Roundup: Historians' Take

Samuel Moyn: Human Rights, Not So Pure Anymore

Samuel Moyn is a professor of history at Columbia University and the author of “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History.”THE international commotion around the blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng aroused memories of earlier dissidents like Andrei D. Sakharov and Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the Eastern bloc heroes of another age who first made “international human rights” a rallying cry for activists across the globe and a high-profile item on Western governments’ agendas.

Niall Ferguson: The European Farce

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, has just been published by Penguin Press. With the sap rising and the governments falling, all the European powers are merrily acting in national character. In the midst of a severe financial crisis, the French have just elected a champagne socialist on promises of a 75 percent top tax rate and a lower retirement age. The Greeks also had an election in which the established parties lost to a ragbag of splinter groups. The outcome of the election was that they need to have another election. (Cue Zorba the Greek theme music.) Meanwhile, the wailing gloom of the flamenco emanates from Spain, where youth unemployment is now around 50 percent. Within a few hours of arriving in London, I hear the following announcement on the train: "We apologize for the late departure of this service. This was due to the late arrival of essential personnel.

Elliott Abrams: Obama, Carter, and the Missing Words on Iran

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and deputy national-security adviser in the George W. Bush administration. American interests and allies in the Persian Gulf are threatened. What’s needed is a clear and tough statement right from the top, so the president starts making speeches. What does he say? That depends on whether it’s Jimmy Carter in 1980 or Barack Obama in 2012. Jimmy Carter in 1980 was a lot tougher. Nineteen-seventy-nine had been a year of American setbacks around the globe. Before the year began, Cuban troops were already roaming Angola, and a pro-Communist regime ruled Ethiopia. In 1979 the Sandinistas seized power in Nicaragua, a coup put leftists in charge in Grenada, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the Shah left Iran in January, and in November mobs captured the U.S. Embassy and took more than 60 American hostages. All this was a shock to Carter and his followers, who had come to office seeking to junk the perceived hard line of the Nixon and Ford administrations. In January 1977, U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young had said the Cubans were a "force for stability" in Angola.

Robert Zaretsky: Back to the Bastille

Robert Zaretsky teaches French history at the Honors College of the University of Houston and is coauthor of "France and its Empire Since 1870."It was no surprise, of course, whenFrance'snew Socialist president, Francois Hollande, celebrated his election over the weekend at the Place de la Bastille. Once the site of the nation's most notorious prison, the square has long been the place that French leftists proclaim their victories. But while many commentators noted the symbolic importance of the Bastille, they overlook how this symbol has changed over time — a transformation that may hold a lesson for President-elect Hollande.When a large crowd attacked and took the Bastille on July 14, 1789, the French Revolution was launched. That the prison held no political prisoners but instead a mere half-dozen petty criminals and lunatics, and that the crowd marked the event by chopping off and displaying the heads of two government officials, did little to mute the festive atmosphere.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Gov. Scott Walker and the Danger of the Recall Movement

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory."I'm a lifelong Democrat and a career educator. So I'm predictably appalled by Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who has cut spending for schools and stripped teachers — and most of the state's public workers — of collective bargaining rights.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Why Romney's Choice for Vice President Could Determine America's Future

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory” (Yale University Press).In 1885, a young political scientist named Woodrow Wilson wrote a path-breaking book about the intricacies of American government. Its 344 pages included just one paragraph on the vice presidency, and Wilson wondered if that was too much.“The chief embarrassment in discussing the office is, that in explaining how little there is to be said about it one has evidently said all there is to say,” Wilson confessed. By the time Wilson became president in 1912, nothing had changed. Can you even name his vice president? I didn’t think so. (Answer: Thomas Marshall.)

Kara Dixon Vuic: Prostitution and the U.S. Military

Kara Dixon Vuic is a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the author of "Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War." Contact her at kv9c@virginia.edu.Recent news that nine military personnel and 11 Secret Service agents allegedly solicited prostitutes in Columbia has sparked a congressional inquiry, institutional investigations and much speculation about how such an act might threaten presidential security. Were these men just a few bad apples? Maybe. But the American military has a long history of sanctioning prostitution, one that suggests much deeper concerns about its cultivation of a sexualized culture that can help to explain such an astonishingly brash act.

Thomas Meaney and Stephen Wertheim: Grand Flattery: The Yale Grand Strategy Seminar

Thomas Meaney and Stephen Wertheim are doctoral candidates in history at Columbia University.In 1909 a group of men met on an estate in Wales to save Western civilization. Troubled by the erosion of British world power, they believed the decline could be reversed if statesmen turned away from the mundane tasks of modern diplomacy and channeled the wisdom of ancient Greece instead. The Greeks, in reconciling rulership with freedom, had made the West great, and supplied a model for their Anglo-Saxon heirs. No longer should the empire run itself; members of the group, including Lloyd George and Lord Milner, would train men of penetrating insight to direct imperial affairs more self-consciously than ever before. Drawing protégés from Oxbridge, the Round Table, as the group called itself, aimed to impart the lessons of enlightened leadership to a new generation. They produced countless articles and monographs. Chapters of the society flourished all over the empire. Ten years later, they had disappeared: nationalism had swept away their plans to knit the colonies closer together. British ascendancy ended sooner than any of them could have imagined.

Geoffrey Kabaservice: Who Ever Said Dick Lugar Was a Moderate?

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party.In 2010, John Danforth, a former Republican Senator from Missouri, was asked about the possibility of a GOP primary challenge to Indiana Senator Richard Lugar. Danforth pointed out that Lugar was a six-term Senator, one of the Senate’s most respected members, and its leading authority on foreign policy. He warned that “If Dick Lugar … is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”Many commentators will draw precisely that message from Lugar’s defeat Tuesday night by his Tea Party-aligned challenger Richard Mourdock. Lugar was one of the few remaining Republican senators who might be described as moderate, and his loss weakens the already frail forces of bipartisanship, compromise, and comity on Capitol Hill. But it has been a long time since Lugar openly identified as a moderate Republican, and other factors besides intra-party factional warfare may have been principally responsible for his political demise.

Victor Davis Hanson: Presidential Narcissism

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.Former president Bill Clinton just appeared in a reelection television commercial for President Barack Obama. At one point, Clinton weighs in on the potential consequences of Obama’s decision to go ahead with the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden. He smiles and then pontificates, “Suppose the Navy SEALs had gone in there . . . suppose they had been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for him [Obama].”

Julian Zelizer: What Really Kills Family Values

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" (Times Books) and of the new book "Governing America" (Princeton University Press).Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Seen from the perspective of 2012, the stunning Broadway revival of "Death of a Salesman" offers a powerful reminder that economic policy and family values go hand-in-hand.Although many current politicians like to separate these two issues, the economic foundation of the family is central to its long-term health. In this classic play by Arthur Miller, premiered in 1949 to mesmerized audiences that had lived through the Great Depression, the protagonist is salesman Willy Loman, who is mentally broken down from his constant travel and struggle to make ends meet....Too often, politicians ignore the kinds of strains that economic problems cause for families.

Robert Zaretsky: Hollande Faces Challenge of Winning Over Jews

Robert Zaretsky is a professor of history at the Honors College at the University of Houston. The author of “Albert Camus: Elements of a Life” (Cornell University Press, 2010), he most recently contributed to “The Occupy Handbook” (Little, Brown & Company).“I’m not criticizing, but simply making an observation” — “Je ne critique pas, je constate” — is a favorite rhetorical dagger of the French. It was unsheathed on Monday when CRIF, the Council of Representative Jewish Institutions in France, acknowledged Francois Hollande’s victory over Nicolas Sarkozy in a press release. Under the (awkward) title, “In congratulating Francois Hollande, CRIF Takes Note of His ‘Horror of Anti-Semitism and Racism,’” Richard Prasquier, the organization’s president, assured the Socialist president-elect of his organization’s determination “to combat all forms of extremism and populism.”The message seems matter-of-fact, as “normal” as Hollande famously portrayed himself during the campaign. After all, there is nothing more natural than to be horrified by anti-Semitism, nothing more normal than being devoted to challenging all forms of extremism and populism....

Julian Zelizer: For Obama, Foreign Policy Campaign Could Backfire

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" (Times Books) and of the new book "Governing America" (Princeton University Press).Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- Just as Mitt Romney secured the Republican nomination, President Obama launched his presidential campaign with a weeklong celebration of his foreign policy accomplishments.He and others in his administration blanketed the airwaves to discuss the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, and the president made a surprise trip to Afghanistan to boast that he had fulfilled his promises.The president's campaign team rolled out a controversial ad that praised Obama for having made the decision to raid bin Laden's compound and went so far as to raise questions about whether Romney would have done the same. "Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?" reads the screen, followed by quotations and news stories about Romney criticizing the hunt for bin Laden....

Timothy Stanley: Is Same-Sex Marriage Too Radical for America?

Timothy Stanley is a historian at Oxford University and blogs for Britain's Daily Telegraph. He is the author of the new book "The Crusader: The Life and Times of Pat Buchanan." This commentary has been updated to reflect President Obama's statement this afternoon.(CNN) -- President Barack Obama has endorsed same-sex marriage. Will it make any difference to the battle for marriage equality? The news coming out of North Carolina suggests not. The Tar Heelers on Tuesday voted 61% to 39% to amend their constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. Actually, they've gone much further. The new amendment prohibits any kind of same-sex unions, including the relatively innocuous option of civil partnership....

Joseph J. Ellis: When American Narratives Collide

Joseph J. Ellis is the author of biographies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and, most recently, John and Abigail Adams....[A] brief tour of American history ... reveals that modern-day conservatives have "the spirit of '76" on their side, as well as the power of Jefferson's original formulation of the American creed. Liberals, on the other hand, have the arc of American history on their side, which until the presidency of Ronald Reagan seemed to have the final word in the debate. After all, who could imagine a successful political movement requiring the revocation of two centuries of American history? Barry Goldwater, who campaigned for president in 1968 [sic] on just such a radical agenda, received only 38% of the vote.

Robert W. Merry: Lugar and the Senate's Fallen Giants

Robert W. Merry is editor of The National Interest and the author of books on American history and foreign policy. His next book, Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians, is due out on June 26 from Simon & Schuster.

Carlos Eire: In Defense of Marco Rubio’s Story of His Family’s Exile

Carlos Eire is the Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University.If Marco Rubio is chosen as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential candidate, as many have speculated, we’ll soon learn a lot more about the Florida Senator and young Republican superstar. But we’re also likely to continue hearing about another part of Rubio’s past: whether his family are Cuban exiles or not. Since The Washington Post alleged last fall that Rubio misrepresented facts about his parents’ journey to America—his Senate biography stated that they fled Cuba in 1959 after Fidel Castro came to power, though they had first left in 1956 and returned in 1961—the senator has been maligned as a liar. The media has even called into question his description of himself and his family as exiles rather than commonplace migrants. Unfortunately, this debate reveals less about Rubio than it does about most Americans’ ignorance of Cuban history.

Victor Davis Hanson: Secretaries Gone Wild

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author most recently of The End of Sparta. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.We’ve had some unusual cabinet secretaries in past administrations –Earl Butz, John Mitchell, and James Watt come to mind — but never anything quite like the present bunch.

Conrad Black: 2012: The Economic Choices

Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, and, just released, A Matter of Principle. He can be reached at cbletters@gmail.com.The latest round of euro-jitters emphasizes the unimaginative contest between the advocates of austerity and the quantitative easers. But while the consequences of the application of alternative economic measures are often unpredictable, the wellsprings of economic woes are not usually hard to find. In the present problems, the same difficulties afflict Europe and the United States, though in different degrees. It is entirely inappropriate for the U.S. government, with its unspeakable extravagance and anemic and fragile recovery, to lecture Europe or anyone, except perhaps Zimbabwe and Argentina, about national economic management.

Michael Ledeen: The Betrayal of Chen is America's Dishonor

Michael Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in modern European history and philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, and has taught at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rome.I wonder what the Atrocities Board would say about the dreadful betrayal of freedom in China.  Only kidding.  This Orwellian institution is surely designed to deal only with old horrors;  you know, those during the dark ages of Bushitlercheney. Or even in the days of Obama’s bête blanche, Bill Clinton, about whom the flagrantly hypocritical Samantha Power raged so piously righteous some years back for his failure to save Africans from slaughter.  Now that she sits in the White House, she joins the other organizers and activists who abandon those who share our national commitment to freedom, and embrace those tyrants who are crushing it as best they can.To this grim gallery of rogues we can properly add Hillary, whose relationship with the president will some day entertain future students of the American presidency....