The Latest 
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The January 6 Committee and the Paranoid Style
Bruce W. Dearstyne
Episodes consistent with the "paranoid style" recur with sufficient frequency in American history to make them a landmark of the culture. But it's less well understood how each individual episode has faded, insight we could use today.
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How Poland's Solidarity Rejected the Temptation of Violence
David Richards
The Polish Solidarity movement is an instructive study in how a coalition of workers, intellectuals and spiritual leaders maintained a commitment to nonviolence and dialogue in the face of repression.
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Despite the Cultural Differences, There's Common Ground Between Boomers and Zoomers
Joseph Preston Baratta
Despite the differences in their cultural touchstones, Gen Z faces the yet-incomplete challenge of the Baby Boom generation: uniting the world in novel ways to solve global problems.
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Killing of al-Zawahiri in Kabul Vindicates Strategic Separation of Counterterrorism and Military Occupation
Brian Glyn Williams
On withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration touted its "over the horizon" capability to track and target terrorists from afar. If the strategy proves out, it should mean the ability to fully decouple antiterror operations from foreign military presence.
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Not All Roads Lead to Kashmir
Andrew Howard
A recent tragedy on a historically contentious railway route shows that decisions about infrastructure development are made with symbolic and emotional considerations as well as pragmatic ones.
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The Roundup Top Ten for August 12, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Climate Change Just Erased the Past in Kentucky. Where Will it Happen Next?
Tina A. Irvine
The archives of the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County were inundated by flood waters on July 28—a devastating loss of one community's history and culture, and a warning to historians that our knowledge of the past is at risk from climate change.
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The COVID Era is the Latest Episode of Medical Scapegoating of Asian Immigrants
Catherine Ceniza Choy
From smallpox to COVID, Asian Americans have been blamed and attacked for supposedly causing disease, while their contributions to American health have been ignored. This medical scapegoating and the violence that often follow it demonstrate the need to teach more Asian American history.
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A Writer Reflects on Four Enlightening and Challenging Lunches with the Father of Black Liberation Theology
J. Chester Johnson
The author shared Arkansas roots with the influential theologian and teacher, from opposite sides of the color line. Their exchanges showed the possibilities of reconciliation and the height of the barriers created by racism in Americans' shared history.
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Healing a Divided Nation
Carole Adrienne
From specialized trauma care to emergency transportation to board certification of physicians, when we encounter the medical system today, we are experiencing Civil War medicine.
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Why Should War Criminals Operate with Impunity?
Lawrence Wittner
When major military powers like Russia, China and the United States withhold participation in the International Criminal Court, it allows war criminals to do as they please. Leading a more stable international order means joining fully with the ICC.
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Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?
Wallace Hettle
An introduction to the core ideas of the Critical Race Theory movement and its founding thinkers suggests the right today isn't mad about ideas, but wants a new and scary-sounding term to justify their ongoing opposition to racial equality.
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On Putin's Vacant Moral Imagination
Walter G. Moss
Russia's stances toward Ukraine and the west in general reflect its leaders' inability, perhaps nurtured by the Soviet system, to view world affairs through another's perspective.
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For 38 Years of American History, There Has Been No Vice President
Cary Heinz
The frequency with which the vice presidency has been vacant shows the historical insignificance of the office.
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A Primary Source Shows the Connection Between 1920s Flappers and Social Media Youth Organizers Today
Jason Ulysses Rose
While youth are often dismissed as frivolous, their media often reveal engagement, creativity, and wisdom that ther political elders would be wise to heed – in the 1920s as today.
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The Roundup Top Ten for August 5, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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The Highland Park Horrors Won't Break the Gun Cult's Mythic Hold on America
Thomas Lecaque and J.L. Tomlin
The myth of the armed citizen has little to do with the American revolution or the vision of the founders. It's all about the right's desire for a revolution to come.
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Weaponizing Bad-Faith History is a Conservative Tradition from Jim Crow to Alito
Charles J. Holden
"Conservatives’ invocations of history often mixed wishful thinking about the past with bad faith in interpreting it. And it was always done with the present-minded purpose of maintaining elite white male rule, especially on matters of race."
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Don't Call them Conservatives
Alan J. Singer
As we confront what is happening in this country, we need to stop calling the MAGA movement conservative.
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Kathryn Olmsted's "Newspaper Axis" Shows Media Extremism Nothing New
Kathryn Smith
FDR's success in promoting the New Deal and rallying Americans to the defense of Europe against fascism was a triumph over the nation's right-wing newspaper barons.
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Collegiality, Interdisciplinarity, and the Historian's Work
Elizabeth Stice
Universities should encourage, and scholars should embrace, opportunities for collegial cooperation that encourage the lowering of the barriers to cross-disciplinary conversations. Both the researcher and the university will benefit.
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Time to Amend the Constitution
Don Fraser
Significant changes are needed to the Constitution in order to preserve any semblance of democratic government.
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Interview: Joyce Berkman on the Value of History and the Historian's Mindset
Erik Moshe
“It’s much better to develop one’s mental toolbox, one’s skills, rather than necessarily master huge bodies of knowledge.”
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What Does the Perot Phenomenon Tell Us about Andrew Yang's Third Party Prospects?
William Kertzman
Third parties can temporarily capture the public if they meet a moment of discontent with resources and a compelling personality; building for the long-term is something very different.
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The Roundup Top Ten for July 29, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
News
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- Making a Uranium Ghost Town
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- The Presidential Records Act Explains How the FBI Knew What to Search For at Mar-a-Lago
- Theocracy Now! The Forgotten Influence of L. Brent Bozell on the Right
- Janice Longone, Chronicler of American Food Traditions
- Revisiting Lady Rochford and Her Alleged Betrayal of Anne Boleyn
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