Roundup: Historians' Take

Niall Ferguson: The European Union Is Doomed

Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard University, is most recently the author of Civilization: The West and the Rest.European politics has become a giant Jenga game. Since June 2010 governments have fallen in the Netherlands, Slovakia, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Slovenia, Greece and Italy.The question is not: Who will be next? That’s easy. (Spain’s Socialist government will be pulverized in this weekend’s elections.) The real question is: When will the Jenga tower topple?Many people assume that the tipping point will come when one country — most likely Greece — leaves or is ejected from Europe’s monetary union. But the scenario that worries Eurocrats is different. They fear that a country could leave the European Union itself.This is by no means an irrational anxiety. Under E.U. law, it would be much easier for Britain to leave the European Union than for Greece to leave the euro zone.Thus the process of European integration has reached a richly ironic point: The breakdown of the European Union is now more likely than the collapse of the single currency that was supposed to bind it together.This is not surprising…

Daniel Amsterdam: Down and Out (Again): America's Long Struggle with Mass Unemployment

Daniel Amsterdam is an historian of American politics whose research focuses on social policy, state development and cities. He teaches at The Ohio State University.Periodic spikes in unemployment are as American as the Big Mac.From the early years of the nineteenth century through World War II, the American economy tanked at least every decade or two. U.S. history textbooks are filled with boldfaced subheadings that begin “The Panic of…” followed by an assortment of years, whether 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 or 1907.As the twentieth century progressed, the U.S. economy continued to sour with remarkable regularity: in 1914, 1920, and, of course, during the Great Depression. A long stretch of prosperity and stability followed World War II.But by the end of the 1960s, the U.S. economy’s historic case of the wobbles had returned. Hard times defined the ‘70s, the early ‘80s as well as the late ‘80s and the early ‘90s.Now here we are again, dealing with the consequences of what is universally described as the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In the fall of 2009, the national unemployment rate peaked at 10.1 percent and today remains at a distressingly high level, just over nine percent.

Jeff Madrick: America’s New Robber Barons

Jeff Madrick teaches at Cooper Union. His latest book, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present, was published in May. Frank Partnoy is the George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance at the University of San Diego. His most recent book is The Match King: The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals. (November 2011).With early Tuesday’s abrupt evacuation of Zuccotti Park, the City of New York has managed—for the moment—to dislodge protesters from Wall Street. But it will be much harder to turn attention away from the financial excesses of the very rich—the problems that have given Occupy Wall Street such traction. Data on who is in the top 1 percent of earners further reinforces their point. Here’s why.Though the situation is often described as a problem of inequality, this is not quite the real concern. The issue is runaway incomes at the very top—people earning a million and a half dollars or more according to the most recent data. And much of that runaway income comes from financial investments, stock options, and other special financial benefits available to the exceptionally rich—much of which is taxed at very low capital gains rates. Meanwhile, there has been something closer to stagnation for almost everyone else—including even for many people in the top 20 percent of earners.

Conrad Black: Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Saw U.S. Failure, But Not Defeat

Conrad Black is the author of critically acclaimed biographies of Maurice Duplessis, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon. It is timely to ask if either of the last two U.S. administrations had the remotest idea what it was getting into in the Iraq and Afghan wars. I have not moved from my view that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power in Baghdad, and certainly the Iraqis are. The Bush administration was much less cock-a-hoop about weapons of mass destruction than the British were (largely because of proximity). And although Colin Powell over-egged the pudding somewhat in his remarks to the United Nations, the administration was on safe legal ground because of Saddam's flaunting of 17 Security Council resolutions and its violation of the Gulf War ceasefire agreement. But other than in the president's excellent address to the U.N. General Assembly, the Iraq War was never really explained by the Bush administration as the enforcement of international law. Rather, it was anti-terrorism metamorphosed into the propagation of democracy. The anti-terrorism argument was defensible, but Iraq is an unconvincing candidate for democratic laurels. There is some power-sharing, and although it is not a society of laws, it is not an appallingly oppressive dictatorship like Saddam's either.

David Gilmour: The End of Italy

David Gilmour is a British historian and the author of award-winning biographies of George Curzon, Rudyard Kipling, and Giuseppe di Lampedusa. His most recent book, The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples, was published this month.

Victor Davis Hanson: Why Does America Defend the Weak and Small?

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.Recently, an open mike caught French president Nicolas Sarkozy and American president Barack Obama jointly trashing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sarkozy scoffed, “I cannot stand him. He’s a liar.”Obama trumped that with, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day.”Two days later, in one of the most bizarre op-eds published by the New York Times in recent memory, Paul Kane suggested that the United States could literally sell out its support for democratic Taiwan for about $1 trillion. He argued that the Chinese might be so thankful to us for letting them get their hands on the island that they might forgive much of what we owe them.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Penn State, Sandusky, and Paterno

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in suburban Philadelphia. He is the author, most recently, of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”

Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg: The Herman Cain and Penn State Stories Have Surprising Parallels with Alexander Hamilton's Downfall

Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg are Professors of History at Louisiana State University and coauthors of "Madison and Jefferson." (Random House, 2010).You’ll find lurking in every media-maximized sex scandal a man who feels himself in one way or another above the law.  Look up “smug” in the political dictionary, and if the first entry isn’t Herman Cain, it will probably say Newt Gingrich, who eagerly pursued Bill Clinton concerning morals charges that may have paled in comparison to his own contemporaneous straying problem.  Oops.Now, let’s compare the other headline-grabbing sex shocker of the week: the concealment by Penn State University of Jerry Sandusky’s alleged fifteen-year rampage, in sexually abusing young boys.  There is a common thread between the sordid Sandusky business and Herman Cain’s outrageous behavior when confronted with charges of serial sexual harassment: Power and the belief in one’s invincibility make for a dangerous elixir.

Erwin Chemerinsky: Will Partisanship Shape the Healthcare Ruling?

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Irvine School of Law.

Timothy Snyder: Ukraine’s Last Chance?

Timothy Snyder is Professor of History at Yale. His latest book, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, was published last year. His new book with Tony Judt, Thinking the Twentieth Century, will be published in February. (November 2011)Few countries have a better case for sovereign government and the rule of law than Ukraine. Even today you can take a short ride from the capital Kiev, as I did a couple of weeks ago, and speak to villagers who still remember the catastrophe of 1933, when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union, and more than three million of its inhabitants starved when Stalin decided to blame the Ukrainian people for the failures of his own policy of collective agriculture. Intermingled with these recollections are memories of the German invasion only eight years later, which brought a second starvation campaign alongside the better known crimes of the Holocaust. In a world where food was a scarce resource, both Stalin and Hitler were obsessed with the Ukrainian “breadbasket,” and millions of Ukrainians died as a result.

Walter Russell Mead: Listen Up, Boomers: The Backlash Has Begun

Walter Russell Mead is professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College and editor-at-large of The American Interest.“Talkin’ about my generation”: the Who song once expressed the hope and self confidence of the Baby Boomers as they reached biological if not emotional maturity.  It was an attack on the older generation, a defense of the young, but it includes an ominous refrain: “Hope I die before I get old.”  Already, perhaps, the shadow of generational failure hung over the twenty something Boomers.  Those shadows have darkened considerably as the Boomer sun moves past the meridian and an unmistakable air of twilight infiltrates into the declining hours of the long Boomer day.

Niall Ferguson: Europe’s Disaster Is Headed Our Way

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University and a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. 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, will be published in November.As an author who has just published a book on the crisis of Western civilization, I couldn’t really have asked for more: simultaneous crises in Athens and Rome, the cradles of the West’s law, languages, politics, and philosophy.

Victor Davis Hanson: What America Does Best

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.We are in a fresh round of declinism — understandably, after borrowing nearly $5 trillion in less than three years and having very little to show for it. Pundit strives with op-ed writer to find the latest angle on America’s descent: We are broke; we are poorly educated; we are uncompetitive; we have gone soft; our political institutions are broken; and on and on. The Obama administration does its part, with sloganeering like “reset,” “lead from behind,” “post-American world,” and America as exceptional only to the degree that all nations feel exceptional.

Andrew Hartman: Occupy Wall Street: a New Culture War?

Andrew Hartman is an associate professor of history at Illinois State University and president of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History. He is author of Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). He is writing A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, From the 1960s to the Present, to be published by the University of Chicago Press.American punditry, it seems, needs to make sense of Occupy Wall Street in familiar terms. Highlighting the differences between the movement that started in New York City in September and the Tea Party that has engrossed the nation since 2009, The New York Times recently proclaimed, "It's a culture war, young versus old, left versus right, communal food tables versus 'Don't Tread on Me' flags." Rush Limbaugh's mean-spirited labels for the Wall Street demonstrators—"pure, genuine parasites," "bored trust-fund kids"—however off the mark, resonate because he, too, is speaking the language of the culture wars.

Julian Zelizer: Can the Cain Campaign Survive the Sexual Harassment Complaints?

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 forthcoming book "Governing America" (Princeton University Press).(CNN) -- Herman Cain, the surprise candidate of 2012, has been struggling to survive accusations of sexual harassment. Every day that the story continues and new accusations emerge, Cain's candidacy is at greater risk.Yet thus far his polls have remained steady, and the news cycle seems to be turning toward other issues. Cain has denied the accusations and pushed back against the accusers.Cain is far from the first presidential candidate to struggle with a scandal centered on sex.Sex scandals have a long tradition in American politics. In the presidential campaigns of 1824 and 1828, opponents accused Andrew Jackson of adultery, while in 1884 Republicans lambasted Grover Cleveland for his illegitimate child. Supporters of Cleveland's opponent, James Blaine, liked to chant "Ma, Ma, where's my pa?" whenever they had a chance.

Maurizio Viroli: Can Italy Put Berlusconi Behind It?

Maurizio Viroli, a professor of political theory at Princeton and the University of Italian Switzerland, in Lugano, is the author of “The Liberty of Servants: Berlusconi’s Italy.”The political crisis there is to a large degree the depressing story of a country where a majority of its political class has forgotten that to be a representative in a democratic republic means to serve the common good, not to serve one man. Even as it faces down a mounting economic crisis, Italy has a long way to go before it can be considered a reliably democratic country once again.In the aftermath of a budget vote on Tuesday that made clear he no longer had a majority behind him, Mr. Berlusconi declared that he would resign as soon as Parliament passed a slate of economic reforms demanded by the European Union. That does not mean, however, that Mr. Berlusconi won’t retain a considerable part of his power and continue to affect Italian political life.After the unity government under Mario Monti, a former European commissioner, arranges for new elections, Mr. Berlusconi could maneuver behind the scenes to place one of his most loyal servants, Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Mr. Berlusconi’s party and the Dmitri A. Medvedev to his Vladimir V. Putin, as the next prime minister....

Jonathan Zimmerman: Of Boys and Big-Time Sports

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author, most recently, of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.Off with their heads!That's our natural reaction to the repugnant reports about Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year span. We want blood, and we want it now.And we're getting it. Revered coach Joe Paterno and longtime university president Graham Spanier were fired Wednesday night. The university's athletic director and a senior vice president, facing charges that they covered up Sandusky's alleged crimes, have already stepped down. What did they know, we ask, and when did they know it?These are important questions, and we deserve answers to them. But they also divert us from two much bigger issues that we prefer not to address: the perverse role of athletics in American education, and the ingrained sexism of our society.

Conrad Black: Facing Eurocollapse

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.

Victor Davis Hanson: Obama Unbound

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom. Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser.To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt trampled on civil liberties in a way unimagined by Dick Cheney.Ronald Reagan signed the most liberal illegal-immigration-amnesty bill in history, and ran larger yearly deficits than Jimmy Carter had. “Read my lips” George H. W. Bush agreed to huge tax increases. And George W. Bush ran up the largest debt of any eight-year president, outspending Bill Clinton more than fivefold. The latter, remember, bombed Belgrade without either congressional or United Nations approval — and without anti-war protests. Without an opposition, almost anything goes.

Niall Ferguson: Why the West is Losing Out to the Rest

Niall Ferguson's new book, "Civilization: The West and the Rest," was published this week by Penguin Press. Ferguson is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Ferguson spoke at the TED Global conference in Edinburgh, U.K. in July. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading" which it makes available through talks posted on its website.(CNN) -- It says it all when Europe turns to China for a bailout. That was what happened last week when the man in charge of the European Financial Stability Fund flew to Beijing to see if he could interest Chinese investors in propping up the finances of the eurozone.