Roundup: Historians' Take

Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse: The End in Afghanistan

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), has just been published.

Juan Cole: Top Ten Differences Between Rick Santorum and JFK

Juan Ricardo Cole is a public intellectual, prominent blogger and essayist, and the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.Rick Santorum said Monday that when he first heard John F. Kennedy’s speech on religion and politics, it made him want to puke. Santorum misrepresented what Kennedy said, of course. Kennedy welcomed the participation of religious people in American public life. Santorum is a secret dominionist, desiring a takeover of the US by rightwing religion, which is why he really objects to Kennedy’s statement. (Santorum is deeply under the influence of the scary Opus Dei cult.) But Santorum’s attack on President Kennedy started me thinking about the differences between these two Americans who put themselves forward as leaders of this country.10. John F. Kennedy was a war hero who fought in the Pacific theater after America was the victim of a war of aggression.Santorum is a chickenhawk who voted to send US soldiers into Iraq on false pretenses.9. John F. Kennedy wanted universal health care to help the poor

William Astore: "Act of Valor"? Beware Exalting Our Starship Troopers

Professor Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (United States Air Force), writes regularly for TomDispatch and can be reached at wjastore@gmail.com.One of my favorite books as a teenager was Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (1959). Heinlein imagined a future in which an elite all-volunteer military force would defend the Earth against a terrifyingly clever arachnid-like species of "bugs." One could never predict where the bugs would strike next, so one had to be on guard all the time and everywhere. And one had to take the fight to the bug enemy, capturing their controllers or "brain bugs" and torturing the same to get actionable intelligence. High-tech weaponry featured prominently as "force multipliers"; so, too, did private contractors, whose role it was to support the troopers so that all of the latter could focus on fighting and killing (a symbiotic warrior/corporation, if you will).

Michael Kazin: The Need for Big Ideas

Michael Kazin is co-editor of Dissent and teaches history at Georgetown University. His most recent book is "A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan." Fifty years ago, liberals and radicals were eager and able to think big. Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, sparked a campaign to defend and develop diverse urban neighborhoods. In 1962, Michael Harrington’s The Other America, with its startling revelations about the depth and extent of poverty, as well as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the first environmental best-seller, appeared. That summer, a band of twentysomethings, led by Tom Hayden, produced the “Port Huron Statement,” the manifesto of the white New Left, which offered participatory democracy as the antidote to an over-managed, bureaucratic society. Then, in 1963, James Baldwin’s angry yet hopeful The Fire Next Time branded racism “a recipe for murder”; and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique provided a candid, stirring diagnosis of female submission which helped galvanize the fledgling women’s movement.

Jeffrey Herf: Why Won’t Obama Speak Frankly About Iran?

Jeffrey Herf is a professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author, most recently, of Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World.The world is nearing the point where it is going to have to make some difficult decisions about how to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon—among them, a decision about whether to use military force. Given Iran’s deep hostility to the United States and Israel, as well as its history of sponsoring terrorism, the importance of denying Iran a nuclear weapon cannot be overstated.

Max Boot: More Afghan Cuts, More War

Max Boot is a contributing writer to Opinion. He is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present," due out in January 2013.

James Romm: Greeks Today Might Ask ... What Would Pericles Do?

James Romm is a professor of classics at Bard College and author of Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire.

Geoffrey Kabaservice: How the GOP’s Looming Election Disaster Is, And Isn’t, Like 1964

Geoffrey Kabaservice’s most recent book is Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party.

Michael Lind: An Insider’s Guide to the Great Manufacturing Debate

Michael Lind’s new book, "Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States", will be published in April and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com.  Manufacturing is back in the news.  The combination of Obama administration initiatives to help American manufacturing with criticism of China’s unfair trade and industrial policies by candidates for the Republican presidential nomination has produced a bipartisan backlash by prominent academic economists including Christine Romer, a Democrat and a former Obama economic adviser, in the New York Times., and Michael Boskin, a Republican and adviser to the first President Bush....

David Hayes: The Matter of Scotland

David Hayes is Deputy Editor of openDemocracy. He writes each month for Inside Story.THE theme is familiar in many classic films with a Scottish setting. A questing outsider, usually English or American, enters a remote, rural, “highland” community where he finds himself seduced by the locals’ charm, intrigued by their difference, frustrated by their elusiveness and deflected by their guile. Some form of catharsis ensues, invariably signalled by a pivotal cèilidh (party) around halfway through. In the process, and as the tale hurtles towards resolution, both visitor and host are changed.

Diane Ravitch: No Student Left Untested

Last week, the New York State Education Department and the teachers’ unions reached an agreement to allow the state to use student test scores to evaluate teachers. The pact was brought to a conclusion after Governor Andrew Cuomo warned the parties that if they didn’t come to an agreement quickly, he would impose his own solution (though he did not explain what that would be). He further told school districts that they would lose future state aid if they didn’t promptly implement the agreement after it was released to the public. The reason for this urgency was to secure $700 million promised to the state by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, contingent on the state’s creating a plan to evaluate teachers in relation to their students’ test scores.The new evaluation system pretends to be balanced, but it is not. Teachers will be ranked on a scale of 1-100. Teachers will be rated as “ineffective, developing, effective, or highly effective.” Forty percent of their grade will be based on the rise or fall of student test scores; the other sixty percent will be based on other measures, such as classroom observations by principals, independent evaluators, and peers, plus feedback from students and parents.

Julian Zelizer: Many Wild Cards Could Swing the 2012 Presidential Race

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" (Times Books) and author of the book "Governing America" (Princeton University Press).Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- The outcome of the election of 2012 is becoming even tougher to predict, since there are many political landmines facing both parties.President Barack Obama has enjoyed a resurgence in his political standing, with polls showing him ahead of the GOP rivals in hypothetical matchups for the general election. Recent statistics showing an improving economy have bolstered the president's position, while his budget proposal and increasingly populist rhetoric have generated some excitement within the base of the Democratic Party.On the Republican side, Mitt Romney remains the front-runner, though barely, still enjoying the kind of edge in campaign contributions that is essential to victory....

Gil Troy: Time to Refute the Israel-Apartheid and Zionism-Racism Big Lies with Subtlety on Campus

The writer is professor of history at McGill University and a Shalom Hartman Research Fellow in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today and The History of American Presidential Elections. Follow Gil on Twitter: @Gil­_TroyI had a disorienting experience in New York two weeks ago. I attended a discussion about Israel on campus that lacked hysteria, acknowledged complexity, and advocated nuance. The David Project launched its white paper “A Burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges.” The question mark after “Burning Campus” reflected a growing sophistication in American Jews’ conversation about Israel on campus. 

Victor Davis Hanson: Why States Like Iran Can't Have Nukes

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

Andrew Roberts: The Greek Crisis ... Europe's 'Proud Empire' is Entering a Cul de Sac of History

The writer’s books include The Storm of War and A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900.

Michael Kazin: A New Rhetoric of Income Inequality

Michael Kazin is the author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation. He teaches history at Georgetown University and is co-editor of Dissent.Every significant political movement creates, or inherits, a compelling image of the people it vows to liberate and serve. The contemporary American right, for instance, idealizes the self-reliant, nuclear family in its modest home, with Bible verses on the wall and a flagpole in the yard. But what image comes to mind when progressives think about the Americans who would benefit from a more egalitarian society? None of the images or phrases currently in vogue are all that inspiring. “Middle class” merely describes a bland, imprecise economic status. “The 99 percent,” the slogan of Occupy Wall Street, is certainly majoritarian and inclusive; but it begs the question of what, besides wealth, distinguishes that vast throng from the tiny, super-rich minority. Bill Clinton’s praise, two decades ago, of those who “work hard and play by the rules” certainly had the ring of virtue; but it never stuck politically.

Andrew J. Bacevich: The American Century Is Over— Good Riddance

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. He is editor of The Short American Century: A Postmortem, just published by Harvard University Press.As someone who teaches both history and international relations, I have one foot in each camp. I'm interested in what has already happened. And I'm interested in what will happen next. In my teaching and my writing, I try to locate connecting tissue that links past to present. Among the devices I've employed to do that is the concept of an "American Century."That evocative phrase entered the American lexicon back in February 1941, the title of an essay appearing in Life magazine under the byline of the publishing mogul Henry Luce. In advancing the case for U.S. entry into World War II, the essay made quite a splash, as Luce intended. Yet the rush of events soon transformed "American Century" into much more than a bit of journalistic ephemera. It became a summons, an aspiration, a claim, a calling, and ultimately the shorthand identifier attached to an entire era. By the time World War II ended in 1945, the United States had indeed ascended—as Luce had forecast and perhaps as fate had intended all along—to a position of global primacy. Here was the American Century made manifest....

Jonathan Zimmerman: In Jeremy Lin, A Stereotype That Should be Celebrated

Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, is the author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”I’m an Ivy League graduate and a crazed basketball fan. That gives me two very good reasons to celebrate the meteoric rise of Jeremy Lin, the Harvard-educated point guard who has brought the New York Knicks back to life.

Timothy Garton Ash: Why Obama and Xi Jinping Need an Australian Retreat with Kevin Rudd

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist. His personal website is www.timothygartonash.com.  ..Individuals make history. If the last leader of the Soviet Union had not been a man called Mikhail Gorbachev, the world would be a different place. So the character and views of China's leader-designate, Xi Jinping, who is currently visiting the United States, do matter. After spending several years failing to obtain a clear impression of President Hu, attention now turns to the man who will, barring accidents, succeed him. The best thumbnail summary that I have read comes in a forthcoming book by Jonathan Fenby, titled Tiger Head, Snake Tails. (The title refers to modern China, not vice-president Xi.) As you would expect, the available evidence is thin and inconclusive.

Mary L. Dudziak: This War Is Not Over Yet

Mary L. Dudziak, a professor of law, history and political science at the University of Southern California, is the author of “War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences.”THE defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, recently announced that America hoped to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013 as it did in Iraq last year.  Yet at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere, the United States continues to hold enemy detainees “for the duration of hostilities.”  Indeed, the “ending” of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq appears to have no consequences for the ending of detention. Because the end of a war is traditionally thought to be the moment when a president’s war powers begin to ebb, bringing combat to a close in Afghanistan and Iraq should lead to a reduction in executive power — including the legitimate basis for detaining the enemy.