Roundup: Historians' Take

Source: Japan Focus (This excerpt is from a long article entitled: "Migrants, Subjects, Citizens: Comparative Perspectives on Nationality in the Prewar Japanese Empire." Click here for pictures.
8-28-08

Tessa Morris-Suzuki: Comparative Perspectives on Nationality in the Prewar Japanese Empire

[Tessa Morris-Suzuki is Professor of Japanese History, Convenor of the Division of Pacific and Asian History in the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, and a Japan Focus associate. Her book Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War has just been published at Rowman & Littlefield.] Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro seems an unlikely champion of a multicultural Japan. His brief term of office is, after all, perhaps best remembered for the f

Source: TomDispatch.com
9-4-08

Tom Engelhardt: How the U.S. Garrisons the Planet and Doesn't Even Notice

[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the American Age of Denial. The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a co

Source: Common-Place.org
8-31-08

Jeff Pasley: Veeps don't matter

... I would lose my political historian’s license if I did not emphasize just how little vice-presidential picks matter, electorally speaking. Voters vote for president, the top, nation-embodying office, and always have, even back in 1796 when only local electors were actually running. Now, the fact that the Veep might have to assume the main office, we should take seriously. [Something McCain, apparently, does not take seriously.] The Whigs wished they could have had a do-over on

Source: San Francisco Chronicle
9-4-08

Jonathan Zimmerman: Poverty, Not Sex Ed, Key Factor in Teen Pregnancy

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century" (Harvard University Press).] One side thinks adolescents should receive more "comprehensive" information about sex, including contraception. The others side favors a more didactic approach, with a simpler message: "abstinence only." Sound familiar? Brace yourself for yet ano

Source: Washington Independent
9-3-08

Julian Zelizer: Palin McCain’s Dan Quayle?

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of “Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s” (Harvard University Press) and is completing a book on the history of national security politics since World War II.] Democrats have been relishing every minute since Sen. John McCain announced that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be his vice presidential running mate. The attacks have been f

Source: Chicago Tribune
9-2-08

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Beijing Games call to mind our 1893 fair

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California at Irvine. He is the author of "China's Brave New World—And Other Tales for Global Times." ] There is an obvious relevance to Chicago's future in the three-ring circus (make that five-ring) that just concluded in China. Beijing's Olympic venues, opening ceremony and the like will provide points of comparison not just for London in 2012 but also for the Games that Chicago hopes to host four ye

Source: http://johnmckay.blogspot.com
9-1-08

John J. McKay: Palin gets her history wrong (If English was good enough for Jesus it's good enough for me)

When Sarah Palin was running for governor in 2006, Eagle Forum, the anti-abortion group run by Phyllis Schlafly, sent a questionnaire to the candidates. Most of her answers were those desired by the group. She would allow abortion only to save the life of the mother (that is, opposed it even for rape and incest). Thought parents should be able to pull their kids out of any school classes that used books or taught information they disagreed with. Favored abstinence-only sex education ,school vouc

Source: TPM Cafe
8-29-08

Ruth Rosen: Sarah Palin and Feminists for Life

[Ms. Rosen is a visiting professor of history at Berkeley.] Many people are unfamiliar with Feminists for Life and wonder what the choice of Sarah Palin, who is against abortion rights, signals to the electorate. Well, let me tell you something about Feminists for Life. In 2003, I decided to investigate this group and its energetic leader, Serrin Foster. What did it mean, I wondered, to be a feminist and actively fight against the right to choose when or whether

Source: Tacoma News Tribune
9-1-08

Michael Honey: Labor Day 2008 ... Support Employee Free Choice

Michael Honey is Haley Professor of the Humanities at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and a former holder of the Harry Bridges labor studies chair at the University of Washington. His recent book, "Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign," recently won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He is president of the national Labor and Working-Class History Association.Labor Day 2008 marks a moment of crisis for middle and working-class Americans. Housing, health care, transportation, education and job needs are growing acute in an economy that has been run into a ditch. If you have been paying any attention at all for the last eight years, you know what I’m talking about. Yet 2008 also may be a time of significant change. People are fed up and many are demanding a new direction.

Source: Rolling Stone
9-4-08

Sean Wilentz: How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party

[Mr. Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton and author of The Age of Reagan.] The failure of the administration of George W. Bush — and the accompanying crisis of the Republican Party — has caused a political meltdown of historic proportions. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Bush enjoyed the greatest popularity ever recorded for a modern American president. Republicans on Capitol Hill, under the iron rule of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, fatten

Source: Special to HNN
8-28-08

Joshua Spivak: Let's stop hyping the conventions

[Joshua Spivak, a public relations executive and attorney, is a research fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Center for Government Reform at Wagner College.] American voters are bracing themselves for the most overhyped event of the political calendar – the party conventions. These expensive events, paid for partly by public funds, are portrayed as critical points in the electoral process. But, despite an avalanche of coverage, the most important story is missed: While once critical to our

Source: NYT
8-28-08

Robert Carol: Johnson's Dream, Obama's Speech

[Robert A. Caro, who has won Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, is at work on the fourth and final volume of his Johnson biography.] AS I watch Barack Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention tonight, I will be remembering another speech: the one that made Martin Luther King cry. And I will be thinking: Mr. Obama’s speech — and in a way his whole candidacy — might not have been possible had that other speech not been given. That s

Source: Newsweek
8-23-08

Sean Wilentz: A Liberal’s Lament

[Mr. Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton and author of The Age of Reagan.] ... [H]ow has the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, proposed to revivify Democratic liberalism? There is a quotation that ought to give Democrats, and not just Democrats, pause:"This year will not be a year of politics as usual. It can be a year of inspiration and hope, and it will be a year of concern, of quiet and sober reassessment of our nation's character and purpose. It has alrea

Source: Mary L. Dudziak at Legal History Blog
8-27-08

Mary L. Dudziak: Fannie Lou Hamer's convention

[Ms. Dudziak is Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science, University of Southern California. Her newest book is Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall’s African Journey (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008).] In spite of various sorts of whiningaccompanying this year’s Democratic National Convention, it is an historic moment in

Source: Huffington Post
8-27-08

Julian Zelizer: Barack Obama Does Not Have to Be Another Jimmy Carter

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s" (Harvard University Press). He is writing a book on the history of national security politics since World War II and another book about the presidency of Jimmy Carter.] When Barack Obama speaks to the Democratic Convention tomorrow night, many Democrats will be wondering about a q

Source: Poynter Online/Jim Romenesko
8-26-08

Michael H. Ebner: The Downsizing of the Chicago Tribune--And What It Means

[Michael H. Ebner is the James D. Vail III Professor of American History Emeritus at Lake Forest College in north suburban Chicago. He has published op-ed essays and book reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer. The Chicago Tribune also included him on its all-star Team of college professors.] As I contemplate the downsizing of the Chicago Tribune -- some 80 editional positions eliminated thus far this month -- it brings to mind how my grandfathe

Source: Nation
8-26-08

Eric Alterman: Blind Punditry (Re: McCain)

In June, I wrote (with George Zornick) in Loving John McCain about the media's maddening blindness towards the extremism and/or crass political expediency of Senator John McCain: On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain's extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remai

Source: Slate
8-25-08

David Greenberg: Why Biden's plagiarism shouldn't be forgotten

[David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers, has two new books out: Presidential Doodles and Calvin Coolidge.] Teachers and scholars consider the unattributed use of someone else's words and ideas to be a very serious offense, but the public doesn't seem to mind much, at least when it comes to politics. The incidents of plagiarism and fabrication that forced Joe Biden to quit the 1988 presidential race have drawn little comment since his selection as Barack

Source: Huffington Post
8-22-08

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: U.S.-China Similarities: An Olympic Perspective

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. He is co-founder and regular contributer to The China Beat: Blogging How the East is Read. His books include China's Brave New World (2007) and the forthcoming Global Shanghai, 1850-2010.] China and America, according to much U.S. Olympic commentary, currently offer a study in contrasts. Not surprisingly, we've been hearing repeated references of late to the stark differences between our young

Source: Truthout.org
8-25-08

Dean Baker: The Housing Bubble Villains Deny Responsibility

[Mr. Baker, an economist, is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.] The central bankers of the world gathered last weekend for their annual meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This was an opportunity to talk about the major issues confronting the world economy, as well as an opportunity to spend some time in a very beautiful vacation spot. When they met in Jackson Hole in 2005, the meetings were devoted to an Alan Greenspan retrospective, honori