release of his brother's 1963 assassination file, says presidential historian Tim Miller. Which is why as the 46th annivesary of President John F. Kennedy's death approaches Sunday, Miller is pulling out all stops to get secret files finally released.
"The time is now for the American people to get the real answers,” says Miller. "I believe there is information damaging to President Kennedy and his family wants it kept secret."
Miller, publisher of Nashville, Tenn.-based FlatSigned Press, filed a lawsuit this week claiming the federal government continues to hide pertinent facts of the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination. Sunday marks the 46th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, the first anniversary since the death of Edward Kennedy.
Miller questions the findings of the Warren Commission, which in 1964 declared Lee Harvey Oswald the lone assassin.
Tim Miller is available for interviews. Please use the media contacts below.
About Tim Miller
As publisher of FlatSigned Press, Inc., Miller has been interviewed by television, radio and newspaper media outlets on the historical accounts and contemporary values of rare autographed books and has appeared on many local and national news shows as a presidential historian, analyst and commentator on presidents, politics, and entertainment.
He is a contributor to "The Sanders Price Guide to Autographs," the definitive price guide for autograph collectors, and many other trade and consumer autograph publications. He is a Lyndon Baines Johnson Scholar, has served as White House Press Correspondent, and worked directly for the U.S. Congress. He held certified press credentials for the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate and was named one of George W. Bush's 1,000 Points of Light by the Commercial Board of Appeals.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
2009 National Book Award Finalist, Nonfiction: T. J. Stiles's 'The First Tycoon'
Source: National Book Foundation (11-19-09)
CITATION
With deep and imaginative research and graceful writing, T. J. Stiles’s The First Tycoon tells the extraordinary story of a brutally competitive man who was hard to love but irresistibly interesting as a truly pivotal historical figure. With few letters and no diaries, and with layers of legend to carve through, Stiles captures Cornelius Vanderbilt as a person and as a force who shaped the transportation revolution, all but invented unbridled American capitalism, and left his mark not only all over New York City but, for better or worse, all over our economic landscape.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire. In The First Tycoon, T.J. Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore’s personal life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
T. J. Stiles is the author of Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, winner of the Ambassador Book Award and the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has written for the New York Times Book Review, Smithsonian, and Salon.com, among other publications, and held the Gilder Lehrman Fellowship in American History at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He has taught nonfiction creative writing at Columbia University. He served as historical advisor and on-screen expert for "Jesse James" and "Grand Central," two films in the PBS documentary series American Experience. A native of Benton County, Minnesota, Stiles studied history at Carleton College and Columbia University, and resided in New York City for twenty years. He now lives in the Presidio of San Francisco with his wife and son.
Pamela Crossley's " The Wobbling Pivot, China Since 1800: An Interpretive History"
Source: The China Beat (11-17-09)
Prominent Qing specialist Pamela Crossley of Dartmouth College has a new book coming out in February, The Wobbling Pivot, China Since 1800: An Interpretive History, 374_Pamela_Crossleywhich is aimed at general readers and is designed to be suitable as well for classes devoted to modern Chinese history. One theme in the book that is likely to be of special interest to those who follow this blog is her frequent discussion of similarities and differences over time in patterns of unrest and the way that the state and its representatives respond to challenges from below. Focusing largely on tensions and modes of accommodation between central authorities and local communities, Crossley offers an intriguing new way of thinking about many of the big upheavals of the recent past, from the White Lotus Rebellion to the recent unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang. In this excerpt, however, which gives a good sense of the liveliness of the book’s prose as well as the kinds of subjects it addresses, we see how her approach can also be used to shed light on minor fracases of the sort that anyone who has spent time in China is likely to have witnessed at some point during their stay.
It is unusual for the contents of a semi-confidential email to become universally known on the Internet. But in March of 2009, after the nomination of Charles W. Freeman Jr. as chair of the American government’s National Intelligence Council, his email to the ChinaSec listserv group of May 26, 2006 drew attention for this comment about the Tiananmen incidents of 1989: “I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than – as would have been both wise and efficacious – to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo’s response to the mob scene at ‘Tian’anmen’ stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.”
Freeman’s suggestion that the contrast is to tactics, and not to politics, leaves the comment dangling above the ground, out of contact with historical patterns of China’s recent centuries. The hearts of China’s political capitals have been occupied by state opponents and dissidents repeatedly over the centuries. State reaction is rarely swift, though it is often bloody. These events are products of a structural relationship between government and society that was strongly in evidence from at least 1644 to 1958, and since 1976 has been reestablishing itself to a modest degree. It is a system with a peculiar way of producing social and economic order, but one that in very extreme circumstances is vulnerable to catastrophic breakdown. Considered outside its historical context, it sometimes leads observers too quickly to words like “instability,” “disorder,” “chaos.”
When I was following the thread that now runs through this book, my mind kept returning to scenes from contemporary China. I was in China for the first time in 1977. On an otherwise quiet afternoon in Luoyang, where the streets did not look particularly crowded, a loud discussion broke out between two men over a bicycle (in those days, bicycles were all Flying Pigeon, identical to any but the eye of love). A small knot of people quickly wound itself around the disputatious men, listening carefully, advising moderation and not, coincidentally, preventing the bicycle from going anywhere. The knot grew to a crowd large enough to block the narrow street. A few men at the front of the throng had joined in the conversation, questioning the men in turn, and repeatedly advising calm and honesty. After some minutes the inevitable representative of local public security arrived. She was a small woman, not plump but solidly built, with the regulation even hair length and middle part, and a bright red arm band proclaiming her official status. The crowd shifted only enough to allow her to make her way to the front, a few people darting glances of blame at the bicycle men for having brought the authorities onto the scene. The public security woman asked a few questions of the men and appeared, for a moment, to be attempting to break up the congregation and send the men on their way. But she was a late arrival on the scene. The two men who had begun negotiations between the adversaries continued in their role, with polite acknowledgment of the official’s presence. Occasionally Public Security would inject her questions or views, but at roughly the same rate and pitch as others at the center of the circle. After ten minutes, the contenders nodded agreement to each other, one moved off with the bicycle, and the crowd, including the woman distinguished by her bold red armband, moved on to their business.
I had the strong feeling that I had seen something that was not the least unusual. Everybody took the dispute, the resolution and the public participation in stride. The crowd was not merely bystanders, camp followers or observers for sport. The quickness with which they organized themselves for conflict containment and resolution, the precision with which certain individuals assumed and fulfilled their roles, suggested to me something basic about the social methods of the Luoyang inhabitants who had entered the street expecting to do their shopping or their chores, but instead became embroiled in the forensics, the philosophy and the administration of a dispute between two men over a bicycle. I did not know at the time, but am convinced now, that in 1977 such a social phenomenon in Luoyang evinced ancient practices that a decade before had been under extreme assault, and wounded seriously though not fatally.
Another side of this phenomenon seems to be evident in two anecdotes recently related by the journalist Tim Johnson in 2008. In the first, Johnson discovers that it is impossible to get taxi drivers in Changchun to actually use the meters and issue receipts from them. Since the law requires that the meters be used and the receipts issued, Johnson approached a “security guard” (the contemporary equivalent of the security maiden I spoke of in Luoyang in 1977) to complain. The guard merely shrugged. Johnson commented, “At first, I found this a little irksome. But on reflection, I sort of admired the taxi drivers. The local authorities apparently had imposed an impractical limit on fares, and the cabbies rebelled in the only way they could. The security guard understood and sympathized.” In a second vignette, Johnson ends up on a bus after the flight he expected to take was cancelled. The airline had chartered the bus at no expense to the passengers, and had obviously provided the driver with sufficient cash to take the high-speed, well-maintained toll roads to the destination. The driver, however, took a meandering, pothole-riddled route, keeping the toll fees for himself. Passengers repeatedly pointed out to him the highway ramps he was passing, but otherwise took no issue or action. Johnson experienced some outrage at this, too, but then reconsidered after taking a comparative view: “It was a minor inconvenience. I thought back to times in South America, where bus drivers would be in cahoots with armed bandits, pulling buses over at remote spots where everyone would be robbed.”
Interview With Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland" [video]
Source: Big Think (11-17-09)
Go to video
TRANSCRIPT:
Rick Perlstein: I’m Rick Perlstein. I’m the author of “Nixonland.”
Question: Has Obama succeeded on his promise of being a “post-partisan” President?
Rick Perlstein: Well, the problem with Obama’s post-partisan agenda is that he came into it. He came into his presidency at a time when millions of Americans, perhaps even tens of millions of Americans don’t consider a democrat president legitimate. Don’t consider liberalism legitimate. Don’t consider the idea of the state forming new programs to help people legitimate. So, he’s in a situation a lot like, you know, Abraham Lincoln faced in 1860 when you had millions of Americans who didn’t even consider what was going in Washington to have anything to do with them.
So, the big question for me was always was this post-partisan idea, this idea that you could kind of bring adversaries across a table and get them to agree to each other and agree with - to get them to agree with each other and achieve social progress, was that a deep-seated belief of his or was that, in a certain sense, a tactic? Not a cynical tactic, but a tactic. And I would be very with him if it were a way of thinking about politics, if it were a tactic, because the job of transformative leader is not to cue to the center, but define their own values as the center, as common sense. And if he, you know, I believe in the agenda he’s putting forward. For example, universal healthcare. You know, for example, you know, cap and trade and green jobs as a way to, you know, solve our energy problems while growing the economy. I think these are reasonable while liberal goals and if he presents them as reasonable and the reaction to them as one could knew they were going to - because there are these millions of people that don’t consider a liberal president legitimate - was irrational, extreme, that presented him an opportunity to say, “My program is rational, but my opposition has chosen extremism, has chosen unreason,” and be willing to take the hit, that there's always going to be a minority of the country. Thirty percent, 35 percent, even 40 percent who disagrees with him radically. Disagrees with him strongly, but if he’s still willing to pass his program with that 60 percent margin, the rest of the country will eventually catch up. The reactionaries will understand as they did with Social Security, as they did with, you know, women getting the vote, freeing the slaves, you know, Social Security - that actually these things were in their interests. They’ll accept them as part of the established order of American society, and in fact, 20, 30, 40 year down the road the Republicans and the Conservatives will be campaigning to save universal healthcare just like they campaign to save Social Security...
Robert Byrd, longest-serving Congress member, considered historian
Source: The Christian Science Monitor (11-18-09)
Before making legislative history, Sen. Robert Byrd – on Wednesday he became the longest-serving member of Congress since 1789 – spent a lifetime mastering it.
The Democrat for West Virginia once dazzled a British delegation, complaining that Americans didn’t know English history, by reciting all the kings and queens of England, from Egbert (829-839) through Elizabeth II, including riffs on their children and notable moments in their reign.
His four-volume history of the US Senate, based in part on a decade of floor speeches delivered on slow Friday mornings in the 1980s, became an instant reference on Capitol Hill. His encyclopedic grasp of Senate procedure, honed by constant study, is also a resource to colleagues on both sides of the aisle...
... “He is best known as the foremost guardian of the Senate’s complex rules, procedures and customs,” said Senate majority leader Harry Reid in a tribute to Byrd on the floor of the Senate Wednesday. “Today’s milestone is another record that will never be broken.”
In a bid to educate his Senate colleagues on the perils of the line-item veto, Senator Byrd taught himself Roman history by reading accounts of Julius Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, Tacitus, and others.
“When the Roman Senate gave up its control of the purse strings, it gave away its power to check the executive. From that point on, the Senate declined … and the Roman republic fell,” he said in one of 14 addresses on the Senate floor in 1993.
Wales is a country of grant junkies, claims historian
Source: WalesOnline (11-18-09)
THE Welsh are a nation of “grant junkies”, more heavily dependent on the public sector than almost every other country in the free world, a leading historian claims.
The only nation more dependant on the state is the special case of Northern Ireland, which is recovering from decades of terrorism, Hywel Williams will say tomorrow in the third of his six-part series for S4C.
Referring to statistics from a recent international survey by the independent think tank, Centre for Economic and Business Research, Williams says that 64.3% of Wales’ national income is accounted for by government expenditure. This means that out of every £3 in our pockets, nearly £2 comes from the public purse...
... In the programme, Williams traces the story of the Welsh economy back to before the oil crisis of 1973, to the days of Harold Macmillan’s “never had it so good” period in the 1950s and early 1960s. The economic crisis that followed was sparked by the oil-producing countries’ decision to double the price of oil and limit its supply – a situation which emphasised how domestic economies are dependent on international factors.
The Opec (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) decision led to inflation and public spending cutbacks in Wales and to strikes and closures in the heavy industries. Margaret Thatcher’s policy of creating a grants economy to ease the pain of the closures rather than deal with the underlying problems was never questioned in Wales, Williams maintains.
Even today, Williams says, the Welsh middle class has no incentive to question their country’s over-dependence on the public purse.
Kimberly Kagan on How Taliban and Al-Qaeda Differ
Source: CBS News (11-17-09)
On this week's edition of CBSNews.com's @katiecouric, military historian Kimberly Kagan told Katie Couric that while "al-Qaeda has a global focus," the Taliban "has a slightly more narrow focus in Afghanistan."
That isn't to say that the groups don't share goals and know each other, however.
"What we have in Afghanistan is a network of enemy groups who are tied by close personal relationships between their leaders," said Kagan.
She noted that "the first few steps that these groups need to undertake are actually shared in common."
"They need safe havens," Kagan said. "They need to establish a state in which they can produce their vision of law, order and justice. And from which they can project power."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Project makes Illinois history available online
Source: Chicago Tribune (11-17-09)
MACOMB, Ill. - Two Western Illinois University librarians are making western Illinois history more accessible online.
A grant allowed librarians Bill Thompson and Jeff Hancks to put the contents of several historical societies' newsletters on the Web.
Included in the collection are newsletters from historical societies in the western Illinois counties of Hancock, McDonough, Rock Island and Schuyler.
Angolan historian at Brazzaville international colloquium
Source: ANGOP (11-17-09)
Brazzaville - The Angolan historian, Simao Souindoula, arrived Tuesday in Brazzaville, Congo, to attend the international colloquium on the work by Congolese painter, Marcel Gotene, on November 18-21.
The official who is also the vice president of the Unesco International Scientific Committee on the “Slavery Route”, has travelled at the invitation of the Congolese minister to the Presidency for Defence, Zacharie Bowao.
Gordon S. Wood: Defending the academicians
Source: The Washington Post (11-17-09)
[Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His most recent book is Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815.]
The writing of academic history seems to be in crisis. Historical monographs -- scholarly works on highly specific subjects -- pour from the university presses (at least 1,200 or so a year) and yet have very few readers. Sometimes, sales of academic history books number only in the hundreds; if it weren't for library purchases, their sales might be measured in the dozens. Most people, it seems, are not interested in reading history, at least not the history written by academic historians. Although some blame this situation on the poor teaching of history in the schools, most critics seem to think that the problem lies with the academic historians themselves. They don't know how to write history, at least the kind of history that people want to read. After all, David McCullough, Walter Isaacson, Jon Meacham and other popular historians sell hundreds of thousands of books. If they can do it, why can't the academic historians write better, more readable, more accessible history?
Historians who sell lots of books have always thought that it was their ability to write well that made them popular. Samuel Eliot Morison, a historian who was that rare bird, an academic who was a bestseller during the middle decades of the 20th century, certainly believed that. Academic historians, he said, "have forgotten that there is an art of writing history." Instead of scintillating stories that move, they write "dull, solid, valuable monographs that nobody reads outside the profession." Barbara Tuchman, who was America's most popular historian in the 1960s and 1970s, likewise believed that academic historians did not know how to write. The reason professors of history have so few readers, she said, is that they have had too many captive audiences -- first with the dissertation supervisors, then with their students in lecture halls. They really do not know how "to capture and hold the interests of an audience." McCullough agrees, though he is too polite to put it so bluntly. History is in trouble, he suggests, because most academic historians have forgotten how to tell a story. "That's what history is," he says, "a story."
Alas, if it were only that simple. Academic historians have not forgotten how to tell a story. Instead, most of them have purposefully chosen not to tell stories; that is, they have chosen not to write narrative history. Narrative history is a particular kind of history-writing whose popularity comes from the fact that it resembles a story. It lays out the events of the past in chronological order, with a beginning, middle and end. Such works usually concentrate on individual personalities and on unique public happenings, the kinds of events that might have made headlines in the past: a biography of George Washington, for example, or the story of the election of 1800. Since politics tends to dominate the headlines, politics has traditionally formed the backbone of narrative history.
Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship Endowment Still Needs Support
Source: AHA Blog (11-17-09)
The first recipient of the Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship for Innovation in Digital History will be announced at the annual meeting in January, but the endowment for the award still needs your support.
The award was developed by friends and colleagues of Roy Rosenzweig to honor his life and work as a pioneer in the field of digital history. But in order to assure this award remains on a firm financial footing into the future, we need your assistance.
The George Mason University Foundation, Inc. manages the funds for the Rosenzweig Prize. Contributions may be tax deductible to the full extent allowable by the law.
Gifts for the AHA/CHNM Rosenzweig Prize may be mailed to:
GMU Foundation, Inc.
4400 University Drive, MS 1A3
Fairfax, VA 22030
Checks should be made payable to the GMU Foundation, Inc. and indicate that the gift is for the AHA/CHNM Rosenzweig Prize. Gifts may also be made online at give.gmu.edu, but funds must be specified for the AHA/CHNM Rosenzweig Prize in the comments section.
For questions or information on alternate methods of giving, individuals should contact: Amy Lambrecht, Director of Development, Phone: (703) 993-8706, e-mail: alambrec@gmu.edu.
Contributions may also count toward the center’s National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) matching grant in accordance with NEH guidelines.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
LGBTQ Taskforce Statement
Source: American Historical Association (11-10-09)
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Taskforce of the AHA was created by AHA Council at the January 2009 annual meeting. The Taskforce is composed of five members (with the vice president and a member of the Professional Division and AHA serving as co-chairs), one additional AHA member appointed by the Professional Division (PD), and two appointed by the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender History (CLGBTH), an affiliate society of the AHA. The Taskforce has a three-year charge and meets once a year always during the AHA annual meeting with several conference calls during the year for discussion of ongoing business.
As a newly constituted Taskforce of the AHA, our charge is to gather information about the concerns of LGBTQ historians and propose concrete, practical solutions for as many of them as possible. We have already begun conducting a benchmark survey of other professional organizations with an eye to best practices and policies. Ideally, this will result in an “LGBTQ equity in the workplace/best practices” guide. Another possible focus of attention will be a survey of LGBTQ historians and those doing LGBTQ history to determine hiring and discrimination trends in the field. This would result in a “status of LGBTQ people in the historical profession” report. But the Taskforce will also attend more broadly to the special problems faced by LGBTQ historians (including those teaching LGBTQ topics) on the job market, in the classroom, in the research field, and in all stages of their careers. In addition, the Taskforce will address the ways in which the AHA can best serve the needs of LGBTQ historians.
Our target audience is the AHA leadership and membership and our charge does not include taking a public stand on issues such as the boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, one of the headquarters for the 2010 AHA annual meeting in San Diego.
That said, the Taskforce is interested in learning more about and reflecting on how and why this situation developed, how the AHA has responded, what the impact will be on LGBTQ history and historians, and what can be done to avoid such situations in the future.
If members of the AHA have thoughts about the San Diego convention that they would like to share with the Taskforce, please e-mail Leisa Meyer at ldmeye@wm.edu.
If members of the AHA would like more information about the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, please consult the committee’s web site and/or Facebook page:
- http://www.clghistory.org/
- http://www.clghistory.org/contact.html
- http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53766491591 (Login required)
Monday, November 16, 2009
Renowned historian angers Scottish World War II veterans
Source: Deadline (11-15-09)
FURIOUS Scottish World War Two veterans are demanding an apology from a renowned historical writer after he accused them of COWARDICE.
Anthony Beevor’s eagerly anticipated new work – titled “D-Day – The Battle for Normandy” – contends that Scottish troops failed in key objectives during the landing, badly letting down Allied forces.
And now livid vets are “disgusted” by the passages, and say that Beevor should have interviewed them rather than relying on secondary sources.
Quoting a Canadian major, Beevor wrote: “The thing that shocked me was the 51st Highland Division.
“The Scotties threw away their weapons and equipment and fled.”
Another quote from Field Marshal Montgomery describes the 51st Highland Division as “at present not battle worthy – it does not fight with determination and has failed in every operation it has been given to do.”
But surviving veterans of the Normandy landings have hit out at the claims, describing them as a “gross injustice”.
Arabs Hostile Approach to Iran is a "Big Mistake." an Arab Historian says
Source: The Hawler Tribune (11-15-09)
Top Egyptian historian, investigative journalist and thinker Mohammad Hassanein Heikal said he believes history would harshly blame Arabs for their irresponsible approach towards Iran. “I think our [Arab states’] approach towards Iran is a big mistake which measures up to historical crimes. There is an incoherence between Iran and us, but what’s important is that this incoherence has led to hostility and there is a difference between an incoherence that leads to negotiation and one that leads to hostility,” quoted Heikal as talking to Al-Jazeera satellite channel.
He pointed to Iran’s policies under the former Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi who was toppled in 1979. He said “I was an enemy of Iran in the past. This enmity was due to Iran’s complete dependence on the US [in the Pahlavi era]. It was in this era that the Islamic Revolution took place and we still continued our animosity towards Iran.”
Heikal referred to Iran’s nuclear program, which is under tight inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and said “Instead of focusing on Israel’s nuclear arsenal, we [Arabs] express worries over Iran’s nuclear program -- even though I think it is not even worth worrying.”...
From the archives: Oklahoma woman historian who struggled to rise above prejudices
Source: Enid News (11-14-09)
Called “Oklahoma’s Greatest Historian” by Gov. Brad Henry, Angie Debo was born Jan. 30, 1890, in Beattie, Kan.
She came to Oklahoma in a covered wagon with her parents and younger brother at age 9 to Marshall, Oklahoma Territory, her home for much of her life.
She taught in rural schools at age 16 in 1906 and graduated from Marshall High School at age 23 in 1913.
She majored in history at the University of Oklahoma, studying under Edward Everett Dale, and received her bachelor of arts degree in 1918.
She returned to teaching for five years, saving money for graduate school. She attended the University of Chicago and received her master of arts degree in 1924. She taught at West Texas State Teachers College in Canyon, Texas. She then returned to OU, where in 1933, she received her Ph.D.
Her dissertation, “The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic,” was published in 1934 and received the John H. During Prize from American Historical Association as the most important contribution to studies in American history in 1934. In spite of this success, she could not find a teaching position as most college history departments at the time were not even considering hiring women...
... In 1988, at age 98, she received the Award for Scholarly Distinction from the American Historical Association. She died two weeks later on Feb. 21, 1988, and is remembered for her courageous presentation of the truth.
Drake Bennett: How historians are looking deeper at the fall of the Berlin Wall
Source: Boston.com (11-15-09)
[Drake Bennett is the staff writer for Ideas. E-mail drbennett@globe.com.]
With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall earlier this week, the news was filled with images of that epoch-ending night, and of the equally historic events that led up to and followed it. Those images, for the most part, are of crowds: strikers in Poland, the multitudes at the reburial of Hungary’s former prime minister Imre Nagy (executed in 1958 on orders from Moscow), the throngs in Prague chanting “Havel to the Castle,” the massed hecklers in Bucharest who forced Nicolae Ceausescu to try unsuccessfully to flee - and, of course, the thousands of East and West Germans who gathered restively at the Berlin Wall’s checkpoints on the night of Nov. 9 and flooded through when they opened...
... It’s hardly surprising that this is the narrative that has taken hold. It’s a stirring idea, and a powerful one, comforting in the role it accords oppressed people to rise up and make their own fate. And the crowds in the streets are what the world saw at the time. But in the intervening two decades, as the participants themselves have written their
memoirs, as transcripts and memos have been declassified, and as documents have emerged from behind the former Iron Curtain, many historians have begun to emphasize a different account. In this telling, it’s not the marching of the crowds on the street that made the difference, but something less visible: the unprecedented inaction and acquiescence of those at the top. In country after country, leaders responded to open challenges to their power by essentially giving in.
“People power,” in other words, didn’t end the Cold War, not alone. And the extent to which the popular understanding of those revolutionary months centers on the masses in the streets suggests that we may have learned the wrong lesson from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Especially here in the United States, where rioting mobs helped spark the American Revolution and marchers spurred the Civil Rights movement, there is a particular faith in the power of taking it to the streets, and it was possible to see echoes of those American movements when mass protests erupted in Eastern Europe, or at various times in countries like Ukraine, Lebanon, Burma, the Philippines, or, most recently, Iran. But, historians say, what ultimately matters in authoritarian regimes is the resolve of those at the top, and that imposes stark limits on the power of the people.
It’s not just a question for Cold War scholars to debate. Misunderstanding the potential of popular protest can have tragic results, leading today’s dissidents, whether they’re in the Arab world or Southeast Asia or elsewhere, to risk life and limb in situations where there’s little prospect of success - where, unlike in Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, the leadership is firmly committed to doing whatever it takes to maintain the status quo...
... Today, some historians are looking in more depth at what it was that changed in the minds of the communist leaders - especially Mikhail Gorbachev, whose refusal to lend Soviet support to any crackdown forced the hand of those Eastern European governments more reluctant to change. This analysis, in which the Cold War ended not because of the many but the few, suggests that, for all the longer-term economic and political currents that shaped it, the end of the Cold War wasn’t a historical necessity. With a few different decisions, the events of 1989 might have unfolded very differently - or not at all, leaving the world frozen even today in a hostile superpower face-off. Rather than being a puzzle for historians, the end of the Cold War could still be a distant ambition of policymakers.
“There were so many points at which the whole process could have been interrupted by relatively small changes,” says Kramer. “It easily could have happened that the Cold War wouldn’t have eased much at all.”
In nearly every historian’s account, the central figure in the end of the Cold War is Gorbachev. Ronald Reagan may have disturbed the status quo with his bellicose rhetoric, and West Germany’s Helmut Kohl may have seized the initiative on uniting the two Germanys soon after the wall came down, but it was Gorbachev who bore the most responsibility, by steadfastly refusing to act as the dominos in communist Eastern Europe fell...
... In recent years, historians have suggested other factors, as well. Vladislav Zubok, a Soviet historian and, like Hitchcock, a professor at Temple, argues that Gorbachev was simply overwhelmed with problems closer to home - the perilous state of the Soviet economy, unrest in the Baltics - and had little time for Eastern Europe. James Sheehan of Stanford argues that Gorbachev fell in love with the idea that the Soviet Union might find a place, culturally and economically, in the steadily integrating community of Western European nations, and therefore had little interest in playing the role of Eastern Europe’s brute enforcer...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Robert Nedelkoff on The "Other Challenges" Of Garry Wills
Source: The New Nixon (11-14-09)
[Robert Nedelkoff, a resident of Silver Spring, MD, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville and his Juris Doctor degree from Monterey College of Law in 1996. From 1997 until March 2009, he worked on behalf of the Richard Nixon Foundation at the National Archives in College Park, MD. He has published articles in several magazines, including GQ and McSweeney’s.]
The new issue of the New York Review of Books has a short op-ed, which first appeared as a blogpost last week at the magazine’s site, by Garry Wills, professor emeritus at Northwestern University and author of several dozen books about religion and American history. His efforts in the latter field include his Pulitzer-winning Lincoln At Gettysburg, and his bestselling 1970 book Nixon Agonistes, which, in many ways, became the template for many of the books critical of the thirty-seventh President since then.
Wills’s article, in the space of about six hundred words, offers his opinion about what President Obama should do in Afghanistan. After the President returns from his whirlwind trip to Japan and China, it will be time, as Sen. John McCain pointed out this week, to make the final decision about how many more troops to commit to the eight-year fight against the Taliban, and for how long.
A considerable number of voices in the media and in the blogosphere have argued in recent weeks that the plan toward which the President seems to be leaning – an increase in the troop levels in Afghanistan, whether or not this corresponds to the 40,000 that the commanders in the field think is required at this point – is not one he should undertake. Wills is one of these voices.
In his article he contends that the arguments in favor of maintaing a military presence in Afghanistan are “the ones that made presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon pass on to their successors in the presidency the draining and self-lacerating Vietnam War.”
It’s worth mentioning that when President Nixon resigned in August 1974, I don’t remember any column or op-ed piece on the subject – and they were legion – which said that the Vietnam War was an ongoing conflict that Nixon had passed on to Gerald Ford. As far as the liberal pundits were concerned in those days, we were well and truly removed from that conflict for good. The North Vietnamese took such sentiments to mean that if they tried to overrun South Vietnam, the United States would do nothing to stop them.
And in the spring of 1975 this proved to be true when Congress rejected President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger’s appeals to aid South Vietnam, disregarding the promises made by President Nixon to protect the sovereignity of that nation when the Paris peace accords were signed in January 1973 – promises made to protect peace, but which Wills, evidently, regards as an extension of war.
He goes on to say that “when we did withdraw, the consequences were not as fatal as those we incurred during the years that saw the deaths of over 50,000 of our soldiers and many more Vietnamese.” Well, it’s true that while many died in Vietnamese prison camps after the South was defeated, the numbers were not equivalent to the number of Vietnamese that died in the course of the war. But in Cambodia, a nation that fell into the hands of the Khmer Rouge at the same time as South Vietnam was conquered, far more civilians died in four years of “peace” than in the preceding years of war.
Cambodia is worth keeping in mind when one looks at what follows in Wills’s commentary:
Some leader has to break the spell before costs mount further while our wars are passed from president to president. Among other things, this will give our military a needed chance to repair the wear and tear on men and equipment that the overstretched regular services and the National Guard have suffered, and to make them ready for other challenges.
We are in Afghanistan in response to a challenge, if one could call the bloodbath of 9/11 such. The Taliban, with no provocation from us, allowed Osama bin Laden and his henchmen to use their nation as a base to launch the vicious attacks of that day. In the eight years that Americans have fought and died to make sure that the Taliban would not have the chance to abuse the rule of a nation in such a fashion again, it has become more and more clear that, if it were allowed to regain power, it would not only take bloody revenge on every man and woman hoping for a civilized life in Afghanistan – that is to say, perhaps as large a percentage of the population as died in Cambodia – but would do its best to help its allies in northwest Pakistan overthrow that nation’s government, and thus gain control of nuclear weapons. Then we would see “other challenges,” on a scale so abominable that “wear and tear” on our tanks and airplanes would be the least of our worries.
Yesterday’s announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 conspirators will be tried for murder in New York is a reminder of what American servicepersons in Afghanistan are trying to protect us from. I hope that during their trial, enough testimony is presented about the Taliban’s acquiescence in bin Laden’s evil to remind even Garry Wills of why we have to fight in Afghanistan, and why the consequences of withdrawal would be so tragic.
In his op-ed, Wills says that Obama should get our troops out of Afghanistan even if the response to such an action results in his being a one-term President. A man so familiar with American history should remember that the subject of his Pulitzer-winning book persevered in 1864, in the face of calls from many of the pundits of his day to make peace with the South on its terms, and, within a matter of months, prevailed. The Gettysburg Address, indeed, explains just what the United States is fighting to preserve and protect now. Perhaps Northwestern’s professor emeritus of history should reread it.
Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian and Accused Holocaust Denier
Source: Wired (11-14-09)
A group identifying themselves as “anti-fascist hackers” broke into the web site and AOL e-mail account of controversial British historian and accused Holocaust-denier David Irving and obtained his private communications as well as attendee lists for his current U.S. speaking tour.
The hackers posted Irving’s e-mail correspondence online, as well as the user name and password for his web site account and AOL e-mail account, which shared the same password. The hackers also posted the e-mail addresses and other personal information — such as names, phone numbers and shipping and credit card billing addresses — of people who made donations through his web sites, purchased his books or bought tickets for his appearances.
Irving’s username and password for his Authorize.net account, which handles the credit card transactions on his web site, were also exposed.
The data was posted on the WikiLeaks site Friday evening in advance of Irving’s Saturday speaking engagement at the Catholic Kolping Society of America in New York City. The organization reportedly canceled the event on Friday after someone contacted it.
The organization said its facility had been booked a few days ago by someone using the name “Michael Singer,” who said he wanted to hold a book reading. The organization canceled the engagement after learning that the event was scheduled for Irving....
Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian and Accused Holocaust Denier
Source: Wired (11-14-09)
A group identifying themselves as “anti-fascist hackers” broke into the web site and AOL e-mail account of controversial British historian and accused Holocaust-denier David Irving and obtained his private communications as well as attendee lists for his current U.S. speaking tour.
The hackers posted Irving’s e-mail correspondence online, as well as the user name and password for his web site account and AOL e-mail account, which shared the same password. The hackers also posted the e-mail addresses and other personal information — such as names, phone numbers and shipping and credit card billing addresses — of people who made donations through his web sites, purchased his books or bought tickets for his appearances.
Irving’s username and password for his Authorize.net account, which handles the credit card transactions on his web site, were also exposed.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Historian John Hope Franklin to Be Honored with Memorial Conference at Brooklyn College
Source: Brooklyn College (11-12-09)
The late historian John Hope Franklin, a major figure in the writing of American and African-American history, and 1995 winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, will be honored by former colleagues and fellow historians during a daylong John Hope Franklin Memorial Conference at Brooklyn College to be held Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the library.
Franklin, who died earlier this year at the age of 94, was an Oklahoma native who earned a bachelor's degree from Fisk University, a historically black institution, in 1935. He earned an M.A. in 1936 and a Ph.D. in History in 1941 from Harvard University. Over the course of his lifetime, he was the recipient of more than 130 honorary degrees.
He chaired the Brooklyn College History Department from 1956 to 1964, becoming the first African-American scholar to lead the history department at a predominantly white U.S. college. In addition to Brooklyn College, he also taught at such leading institutions as Howard University, Harvard, the University of Chicago and Duke University. In 1997, he was appointed head of President Clinton's Initiative on Race. At the time of his death, he was the James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus at Duke.
A number of Brooklyn College departments and offices are cosponsoring the event in honor of Franklin, including his own History Department; the departments of Africana Studies, Anthropology, Political Science and Sociology; the School of Education; the Programs in Children's Studies and Women's Studies; the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women's Activism; the Offices of the President and of the Provost; the Brooklyn College Library; and the Office of Affirmative Action, Compliance and Diversity.
The theme of the conference is "Current Trends in African-American History" in recognition of Franklin's many contributions and pioneering efforts to chronicle the central role that African-Americans have played in American history. His "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans," first published in 1947, has sold more than three million copies and is still considered one of the definitive historical surveys of America's black experience.
The noted Harvard historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham will deliver the Franklin Memorial Lecture at a 12:30 p.m. luncheon session in the library's Christoph M. Kimmich Reading Room. Professor Higginbotham is the author of the prize-winning "Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church: 1880-1920"(Harvard University Press, 1993), co-editor of "African American Lives"(Oxford University Press, 2004) and "The African American National Biography" (2008), and editor in chief of "The Harvard Guide to African-American History"(Harvard University Press, 2001). In addition, the conference will feature three scholarly panels exploring current historical research, a panel on teaching, a presentation by Africana Studies Chair George Cunningham of books by African-American historians, and a reception. The panels will take place in the Woody Tanger Auditorium.
Current chairperson of the Department of History David Troyansky notes, "We see the event as both commemorative and forward-looking. Professor Higginbotham's talk will explore the latest version of Franklin's 'From Slavery to Freedom' as well as his legacy. We will hear from individuals who have taught the book in its various editions and we will have a taste of just-published or forthcoming scholarship from a new generation of historians."
The first panel, starting at 11 a.m. and titled "African American Women, Urban Reform and Uplift," will feature Cheryl Hicks and Sonya Ramsey, both of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
The luncheon and the presentation by Professor Cunningham will be followed by a second panel, "Material Culture and African-American History in New York City," beginning at 2:30 p.m. and featuring Jennifer Scott, of the Weeksville Heritage Center; Arthur Bankoff, of Brooklyn College; and Fred Winter, of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
The third panel, scheduled to begin at 3:40 p.m., will examine "Civil Rights and Black Power in New York City: Northern Struggles for Racial and Economic Justice," featuring Stefan Bradley, of St. Louis University, and Brian Purnell, of Fordham University.
The final panel, "Teaching John Hope Franklin's 'From Slavery to Freedom,'" will start at 5:05 p.m., featuring Purnell, and Michael Schoenfeld and Barbara Winslow, both of Brooklyn College.
Historian insists that finance minister apologizes for saying "feudal old men" (Bulgaria)
Source: Focus Information Agency (11-13-09)
Georgi Markov, director of the Institute for History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), says in an interview with FOCUS Radio that Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov will have to apologize publicly to BAS staff for saying "BAS does not do science, there are some feudal old men in BAS who collect salaries."
Markov says the minister's words only show he does not know the meaning of the words feudal lord. He notes the BAS staff are not "old men."
The historian regards such way of speaking as inappropriate for a minister.
Orange battle earns new look (Virginia)
Source: Fredericksburg.com (11-13-09)
Out in the countryside of Orange County, historians are working to breathe new life into an old battle.
When complete, their efforts should help the public appreciate one of the Civil War's least-known campaigns, called Mine Run, after the creek of the same name off State Route 20.
Mine Run may be as notable for what didn't happen as what did. It involved 145,000 troops and set up what could have been a full-bore, bloody series of battles between the armies led by Union Gen. George Gordon Meade and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
But at the 11th hour, Meade--who had initiated the campaign under pressure from President Lincoln to bag Lee's Army of Northern Virginia--called it quits.
"Historians have tended to overlook this campaign because there was no major bloodletting," said Timothy H. Smith, a historian from Gettysburg, Pa.
Yet veterans of the Battle of Payne's Farm said its musketry was as hot as anything they'd experienced at Antietam or at Gettysburg, the latter just four months earlier...
Calgary historian honours Canada's war nurses
Source: CBC (11-12-09)
A University of Calgary instructor is drawing attention to the nearly 8,000 Canadian nurses who served in the two world wars but often remain forgotten in the November ceremonies honouring the country's war heroes.
Nurse historian Diana Mansell researched the role of Canada's nurses in the two world wars for a Remembrance Day lecture she gave in Calgary Wednesday night.
"[I] found it very interesting, and I think they are, in many ways, not acknowledged for their efforts, probably due to the silence of many of them," said Mansell.
Many of the women she spoke to who served in the Second World War suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from witnessing events they weren't prepared to encounter.
"They were anywhere from 19 to 21, with virtually no life experience," Mansell said. "And they took on these horrendous tasks. And then came home and carry the fear with them.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Harvard historian sees banks, China dragging down U.S.
Source: Boston Herald (11-12-09)
Harvard economic historian Niall Ferguson, whose “The Ascent of Money” book and TV series traced the world’s financial system, last night painted a pessimistic prognosis for U.S. recovery unless the government takes decisive action.
To a packed audience at the annual International Place Executive Event, hosted by Hub real estate developer Donald Chiofaro, Ferguson said that while we barely avoided a second Great Depression, the nation is still in deep trouble because no reforms have been made to its underlying financial problems.
He said the government needs to break up large banks with toxic assets, stop the explosive growth of debt, cut mortgage incentives and stop allowing the devaluation of the Chinese currency.
“We must stop the 10/10 proposition with China, where they get 10 percent growth and we get 10 percent permanent unemployment,” Ferguson said, adding that fixing this problem needs to be President Obama’s top agenda item when he next visits Beijing.
Ferguson dismisses the notion that the economic meltdown was caused by deregulation and greed, contending it was the corruption of the six major pillars of the financial system: banks, bonds, stocks, insurance, mortgages and globalization.
Immigration Canada Issues New Citizenship Guide
Source: All Headline News (11-11-09)
Ottawa, Ontario (AHN) - Ottawa will issue this week a new guide to citizenship. The new guide, to be used by 250,000 immigrants yearly who subsequently acquire Canadian citizenship, will give more emphasis on Canada's military history. It would veer away from the old study guide which portrays the nation merely as a peacekeeper, said Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
An expert panel helped craft the new guide. Among the members of the panel are former Canadian Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, historian Jack Granatstein, retired general John de Chastelain and historian Margaret MacMillan.
Historian Karen Armstrong to Unveil Charter of Compassion
Source: The Times of India (11-12-09)
WASHINGTON: In more than two decades of studying and writing about world religions, historian Karen Armstrong, author of ‘A History of God’, ‘Faith After September 11’, and most recently, ‘The Case for God’, was repeatedly struck by the emphasis that all the great traditions place on compassion.
Whatever she was researching, this theme of compassion kept recurring — when she was examining a history of the idea of God in the three monotheistic faiths; in her study of the history of fundamentalism, where she found lack of compassion was the major flaw in these militant movements; and above all in her book ‘The Great Transformation’, which traced the history of the ‘Axial Age’ (c900-200 BCE), when all the great world faiths either came into being or had their roots, where compassion and nonviolence were so essential.
“It repeatedly struck me as sad that, despite this marvelous ideology, which should be of such benefit to our polarized world, religion is often seen as part of the problem, and secondary goals, such as doctrinal orthodoxy, often get more attention,” the British-born historian said in an interview to The Times of India on Tuesday.
In reality, the world is busy tearing itself to pieces over differences. So when she won the prestigious TED Prize in 2008, and with it was granted a wish for a better world, she proposed a Charter which would restore compassion to the centre of attention, could challenge the voices of extremism and hatred, empower people to demand compassionate speech/action, and make compassion audible in our troubled world. She calls it the Golden Rule that must now be implemented globally, “so that we treat all peoples as we would wish to be treated ourselves”.
On Thursday, Armstrong will unveil in Washington DC the Charter of Compassion, a “single document crafted by people from all walks of life, nationalities, beliefs and backgrounds with the intent to unify, inspire and bring compassion back into the hearts of society”. Thousands of entries from over 100 countries have poured in from the time Armstrong revealed her quest (at charterforcompassion.org) to build a global community “where people of all persuasions can live together in peace”...
Historian Can Keep His Manuscript on Tobacco Studies, Judge Rules
Source: Science Insider (11-11-09)
A Florida circuit court has ruled in favor of a Stanford University professor who is trying to keep his unpublished book manuscript out of the hands of tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, which had subpoenaed it as evidence for an upcoming suit.
Historian Robert Proctor plans to testify as an expert witness against tobacco companies in a number of cases brought by smokers in Florida. He is also working on an 800-page book, The Golden Holocaust, which describes, Proctor claims, the shaky scientific rhetoric and bogus clinical studies that tobacco companies used to sell their products. A judge in Volusia County (which contains Daytona Beach) ruled last August that Proctor had to surrender the manuscript, which Proctor says is largely jottings and notes at this point and not ready for other people to scrutinize.
The Volusia case is still pending appeal, but a judge in Duval County (which contains Jacksonville) ruled today that Proctor did not need to surrender The Golden Holocaust for cases in Duval.
The ruling is not technically binding in other counties with pending tobacco cases, but Bill Ogle, a lawyer working on Proctor's behalf, hoped the Duval ruling would have persuasive sway in other counties and help develop a consensus for Proctor's side.
The judge in the Duval case issued the ruling partly to move the case forward to trial more quickly but also, Ogle says, because of the free-speech issues the request for the manuscript raised. A scholar or an author has certain constitutionally protected rights, Ogle says, and they have the right to withhold speech until they see fit to publish. Ogle says he suspects that the friend-of-the-court brief that Stanford University sent on Proctor's behalf helped sway the Florida court, because the decision cited arguments from the brief (though not the brief itself by name).
There is no written record of the decision at this point, but one will likely be available within a week from the Duval Circuit Court.
D-Day historian: 'Ryan' not best war film
Source: CNN (11-11-09)
(CNN) -- Some reviewers have called "Saving Private Ryan," Steven Spielberg's World War II film about D-Day and the search for a soldier, one of the greatest war movies.
Military historian Antony Beevor begs to differ.
Not only is it not the greatest war movie, it's not even the best cinematic depiction of D-Day, says Beevor, author of the newly published "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy" (Viking).
He admires the famed Omaha Beach opening -- "Probably the most realistic battle sequence ever filmed," he said -- but described the rest of "Saving Private Ryan" as "ghastly."
"It's sort of a 'Dirty Dozen' cliche of the worst form," he said.
He has expanded on the criticism in a lecture. "Spielberg's basic story line had great potential. It shows the tension between patriotic and therefore collective loyalty, and the struggle of the individual for survival: those mutually contradictory pressures, which in many ways lie at the heart of war," Beevor observed in the talk.
If any filmmakers wish to take on D-Day again, Beevor's book provides enough material for a dozen screenplays. Making use of first-person accounts stored in the National Archives, as well as a wealth of other material, Beevor depicts in painstaking detail not only the D-Day landings by American, British, Canadian and Free French forces, but also the subsequent battle for the whole of Normandy that proved pivotal in defeating Nazi Germany.
Beevor says a director would do well to remember that the Allied effort to retake the continent extended well beyond that single day of June 6, 1944.
"D-Day, although an iconic moment, was not actually the end of it. Films like 'The Longest Day' and 'Saving Private Ryan' almost give the impression that D-Day was 'it' and then the next thing people know about was the liberation of Paris," he said. "But in fact it was the fighting in Normandy which was far worse. Casualties on D-Day were far lighter than expected -- [military leaders] had expected 10,000 dead and only 3,000 died.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Ferriero Confirmed by Senate as Archivist of the United States
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH) (11-6-09)
On November 6, the United States Senate voted unanimously to confirm David Ferriero as the 10th Archivist of the United States. Mr. Ferriero was the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries. Mr. Ferriero, who was nominated by President Obama on July 28, 2009, will succeed Professor Allen Weinstein who resigned as Archivist in December 2008 for health reasons.
On October 1, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing to consider the Ferriero nomination. The hearing was presided over by Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, & International Security.
As the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries (NYPL), Mr. Ferriero was part of the leadership team responsible for integrating the four research libraries and 87 branch libraries into one seamless service for users, creating the largest public library system in the United States and one of the largest research libraries in the world. Mr. Ferriero was in charge of collection strategy; conservation; digital experience; reference and research services; and education, programming, and exhibitions.
Before joining the NYPL in 2004, Mr. Ferriero served in top positions at two of the nation’s major academic libraries, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, and Duke University in Durham, NC. In those positions, he led major initiatives including the expansion of facilities, the adoption of digital technologies, and a reengineering of printing and publications.
Mr. Ferriero earned bachelors and master’s degrees in English literature from Northeastern University in Boston and a master’s degree from the Simmons College of Library and Information Science, also in Boston. After serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, he started in the humanities library at MIT, where he worked for 31 years, rising to associate director for public services and acting co-director of libraries.
In 1996, Mr. Ferriero moved to Duke University, where he served as University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs until 2004. At Duke, he raised more than $50 million to expand and renovate the university’s library and was responsible for instructional technology initiatives, including overseeing Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology.
Historian links fall of Berlin Wall to rise in religious extremism in Pakistan
Source: Daily Times (11-10-09)
KARACHI: Prominent historian Dr Mubarak Ali believes the fall of the Berlin Wall is an event that changed the whole political scenario in the Indian subcontinent since it resulted in strengthening the rightist forces in Pakistan and consequently, the rise in religious extremism in the country.
“For the people of the West, it was a matter of happiness, but the fall of the Berlin Wall had some dire consequences for the secular forces in Pakistan,” said Dr Ali, while delivering a lecture at the Goethe-Institute during a programme arranged by the German Consulate to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
He was called from Lahore to deliver a lecture on the topic, ‘Impacts of the fall of the Berlin Wall on South Asia’.
“The day some Western historians interpreted the fall of the Berlin Wall as the defeat of communism, secular and communist forces in Pakistan were weakened and religious extremists took it as their victory,” Dr Ali informed the audience.
Dr Ali is one of the leading modern day historians and a critic of history that is taught in the country’s schools and colleges.
He said after the weakening of communism, rightist forces assured the society that there was no place for capitalism as well in Pakistan, and hence the religious system was the best option left...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Conservatives Feel Seminar Organized by Historian Gabriel Piterberg 'demonized' Israel
Source: Eric Golub at Frontpage Magazine (11-10-09)
[Eric Golub is the publisher of the Tygrrrr Express blog. He wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.]
Last week, the Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) co-sponsored a seminar with the ungainly title, “Invasion Is a Structure, Not an Event: Settler Colonialism Past and Present.” It was billed as a “two-day event organized by Gabriel Piterberg,” a notoriously anti-Israel UCLA history professor. True to form, the seminar featured some of the most politicized and biased academics in the field of Middle East studies.
The audience of around 30 included perhaps 15 professors and a cadre of the aging hippie revolutionaries (not mutually exclusive groups) one grows accustomed to seeing at anti-Israel events.
Having covered earlier this year a “Gaza and Human Rights” symposium at UCLA that was widely criticized for devolving into Israel-bashing and anti-Semitism, I attended this event with a watchful eye.
UCLA professors, perhaps aware that they are now being monitored, have become somewhat wary. The panel included Jewish and Israeli speakers in an attempt at “diversity,” but as is typical in academe, it was intellectually homogeneous. The “Jewish perspective” was represented by the far left of the political spectrum and differed little from the so-called pro-Palestinian perspective. To the extent any true debate existed, the seminar was an exercise in the indefensible vs. the incomprehensible.
New York University Middle Eastern studies and history professor Zachary Lockman introduced the indefensible by labeling Israel the “Zionist entity” and the “Zionist project,” while referring to Palestinians as the “indigenous people.” He claimed that “Israel can be compared to South Africa” because it “uses coercion” and concluded that “colonialism is Zionism.”
University of California, San Diego sociology professor Gershon Shafir provided the incomprehensible as his “rebuttal.” His defense of Israel was as weak as his communication and organizational skills.
Shafir began by quipping, “I didn’t expect such a large crowd. I only brought five handouts.” In looking at his own notes, he said, “I can’t read this.”
He was self-deprecating and generous in his praise of his opponent Lockman, who was neither. As he put it, “I’m not from New York. I can’t speak as quickly.”
Shafir’s academic jargon rendered syntax worthy of a mathematics class:
Antecedent conditions lead to a critical juncture which leads to structural persistence which leads to a reactive sequence which leads to an outcome.
At one point, he almost managed to offer a pro-Israel sentiment, but then backed away:
I have all kinds of things to say about [Palestinian] violence, but I would get some ugly looks if I do.
He then looked at the other professors, who motioned for him to sit down. So much for intellectual diversity.
Patrick Wolfe, a history professor at La Trobe University in Australia, spoke next. He said he had no stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which led me to wonder, “Then why are you here?”
It turns out he was there to offer the Marxist position, including the following:
Black labor and red people’s land has been used for white people’s benefit.
The primary goal is not the exploitation of labor. It is the seizure of land.
Half of the Jews are Arabs, so the Jewish/Arab conflict makes no sense.
As to the latter, it makes plenty of sense. Arabs are murdering Jews, and Jews are against this.
Making less sense was Stanford University history professor Joel Beinin, who chaired the next panel. He began by praising Lockman and then claimed, against all evidence, “It is extraordinary to have such a rich discussion of the issues.”
Sticking to his usual biases, Beinin juxtaposed current Israeli leadership with Israel’s founders, to the detriment of the former: “The young Turks are militarizing the conflict to advance themselves.”
At this point Piterberg opined that, “Increased settler movement is meant to spread Judeo supremacy at all costs.”
And Lockman chimed in:
In 1948 Jews succeeded in getting rid of many indigenous Palestinians, but they can’t kill them all. This is the logic and contradiction of the Zionist project.
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities history professor Patricia Lorcin spoke about sexuality in colonial Algeria. She managed to unite Lockman and Shafir, both of whom desperately wanted her presentation to end: It was a distraction from bashing Israel.
Piterberg, who was slated to discuss leftwing Israeli writer Amos Oz, offered bizarre and at times, tactless thoughts instead. Here is a sampling:
Israeli settlers are running around like R2D2. [I guess that would make C3PO a colonizer, since he was British.]
Israel looted Palestinian land after 1948. It was colonial sexual excitement.
Like an adulterous woman, the nomads moved forward.
Picture an Oriental Jewish woman fantasizing about a man with a mustache.
Likud policies are about exerting sexual power.
And perhaps most outrageously:
A proper white woman must become a Moroccan slut to experience true physical pleasure.
Beinin emoted that:
Amos Oz is the Israeli author I most love to hate. We need an extra five minutes to expose his racism and misogyny.
While Lorcin noted helpfully:
Sexual anxiety creates a fear of Arabs and Muslims.
UCLA anthropology professor and chair of CNES’s Faculty Advisory Committee Sondra Hale, trying to reign in the discussion, asked, “How does that relate to settlers?”
Without missing a beat, Lorcin replied, “Demographic promiscuity.”
Rounding out the panel’s apparent preoccupation with sex, Lorcin added:
Sexual anxiety leads to the politics of this moment. Periods of calm mean that there is no need for “Frenchness.”
I’m not sure if this was intended as praise or an insult, but it was at least consistent with everything else she said.
Having had his fill of sex talk, Beinin moved on to implicitly accusing Israel of committing genocide:
The logic of settler colonialism is “eliminationist.” [That is not an actual word, but why let that stand in the way of making a good point?]
As “proof,” he cited the work of Columbia University Arab studies professor Rashid Khalidi:
In 1884, violence occurred two years after Zionists arrived in Palestine.
Beinin followed Khalidi’s incorrect assertions with his own:
The Nakba [or catastrophe, used by radicals to describe Israel’s founding] occurred in July, 1948. Yitzchak Rabin expelled 50,000 Palestinians.
Then he added, “I am not here making a pacifist solution,” which drew loud laughter from the professors, some of whom have a history of justifying violence against Israelis while decrying Israeli self-defense.
When somebody asked about problems with Palestinian leadership, Beinin replied, to more laughter, “Some things I don’t discuss in black and white.” Apparently, Beinin only applies this approach to discussions of Israel.
The conclusion of this bizarre conference was stunningly and unintentionally honest.
Piterberg stated:
We all write about the settlers, but none of us write about the indigenous population. This could be for a variety of reasons.
To which Hale replied:
We are only interested in the settlers because we are careerists. That is unkind, but true. There is plenty of material on the indigenous people; we just ignore it.
The question of which peoples can be declared “indigenous” aside, she is absolutely right in admitting that criticizing Israel on campuses is good for business, not to mention much easier than rigorous, objective research.
The lowest moment of the conference occurred during a break, when Sondra Hale conversed with two women in the audience. Speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, Hale, showing her true colors, made the following outlandish statements:
Stand With Us [a pro-Israel organization] are the White Citizen’s Council without the sheets. They are McCarthyists.
The ZOA [Zionist Organization of America] are Nazis.
Moreover, she agreed with the other two when they said that “Zionists are more despicable than Baathists. If we could just use the courts, we could make the Zionists feel the financial sting.”
Some portions of the seminar were less harmful than silly. For instance, a couple people were simply outraged that the coffee cups they were using were not biodegradable.
Yet beyond the oddball assortment of environmentalists, Marxists, and supporters of Algerian eroticism, the bulk of the seminar hewed tightly to its clear and harmful purpose: demonizing and delegitimizing Israel. It’s a further sign of the continued politicization of Middle East studies.
Response by Gershon Shafir
I would like to take exception to the republication by HNN of a deceptive article published in Front Page on a conference on "Settler Colonies" at UCLA, of which I was a participant.
The premise of Eric Golub's original article was that scholarly work is best viewed as blatant partisanship. Jewish and Israeli speakers, it states, were "included" in the conference to offer a "Jewish perspective" but to his lament I failed to provide an appropriate "defense of Israel." In fact, I was not "included" in the conference, our panel was devoted to a discussion of my, by now, 20 year old book Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1882-1914, which examines the long term effects of the Israeli Labor Settlement Movement's formative period. It should not be surprising that I provided no defense, either weak or robust, of Israel; this was an intellectual exchange over the merits and shortcoming of an analysis of the historical record. In short, it was a scholarly exchange not an exchange of partisan barbs.
Since I would not be the wished-for defender, the article made me the target of an offence. Let me point to three glaring inaccuracies in the Golub piece.
*** Golub seeks to present as gibberish the following sentence from my talk: "Antecedent conditions lead to a critical juncture which leads to structural persistence which leads to a reactive sequence which leads to an outcome." This is an overview, elaborated in the talk, of the five steps of "path dependence" from James Mahoney's The Legacies of Liberalism. Mahoney's book, by the way, won the American Sociological Association Barrington Moore award for best book in comparative-historical sociology, and is widely used for elucidating a tight and formal model of path dependence.
*** I am alleged to have looked at my own notes and said "I can't read this." The reference, in fact, is to my quip in response to the moderator's note telling me I had only one minute left.
*** Golub also writes that I "was self-deprecating and generous in his praise of [my] opponent Lockman, who was neither." On the contrary, while we disagreed on several substantive points, Professor Lockman was unfailingly courteous and gracious, the model of a thoughtful scholar and consummate gentleman. I will be glad to continue our discussion in the future; hopefully in front an audience all of whose members take good notes and appreciate the merits of academic scholarship.
Gershon Shafir
Department of Sociology
University of California, San Diego
Response by Zachary Lockman
I feel compelled to express my severe disappointment and distress at your decision to post on the HNN website an item titled "Conservatives Feel Seminar Organized by Historian Gabi Piterberg 'demonized' Israel" ( http://hnn.us/roundup/14.html#119728). This item purports to be an account of a scholarly conference sponsored by UCLA's Center for Near Eastern Studies on October 29-30, 2009, in which I was a participant. I would have expected better of History News Network, of which I am a regular reader.
As you no doubt know, this account was originally written for, and first posted on, the Frontpage and Campus Watch websites -- right-wing political outfits not generally regarded by historians or other scholars as reliable sources and notorious for trashing scholars with whom they disagree. And in fact, the author of the piece in question wrenched various phrases and sentences uttered by me and other conference participants out of their contexts, often mangled or completely misconstrued them, and then strung them together to produce an account that suited his political agenda. It should have been obvious from even a cursory reading of the piece that this is not a serious attempt to convey the scholarly exchanges that actually went on at the conference or to take issue with what the participants actually said. Rather, it is yet one more product of the campaign that Frontpage and Campus Watch have long waged against scholars who do not share these outfits' political positions with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Your guidelines indicate that you regard certain things as so beyond the pale that you would not publish them -- the writings of Holocaust deniers, for example. I have to wonder, then, how you could have deemed such an obviously tendentious and distorted item worthy of dissemination by HNN. I am all for the free exchange of ideas, and of course HNN should feature a wide range of viewpoints and promote vigorous debate. But it is hard for me to understand how posting this article could be deemed to serve HNN's goals. I very much regret that you apparently did not see things that way.
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