Historians in the News

Historian Benjamin Carter Hett: Trump’s “cultivation of dishonesty” strongly reminiscent of Nazis

by Jason Porath

The author of “The Death of Democracy” reminds us that Germans in 1933 thought they were “good people” and nothing could go wrong.

Daniel Pipes says regime change in Iran is “inevitable”

by Daniel Pipes

In an expansive interview he gives his views on Iran, Turkey and the future of Islamism.

Providence College Professor Investigates Slavery and Banking

She’s discovered slaves were used as collateral for loans.

Being a historian is an increasingly dangerous profession in Russia, rights group says

Study: The Russian authorities have increased their efforts to impose a single conception of Russian history in almost all its periods but especially during World War 2.

David Barton Says Trump May Go Down as One of the Top Five Presidents In History

That’s what rightwing websites are touting.

Historian running as a Democrat for Congress in Illinois

Junius Rodriguez is a history professor at Eureka College.

Mr. Big History – David Christian – is out with a new book

It’s called: "Origin Story: A Big History of Everything.” (Interview)

Yale’s Timothy Snyder is out with a new book

Once again he warns we are living in dangerous times.

Victor Davis Hanson compares Trump with Truman

by Victor Davis Hanson

The two presidents share low approval ratings and a penchant for ad hominem attacks on political enemies.

Leonard Arrington’s vast journals show battles the Mormon historian had with LDS leaders

He wanted to expose the truth about the past they wanted to keep secret. 

Historian Claire Potter is in the middle of an intergenerational academic squabble

At issue: The contingent careerscape for junior scholars.

Historian Ilan Pappe: ‘We Need Sustained International Pressure on Israel’

Palestinians are better off without the U.S., he argues.

Christiane Collins, Scholar Who Fought a Columbia Gym, Dies at 92

In 1968, Mrs. Collins figured prominently in a turf war that evolved into a humble but symbolic civil rights struggle: a campaign by a coalition of black community groups and mostly white students and faculty to keep neighboring Columbia from impinging on two of Morningside Park’s mostly craggy 30 acres.

Where do historians live and work?

The answer is provided in the AHA's “Where Historians Work,” an ambitious research project designed to track the career outcomes of everyone who earned a PhD in history from 2004–13 in the United States.

The Historian Behind Slavery Apologists Like Kanye West

His name: Ulrich B. Phillips, Columbia University history professor at the turn off the 20th century.

UNC Rejects Faculty Panel’s Finding That Administrators Interfered in Critic’s Class on Sports

Jay Smith, a history professor at the U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has long accused the university of trying to interfere with his teaching of a class on college sports.

Racial Realignment of the Democratic and Republican Parties

by Kevin Kruse

Tweets tracing the effect of the civil rights struggle on the development of the two party system (1940s-1970s).

Family, history, and the 1960s all helped to shape Drew Faust, but it was illness that urged her forward

by Colleen Walsh

She got cancer twice and decided that if she was going to face risks she might as well take one herself. That led her to take a position as an administrator at Harvard. 

The Leftwing magazine, "The Nation," claims Timothy Snyder’s latest book is the apotheosis of liberal paranoia about Russia

by Sophie Pinkham

"For Snyder, Russia is to blame for the growth of the “birther” conspiracy theory about Barack Obama, stoking the Scottish independence referendum, Brexit, the rise of the far right in various European countries, and the Syrian refugee crisis.”

In new book, UChicago historian examines rise of white power movement

Assistant Professor Kathleen Belew traces birth of hate groups to Vietnam War.