Week of February 25, 2013

Up Front

HNN Hot Topics: Women's History Month Tags: feminism, gender, Hot Topics, women, Women's History Month

Which Other Popes Have Resigned? David Austin Walsh At least three -- and possibly five -- pontiffs have resigned; the most recent was six hundred years ago. Tags: Benedict XVI, Catholicism, papacy, papal resignation

HNN Teacher's Edition: For Grade School

HNN’s Teacher’s Edition is designed to help busy teachers build classes around topics in the news. With just a few minutes preparation, teachers will be able to teach a class on current events, even if they haven't been in a position to follow the news closely.

HNN Special: Vietnam

Review of Nick Turse's Kill Anything That Moves Alfred W. McCoy Every single U.S. unit that served in Vietnam was guilty of war crimes. Tags: atrocities, Nick Turse, Vietnam War, war crimes

"I Begged for Them to Stop" Nick Turse Waterboarding Americans and the redefinition of torture. Tags: war crimes, war on terror, water torture, waterboarding

Blogs

Is Health Care Too Expensive? Steve Hochstadt Maybe it's not that doctors are overpaid, it's that nurses are underpaid. Tags: doctors, health care, medicine, Obamacare

Austerity Doesn't Work, and Neither Will You Iwan Morgan In an era of anemic growth and perennially high unemployment, policymakers aren't adapting to the circumstances. Tags: austerity, economic growth, economic history, Great Depression

News at Home

GOP Leaders are Playing Chicken with the American Economy Robert Brent Toplin It's a game they've been playing for years. Tags: conservatism, debt, Republican Party, sequestration

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (Or Have You?) Ruth Rosen The women’s movement in the next half-century. Tags: Betty Friedan, Feminine Mystique, feminism, sexual violence

Historians & History

On Creating a Groundbreaking Historical Novel Robin Lindley French author Laurent Binet on HHhH and the death of Reinhard Heydrich. Tags: HHhH, historical fiction, interviews, Laurent Binet

War is a Dirty Business William J. Astore It's best if we don't rush to embrace it. Tags: World War II, Vietnam War, training, media

Culture Watch

Downton Abbey at Inverary: A History of Scotland's Most English Castle Jonathan Gross There's plenty of real history in the third season finale of the acclaimed series (no spoilers!). Tags: Downton Abbey, Inverary Castle, landed gentry, nobility

Dr. Zhivago Makes an Angry House Call Bruce Chadwick Scott C. Sickles’s Lightning from Heaven tells the story of the real-life Lara. Tags: Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago, Lightning from Heaven, theater reviews

Is a House a Home in the Segregated 1950s? Bruce Chadwick Luck of the Irish is a solid look at Boston's racist history. Tags: Boston, Luck of the Irish, segregation, theater reviews

Books

Review of Sam Roberts's Grand Central Murray Polner Did the station actually transform all of America? Tags: book reviews, Grand Central, railroads, Sam Roberts