Roundup: Historians' Take

Moshe Dann: The Temple Mount and Jewish Sovereignty

Moshe Dann is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.The Israeli Police are very meticulous about Jews praying on the Temple Mount, site of the First and Second Temples. The holiest place in the world for Jews, they are forbidden to pray there.Although the Temples were run by cohanim (priests), anyone could bring a sacrifice. It was in fact the first universal religious site in history. The center of Jewish worship, it was inclusive.Strictly enforced by scores of guards employed by the Wakf (Muslim Authorities) who maintain surveillance of visitors, their discriminatory policy is enabled and assisted by Israeli (Arab) policemen. Non-Muslim religious items are prohibited by the Wakf, including Bibles and prayer books, and visiting hours are restricted.According to UNESCO, Jordan is the legitimate authority in charge of maintaining and protecting the site and is the custodian of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem....

Andrew Roberts: Olympic Ideals Don't Match Reality

Mr. Roberts, a historian, is author most recently of The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War (Harper, 2011). The 2012 Olympiad, which opens in London on Friday, will doubtless witness another astonishing exhibition of sporting endurance and excellence. It will also see yet another outburst of utter drivel from its organizers about what the Games themselves can achieve for the human spirit. Enjoy the former by all means; abjure the latter at all costs. "The longest national Olympic torch relay in history will create a spirit of community and world citizenship," claimed the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, in 2009, adding this year that, "Through the Olympic spirit, we can instill brotherhood, respect, fair play, gender equality and even combat doping." Like every IOC president, he is repeating the view of the modern Games' inventor, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who in 1892 stated that the Olympic ideal represented, "The true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced the cause of peace will have received a new and strong ally." For all that the IOC trots out these platitudes, the fact remains that if anything it has caused more international bitterness and resentment than it has calmed.

James Rohrer: Should Liberals Attack Religion?

James Rohrer is a professor of history at University of Nebraska-Kearney....Over the years I have participated in many faith communities, have studied religion professionally, and have taught history and religion at several colleges and universities in the United States and abroad, some of them public and some of them religious institutions. I know that the line between good and evil does not run between religions — any more than it runs between nations or races (all three are social constructs after all); my colleagues and close friends represent many different faith traditions, and some, like my brother, embrace a wholly secular stance toward life. By choice, however, I identify myself as a Christian. After half a century, I could no more deny my religious convictions than I could deny any other part of my Self.

Julian Zelizer: Campaign 2012: The Phony War of Markets vs. Government

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of the new book "Governing America."(CNN) -- In a recent column for The New York Times, David Brooks argued that the nation has now entered into a "capitalism debate." Brooks wrote that President Obama, who he said is feeling defensive about the failure of his policies to revitalize economic growth, has launched an all-out assault on capitalism by depicting Mitt Romney as the embodiment of corrupt and vicious economic practices.The president's decision to focus on Romney's work at Bain Capital, Brooks argues, has shifted the "focus of the race from being about big government, which Obama represents, to being about capitalism, which Romney represents." Romney responded in kind, "I'm convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success."

Daniel Martin Varisco: The Weakness of Romney’s Right

Daniel Martin Varisco is professor of anthropology at Hofstra University.If one thing is clear in the build-up to the 2012 presidential election, it is that the Republican candidate Mitt Romney is less someone most Americans want to vote for than Barack Obama is someone that many people do not want to vote for. The elephant in the debate room, or at least one of the herd that has swelled with the ramping up of polemical rhetoric on all sides, is Islam. Not the real Islam, which most Americans would have a hard time recognizing anyway, but two prominent distortions. The most conservative born-again, Bible-believing Christians, often lumped together in the loose term “Evangelical,” have long viewed Mormonism as a dangerous cult modeled after Islam. Some of these same folk, including those less devout who drink a redneck portion of beer and say they belong to a tea party, have decided that President Obama is really a Muslim. So for the conspiratorial fringe, this election boils down to voting for one Muslim (or should I say Mohammedan) or another.

Michael Kazin: Why Businessmen Don’t Get Elected President

If Mitt Romney’s association with Bain Capital ends up sinking his presidential campaign, he’s unlikely to appreciate the irony. But, if he needs consolation, he might consider seeking solace in American history. The fact is that no successful businessman has ever been a successful president, and only a few have even been serious contenders for the job.This might seem odd, given Americans’ long romance with wealthy entrepreneurs and the enterprises they build. But a talent for developing private companies and making big profits seldom translates into wooing a majority of voters or governing a contentious republic. It may, in fact, blind one from recognizing critical differences between those equally difficult endeavors.

Walter Laqueur: The Weimar Union

Walter Laqueur is a Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. His most recent book is Harvest of a Decade.THE PUBLIC DISCUSSION of Europe’s economic crisis has carried a curious air of repression: When commentators have worried about worst-case scenarios—the scenarios that harken back to the dark moments in the Continent’s history—they have generally been dismissed as alarmist. But there are good reasons to treat these dire warnings with the gravest seriousness—to place them within the realm of plausibility. One of these reasons can be found within the file cabinets of the U.S. government. In 2004, the U.S. National Intelligence Council, the government’s premier agency for strategic intelligence analysis, published a report arguing that the European Union might not survive to see the year 2020. The report worried about restrictive labor laws and aging populations, not debt and the unraveling of the currency union. (The report also saw the main danger as Germany’s economic weakness, which makes for curious reading eight years later.) Still, it is bracing to consider that the U.S. government has worried about the worst-case scenario with the same intensity as the so-called alarmists. 

Juan Cole: Top Ten Implications of the Damascus Bombing

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.  His latest book, "Engaging the Muslim World," is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the Informed Comment website.

Amy C. Gaudion and Douglas Stuart: More Than Just a Running Mate

Amy C. Gaudion is assistant dean for academic affairs at Penn State’s Dickinson School of Law. Douglas Stuart is a professor of political science and international studies at Dickinson College and an adjunct research professor at the U.S. Army War College.We are nearing the end of the season of the Great Mentioning, with murmurs of a vice presidential pick by Mitt Romney in the next few weeks, and possibly sooner. Will it be Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal or Rob Portman? Or maybe Condoleezza Rice, despite her consistent declarations that she has no interest? The media, and to some extent the public, are focused on who Romney will choose. A better question is: what is Romney’s vision for the office of the vice president, and how does his running mate plan to exercise the enormous powers of that office?If you watched the recent HBO comedy series “Veep,” you might conclude that vision and expectations don’t matter because the vice president is an irrelevant player in the governing game, or relevant only for comedic purposes. Indeed, Vice President Biden has contributed from time to time to the image of the vice presidency as a source of entertainment.

Julian Zelizer: Why Democrats Need Labor Unions

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of the new book "Governing America."Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Since the Democrats chose to host their convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a state that has not been hospitable to unions, organized labor is going to have a rally to focus attention on its key issues in Philadelphia on August 11.The rally is meant to send a message to the Democratic leadership, as well as to Republicans, that many workers feel as if they don't have a voice in the two-party system. As AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka said to members, the rally will "give us an opportunity to connect the faces of ordinary Americans to the basic issues affecting working people in our country while providing an important liftoff to our Labor 2012 political program for the fall."

Taner Akcam: Turkey’s Human Rights Hypocrisy

Taner Akcam, a professor of history at Clark University, is the author of “The Young Turks’ Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire.”A NEW political order is emerging in the Middle East, and Turkey aspires to be its leader by taking a stand against authoritarian regimes. Earlier this week, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, went so far as to denounce the Syrian government’s continuing massacres of civilians as “attempted genocide.”

Victor Davis Hanson: Blowing Up History

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author most recently of The End of Sparta.

Victor Davis Hanson: Barack the Healer

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author most recently of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Penn State, Heal Thyself

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.Should the NCAA slap Penn State with a one-year "death penalty," barring the university's football team from competition?That's the question that has been on many lips since former FBI Director Louis Freeh released his report detailing university officials' cover-up of child sexual abuse by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. But it's the wrong question.The issue isn't what should be done to Penn State; it's what Penn State should do.And the answer is as clear as Nittany Lion blue: Penn State should forfeit one season of its own accord — before the NCAA or anyone else makes the decision for it.Worshipful habitsThat's what Florida A&M University did to its famous marching band following the death of drum major Robert Champion last year. Thirteen band members were charged with hazing Champion, whose death was attributed to a severe beating....

Julian Zelizer: For Health Reform, Now the Tricky Part

(CNN) -- White House officials rightly breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. President Obama and his supporters are optimistic that his re-election prospects are stronger and his lasting impact on domestic policy will be much greater.But the battle has only begun. Even after legislation is enacted, as the political scientist Eric Patashnik says in his book "Reforms at Risk," its survival is not assured. The key to success is whether a program lasts over time and builds strong political support to protect it from future attacks. As Patashnik and political scientist Jeffrey Jenkins wrote in a recent blog post, before the Supreme Court ruled: "The partisan and ideological struggle over health-care reform is likely to continue under any scenario."Congressional Republicans will likely continue attacking the program's funding. House Speaker John Boehner has vowed to push for its repeal.Mitt Romney has said he will do the same if he is elected president....

Gil Troy: Leaving The Language Of Conflict

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University and a Shalom Hartman Intstitute Engaging Israel Research Fellow in Jerusalem. His next book, “Moynihan’s Moment: The Fight against Zionism as Racism,” will be published by Oxford University Press this fall.Showing a remarkably Israeli insensitivity to international public opinion—or is it a charmingly Zionist assertion of independence?—the Levy Committee, chaired by the retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy, has declared settlements legal and what is broadly called the “occupation” of the West Bank not a classic occupation under international law. The predictable Pavlovian reaction has Right Wing settlers calling for more settlement and Is-crits internally and externally condemning these rapacious, racist, imperialist colonialists.

Nick Turse: Obama’s Scramble for Africa

Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com.  An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the author/editor of several books, including the recently published Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (with Tom Engelhardt).  This piece is the latest article in his series on “the changing face of American empire,” which is being underwritten by Lannan Foundation.

Daniel Martin Varisco: Comment peut-on être Persan?

Daniel Martin Varisco is a professor of anthropology at Hofstra University.The French savant and satirist Charles-Louis de Secondat, better known as Baron Montesquieu penned his Lettres Persanes in 1721, almost three centuries ago. This was long before the age of computers or the idea that eventually germinated in the head of Steve Jobs and blossomed into the Mac (and I do not mean the big kind you eat). I suspect that Montesquieu wrote by candle light with a quill for a pen, but he would have been delighted to type away on a Macbook, especially since it comes prepackaged with both a French keyboard and a Persian font. But, alas, poor Usbek and Rica would not be able to board an Air France flight to New York, connect to Atlanta and then walk into an Apple Store and buy a much smaller Air than the one they flew from Charles de Gaulle.

Jon Wiener: Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney: Together at Last

Jon Wiener’s new book, How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America, will be published in October.From “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” to “A dream is a wish your heart makes”: Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney are together at last in an unprecedented Disney exhibit at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is the nation’s official repository for the memory of the man who, his supporters say, ended the cold war and defeated global communism. And for the next ten months the Reagan Library also is featuring the largest exhibition ever assembled of Walt Disney treasures, organized by the Official Disney Fan Club D23. It’s also the largest temporary exhibit in the history of the Reagan Library: 12,000 square feet, with 500 objects including drawings, costumes, models and other stuff, over half of which have never been seen by the public.I had one question: why?

Harold James: Europe Needs Bold Solutions to Survive This Summer Crisis

Harold James is Professor of History at Princeton University and the European Institute in Florence, and Professor of International Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Europe's crisis is now poised at the moment that divides recovery and renewal from decline and death. Whereas a few weeks ago, commentators and financial analysts argued that only a few months remained to rescue Europe, leading politicians, lurching from summit to summit, have recently talked in terms of days.Summer crises are a familiar feature of European history – and of financial history. Indeed, the 20th century was shaped by three summer crises, whose seriousness was heightened in each case by the absence of major policymakers, who were on vacation.In two years, Europeans will commemorate the centennial of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, and the subsequent "July crisis" that triggered the first world war that August. On 13 July 1931, the German banking system collapsed, ensuring that what was previously an American economic downturn became the worldwide Great Depression. On 15 August 1971, president Richard Nixon ended the United States' commitment to a fixed gold price, leading to a decade of global currency instability....