Departments

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Historians/History

  • 7/31/2022

    Collegiality, Interdisciplinarity, and the Historian's Work

    by 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. 

  • 7/24/2022

    Kentucky Fried Vice President?

    by Cary Heinz

    Despite his advanced age, could chicken entrepreneur Colonel Harland Sanders have been an effective running mate for George Wallace's 1968 presidential campaign? Would he have been the ultimate celebrity politician?

  • 7/24/2022

    At 75th Anniversary, What Can Anne Frank's Diary Teach Today's Teens?

    by Naomi Yavneh Klos

    A project that trains middle school student docents to lead peer discussions of Anne Frank's diary unlocks the power of empathy and experience to impart lessons about the Holocaust and about the broader concerns of human dignity and security for adolescents strained by the pandemic, violence, and identity-based demonization. 

  • 6/12/2022

    As an Island, Britain Became a Stage for Roman Politicians

    by Richard Hingley

    The conquest of Britain mattered to Roman emperors not for the island's strategic significance, but because it signaled a ruler's mastery of the ancient deity Oceanus and thus his worthiness in domestic politics. 

  • 5/1/2022

    1968: A Year of Dashed Hopes

    by Walter G. Moss

    While people seek to confront life's challenges with hope and courage and banish fear and doubt, some years, like 1968, don't make that easy. 

  • 3/27/2022

    Has Magellan's Time for Debunking Arrived?

    by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

    The historical record shows Magellan was an exemplar of the imperialist impulses for which other European explorers have been recently castigated. Myths about Magellan's achievements, intentions, and actions have, thus far, shielded him from such reevaluation. 

  • 2/20/2022

    Lessons from the History Textbook Wars of the 1920s

    by Bruce W. Dearstyne

    Historians helped defuse a national tempest over allegedly unpatriotic textbooks in the 1920s by explaining the nature of professional historical research, interpretation, and dissemination, and insisting on the right and duty of professionals to exert expertise. That kind of work is needed again today. 

  • 2/20/2022

    The Revolution Whisperer

    by Greg Shaw

    The author hoped to write a biography of William Small, the Scottish polymath whose mentorship linked the political revolution of Thomas Jefferson and the industrial one of James Watt. Learning that another researcher had beaten him to the punch didn't diminish the author's admiration for the story in the least. 

  • 2/13/2022

    The Nazi in the Classroom

    by Gary B. Ostrower

    American student Edward Sittler adopted German citizenship after the outbreak of World War II and became a Nazi propagandist. After the war, his past was revealed to the public and the Long Island college where he had been teaching German, launching a debate about citizenship, loyalty, and the limits of academic freedom.