This is where we excerpt articles about history that appear in the media. Among the subjects included on this page are: anniversaries of historical events, legacies of presidents, cutting-edge research, and historical disputes.
SOURCE: Rolling Stone (2-22-12)
Rick Perlstein is the author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. He writes a weekly column for RollingStone.com.
...Here's the problem: Even if Obamaism works on its own terms – that is, if [Andrew] Sullivan is right that Obama’s presidency is precisely on course – it can't stop Republicans from wrecking the country. Instead, it may end up abetting them.
To understand why, let's look at Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama has famously cited him as a role model for how transformative a president can be. Well, what did he transform, and how did he do it? Here's how: He planted an ideological...
SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Ed (2-26-12)
Not long ago I found myself crammed into a tiny commuter plane bucking over the Cascade Range of Washington State. Behind me, two women distracted themselves from the turboprop's lurching and groaning by talking loudly about beef.
A self-avowed "foodie" with a bit of ranching in my background, an overdeveloped interest in how people think about eating, and a pressing need to escape thoughts of turbulence-induced aviation disaster, I listened in.
The two women had clearly read their Michael Pollan. They spoke ably about the dangers of contaminated meat, the environmental consequences of feedlot production, and the benefits of grass-fed beef. At one point I heard them bandy about the name of a company that sold organic meat in the town we had just...
SOURCE: The American Conservative (2-23-12)
Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday and author of The Rage Against God.
“The Iron Lady,” the cruel motion picture about Margaret Thatcher, makes much of her decline into bemused old age. It arouses sympathy for her among the undecided, and passionate sympathy among those who already revere her. No wonder. I cannot think of any other living person who could have been treated in this fashion. In a way it is a compliment to her that, even in the lonely, desolate weakness of her final years, her enemies—the unintelligent, intolerant left—continue to hate her.
With such people attacking her, it is hard not to rally to her side. But what about those of us who have an uncomfortable and growing suspicion that she was not as good as she is made out to have been? I am one of them. I still cannot resist the feeling that her reputation is not just inflated but...
SOURCE: The Atlantic (2-27-12)
Katrina Gulliver, a historian living in Munich, is the author of Modern Women in China and Japan: Gender, Feminism and Global Modernity Between the Wars.
Seventy-five years ago, Amelia Earhart sent her last radio communication during her attempt to cross the Pacific. She was running low on fuel and unable to find Howland Island, where she was supposed to land. "We are on the line 157 337. We will repeat this message. We will repeat this on 6210 kilocycles. Wait." These communications, received by the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Itasca, became her final recorded words: "We are running on line north and south."
Over the last three quarters of a century, the Earhart disappearance has attracted disproportionate interest, with an organization even now focused on searching for her. Newly discovered "clues" to her fate still make the news media. Other long-distance aviators of...
SOURCE: LA Times (2-27-12)
Chris Lamb, a professor of communication at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, is the author of the forthcoming book, "Conspiracy of Silence: Sportswriters and the Long Campaign to Desegregate Baseball." Email: lambc@cofc.edu
On Feb. 28, 1946, Jackie Robinson and his wife, Rachel, boarded an American Airlines flight in Los Angeles bound for Daytona Beach, Fla., for spring training. There...
SOURCE: WaPo (2-21-12)
From “Tinderbox” by Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin. Reprinted by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) inc. Copyright © Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin, 2012. Timberg, a former foreign correspondent in Africa, is acting national security editor of The Washington Post. Halperin was a senior HIV prevention adviser in the U.S. government’s global AIDS program and is now an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina.
We are unlikely to ever know all the details of the birth of the AIDS epidemic. But a series of recent genetic discoveries have shed new light on it, starting with the moment when a connection from chimp to human changed the course of history.
We now know where the epidemic began: a small patch of dense forest...
SOURCE: National Interest (02-27-12)
Mark G. Brennan is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Pennsylvania. Under the supervision of Bruce Kuklick, Walter McDougall and Jonathan Steinberg, he is writing his dissertation on the activities of American Protestant missionaries in Cuba between 1898 and 1950.
SOURCE: WaPo (02-25-12)
Charles Duelfer, who was a U.N. weapons inspector in the 1990s and led the Iraq Survey Group’s search for WMD after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, is the author of Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq.
SOURCE: National Review (02-23-12)
Tom Switzer is a research associate for the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre and editor of Spectator Australia.
SOURCE: Al Jazeera (02-22-12)
Sarah Mousa graduated from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2010, and was a 2010-2011 Fulbright Scholar in Egypt.
SOURCE: Australian (02-18-12)
Tom Switzer is a research associate at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre and editor of Spectator Australia.
SOURCE: Globe and Mail (Canada) (02-20-12)
Jeremy Diamond is director of development and programs at the Historica-Dominion Institute; Davida Aronovitch is communications co-ordinator.
SOURCE: WSJ (02-22-12)
Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.
SOURCE: Foreign Policy (02-20-12)
Aaron David Miller is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His new book, Can America Have Another Great President? will be published this year.
SOURCE: Daily Beast (02-20-12)
Winston Lord, Henry Kissinger’s closest aide, accompanied him and President Nixon to all the China opening meetings. He later served as U.S. ambassador to China from 1985 to 1989. A full accounting of these events can be found in Lord’s State Department Oral History at the Library of Congress website. Leslie H. Gelb was diplomatic correspondent and columnist for The New York Times and is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
SOURCE: The Daily Beast (2-20-12)
Willard Sterne Randall is the author of six Founding Father biographies, including George Washington: A Life, Thomas Jefferson: A Life and, most recently Ethan Allen: His Life and Times, published by W.W. Norton. A former investigative reporter, he is a presidential scholar who participated in C-SPAN’s 2000 and 2009 rankings of the presidents.
n March 1789, as he prepared to leave his beloved Mount Vernon and drive to his first inauguration in New York City, George Washington dashed off letters to his closest friends and nephews. Washington had not sought the presidency, preferring, after 15 years of warfare, to rusticate in retirement and tend his Potomac acres....
SOURCE: OUPblog (2-20-12)
Lewis L. Gould is Eugene C. Barker Centennial Professor Emeritus in American History at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Theodore Roosevelt, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, and The William Howard Taft Presidency.
When President Obama invoked the name of “Teddy” Roosevelt in his speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, in December, he seemed on safe ground in referring to his predecessor by that familiar nickname. In the world of the talking head and the political pro, everyone knows that Theodore Roosevelt was called “Teddy” by one and all. What better way to establish credentials as a keeper of the presidential heritage than to refer to “Teddy”? The cable news experts who commented on the president’s remarks had their own orgy of “Teddy” references. When done with the proper blend of authority and sophistication, the use...
SOURCE: Readex (2-17-12)
Michael D. Hattem is a doctoral student in the Department of History at Yale University. He received his Bachelor’s degree in History from the City College of New York. His work largely focuses on the political culture, intellectual history, and print culture of colonial New York City and the rest of the middle colonies.
As the academic job market in history continues to shrink, networking has become something no tenure-track hopeful can afford to ignore. At the same time, the rise of social media has afforded historians with new and inventive ways to network with colleagues from around the world. Whether posting from conferences in real-time on Twitter, connecting with fellow historians on Facebook...
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-16-12)
Jeremy Paxman's 'Empire’ starts on BBC One on Feb 27 at 9pm
The history of the British empire is full of amazing stories of adventure, of war, of greed and plunder, cruelty and courage, heroism and low cunning. It explains so much about who we are now, yet we increasingly pretend it never happened.
It’s nothing short of a scandal that this history is not taught in schools. It may be unfashionable to say so, but building, securing and running an empire was the biggest international preoccupation of this country for generations.
Imperial history explains both why Britain has a seat on the UN Security Council and the readiness of British prime ministers to commit British troops to overseas wars.
But it goes much further, too. The empire reshaped our education system and redefined how we think of ourselves. It was the trigger for much post-war...
SOURCE: New Republic (02-14-2012)
Tim Stanley blogs for The London Daily Telegraph and is the author of The Crusader: the Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan.
Last week marked the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the British throne. The government has already declared a four day public holiday in June, during which Her Majesty will lead a flotilla of a thousand boats along the Thames and a chain of fiery beacons will be lit across the United Kingdom. For a country in recession and at conflict with the European Union over its right to govern its own finances, this offers us a unique opportunity to reassert confidence and historical identity. The default British response to any crisis is to throw a good party.
But enthusiasm for Queen Elizabeth’s anniversary hides the fact...
