Departments

;

in memoriam

  • Remembering Elbert B. Smith

    by Senator Tom Harkin

    E.B. Smith in the 1960s.Madam President, with the recent death of Dr. Elbert B. Smith -- known to his friends simply as "E.B."-- I lost a much beloved mentor, advisor, and friend.Obituaries in the Washington Post and elsewhere have captured the essential facts of his life. Since 1990, he was professor emeritus at the University of Maryland. He served in the Navy in World War II, earned his master's degree and PhD at the University of Chicago, and taught at Iowa State University, among other colleges, before joining the faculty at Maryland in 1968. Over the years, he also served as a Fulbright professor at the University of Tokyo and at Moscow State University, and elsewhere. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in Iowa in 1962 and again in 1966.What those factual obituaries fail to capture is the spirit of this remarkable man -- his personal warmth, his talent for friendship, his great love of history and scholarship, and his passion for progressive causes.

  • HNN Hot Topics: Hugo Chavez, 1954-2013

    News Hugo Chávez of Venezuela dies (3-5-13) Commentary: Historians Greg Grandin: The Legacy of Hugo Chávez (3-5-13) Commentary: Media Mac Margolis: Hugo Chávez’s House of Cards (3-7-13 Tariq Ali: Hugo Chávez and Me (3-6-13)Francisco Toro: What Fidel Taught Hugo (3-5-13) Past Controversies: South of the Border

  • Well Done, Brother Herb Shapiro

    by Staughton Lynd

    Herbert Shapiro died on October 17, 2012. He was eighty-three. The words that keep coming to me as I recall Herb are, meticulous scholarship and “fierce integrity.”

  • In Memoriam: Alfred F. Young

    by Gary B. Nash

    Alfred F. Young died last November at age 87 in Durham, North Carolina, after debilitating heart attacks, with his wife of sixty years and three daughters at his bedside. Known throughout the nation and abroad as “the godfather of artisans studies,” he was at his workbench until the very end. Friend of hundreds and mentor of scores, he was one of the few early American historians who challenged the consensus school of American history in the Cold War period and lived to see his history of class struggle and class-based politics widely acknowledged and honored.