This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: NYT
11-17-12
The historian David McCullough is working on a book about social and cultural implications of early aviation beginning with the Wright Brothers and ending with Lindbergh’s Paris landing, according to his longtime researcher, Michael Hill....
Source: The Daily Show
11-14-12
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham explains what made Thomas Jefferson an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics.
Source: NYT
11-14-12
Bertram Wyatt-Brown, a historian of the American South who documented how honor and the sometimes violent means by which people sought to preserve it were central forces in Southern culture and in the region’s embrace of slavery, died on Nov. 5 in Baltimore. He was 80.The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, his wife, Anne, said.Mr. Wyatt-Brown’s breakthrough work, “Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South,” published in 1982, was an unusual blend of literary analysis, parlor politics, suspenseful storytelling and extensively documented historical research, a combination that reflected Mr. Wyatt-Brown’s diverse interests and his embrace of anthropology and the emerging field of cultural history.Mr. Wyatt-Brown emphasized that honor — and what he called its opposite, shame — had been important social forces in many cultures. But he asserted that honor played a special role in the antebellum South and its institution of slavery....
Source: NBC Nightly News
11-15-12
Watch the video by clicking on the SOURCE link.Related LinksHNN Hot Topics: "Lincoln": The Movie
Source: Gainsville Sun
11-12-12
A longtime University of Florida history professor whose Pulitzer Prize-nominated book helped make his reputation as a leading scholar of Southern history has died.Bertram Wyatt-Brown, 80, was a UF history professor for 21 years before retiring in 2004. He died Nov. 5 of pulmonary fibrosis in Baltimore.Wyatt-Brown put the UF history department on the map with writing that changed thinking about the South as well as his work with graduate students, said Steve Noll, a senior lecturer in the department....
Source: Asia Society
11-14-12
Peter Perdue, Professor of History at Yale University, says that China's 18th Party Congress, which will usher in the new leaders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, bears some resemblance to the Qing Dynasty practices of emperor selection among the ruling Manchus from northeast China, who were connected to the Mongols, a Central Asian people who were ruled by a khan. Perdue spoke with Susan Jakes, Editor of the website ChinaFile, a project of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations."After a khan died, in the Mongolian tradition, there was an all-out free-for-all of brothers and uncles and other people, all fighting it out to see who would be the best man to take over," Perdue says."And then finally one succeeds and they hold what they call a khuritai, or acclamation ceremony that brings everyone together like a modern party Congress to acclaim the new leader. And then after that the new leader goes out and kills all his brothers and cousins and rivals and everybody else."...
Source: University of Georgia Law School
11-12-12
Georgia Law regrets to announce the passing of Professor and Law Library Director Emeritus Erwin C. Surrency (J.D.'48), who served as a faculty member at the law school from 1979 to 1994. During his time at Georgia Law, Surrency made many contributions including the introduction of computerization into the library's services and the establishment of relationships with local legal communities. He also served as president of the American Association of Law Librarians, was a founding member of the American Society for Legal History and was a founding editor of the American Journal of Legal History. This past year, Surrency was also inducted into the AALL Hall of Fame. Surrency passed away on Nov. 8 and is survived by his wife, Ida Winn Surrency, and his two children, Robert and Ellen.
Source: WSJ
11-10-12
ALBANY, N.Y. — When Americans gather Sunday at war memorials, battle monuments and military cemeteries to honor the nation's veterans, it may appear to some that such places have existed since the United States was founded 236 years ago.Not so, says the author of a newly published book that details the nation's belated, haphazard approach to establishing formal memorials, monuments and marked burial sites for veterans of its earliest wars.In his book, "Memories of War: Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields In The Early American Republic" (Cornell University Press), Thomas Chambers writes that it was well into the 19th century before Americans seriously began considering marking Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields with monuments and memorials, and how in some instances the skeletal remains of the fallen remained unburied for decades....
Source: WaPo
11-12-12
Everyone’s a critic about the teaching profession. That includes award-winning historian David McCullough, who was profiled on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday by correspondent Morley Safer. Along with talking about teacher education, he noted that young Americans are “historically illiterate” — and it’s not just the fault of teachers, but parents too....
Source: CBS
11-11-12
France was the cradle of the modern idea of democracy. French troops were vital to America's victory in the War of Independence and Paris led the world in science, medicine and the arts. And as McCullough has written, the city was irresistible to the new citizens of a new nation.David McCullough: They came here in the droves. They were here in order to improve themselves and to go home and thereby improve their country.They were the first wave of innocents abroad, who began arriving in Paris just 50 years after Independence. Writers, artists, medical students.
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
11-7-12
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The former director of the Illinois State Military Museum is headed to New Jersey to help the National Guard in that state clean up and preserve military artifacts damaged by Superstorm Sandy.The Illinois Army National Guard says Lt. Col. Mark Whitlock of Springfield will spend about a week helping the New Jersey National Guard Museum's curator assess restoration needs. The museum has a large collection of New Jersey related Civil War research material....
Source: AP
11-1-12
NEW YORK — Richard Nelson Current, a prolific and award-winning Abraham Lincoln scholar who for decades was a leader in his field and helped shape a more realistic view of the iconic president, has died. He was 100.Current died Oct. 26 in Boston, fellow Lincoln historian Harold Holzer said Thursday. Current’s many books included “The Lincoln Nobody Knows” and “Lincoln the President,” winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1956. He had many other interests, writing about Daniel Webster, the invention of the typewriter and the state of Wisconsin. In his 80s, he and his wife, Marcia Ewing Current, co-wrote a biography of dancer Loie Fuller. In his 90s, he translated essays and stories by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, teaching himself the language of his ancestors....
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
11-6-12
Allegheny County Councilwoman Barbara Daly Danko will push for final action Wednesday on an ordinance to rename Pittsburgh's 16th Street Bridge in honor of historian David McCullough.Although located in the city, the span across the Allegheny River is owned by the county.A special review committee, headed by Thomas E. Donatelli, a former county public works director, recommended last month that the bridge be named for Mr. McCullough, a Pittsburgh native who speaks often about his local roots....
Source: Harvard Gazette
11-8-12
Thomas K. McCraw Sr., a renowned and much-honored Harvard Business School (HBS) historian, teacher, and author, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for his book “Prophets of Regulation,” died Nov. 3 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., after a long illness. He was 72.McCraw, who played an important role in making business history more influential and accessible in the broader fields of history and management, retired from the active HBS faculty in 2006. At the time of his death, he was the School’s Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus. He was also the former editor of the Business History Review, a quarterly journal of research published by Harvard Business School.“Tom McCraw was an extraordinarily insightful and influential historian who won acclaim both on this campus and around the globe,” said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria. “His work will influence students and scholars for generations to come. Tom was the personification of the phrase ‘a scholar and a gentleman,’ and he will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him at Harvard Business School as a friend, colleague, or teacher.”...
Source: NYT
11-7-12
From the first time Barack Obama summoned the country’s leading presidential historians to dinner, they saw that the type of discussion he wanted would be different from their talks with previous Oval Office occupants.There was almost no small talk, for this was no idle exercise. Though Mr. Obama knew many of his predecessors’ stories cold, he was no history buff: he showed little curiosity about their personalities and almost no interest in the founding fathers. His goal, the historians realized, was more strategic. He wanted to apply the lessons of past presidential triumphs and failures to his own urgent project of setting the country on a new path.
Source: Santa Barbara Independent
11-7-12
Eileen Boris, Hull Professor and chair of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara, is the recipient of the 2012 Sara A. Whaley Prize for her book, “Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State” (Oxford University Press, 2012).Presented by the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), the Whaley Prize recognizes outstanding work that addresses women and labor. It is named for Sara A. Whaley, who, in the 1970’s, owned Rush Publishing –– one of the first publishing companies to focus on feminist studies –– and served as editor of its scholarly journal, Women’s Studies Abstracts. The award will be presented this week at the NWSA annual conference in Oakland.“On behalf of the UC Santa Barbara community, I congratulate Professor Boris on her receipt of the Sara A. Whaley Prize,” said UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “This important award is representative of Dr. Boris’s stature in the field of feminist studies, and recognizes her valuable scholarly research on the politics of home health care in America –– a subject that affects millions of people every day.”...
Source: The Press-Enterprise
11-7-12
Following a national search, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens has named Catherine its Nadine and Robert A. Skotheim Director of Education. Allgor is a professor of history at the UC Riverside.She joins the Huntington staff Feb. 1.Allgor takes the helm from Susan Lafferty, who stepped down from her position in August to pursue a doctoral degree in education.Allgor has been at UCR since 2001 and has established herself as a leading historian of first ladies. She is known for her scholarly work on Dolley Madison, Abigail Adams, and Louisa Adams, among others, and is a frequent commentator on television and in other media on issues having to do with the role of the first lady. Her 2006 book, “A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation,” served as the basis for the film “Dolley Madison,” produced by PBS for its American Experience series....
Source: WSJ
11-6-12
Joseph J. Ellis, a history professor at Mount Holyoke College, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of numerous biographies, including “Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation,” “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” and “His Excellency: George Washington.”...What would be George Washington’s thoughts about the 2012 elections?If by some magic we were able to transport George Washington to the twenty-first century, he would think he had landed on another planet. As for the presidential election, he would regard it as an unseemly disgrace, believing as he did – as did most of the other prominent founders – that campaigning for office was akin to an act of prostitution that automatically disqualified the candidate for the office of president....Related LinksHNN Hot Topics: Election 2012
Source: Fairfax County Times
11-7-12
Herndon historian, Civil War author and film producer Chuck Mauro is adding the title of playwright to his résumé.Mauro has written a one-act play that will be performed for the first time Saturday at the eighth annual Fairfax County History Conference in Fairfax.The play, “Chantilly . . . After the Storm,” is historically based on Fairfax County’s only major Civil War battle, the Battle of Chantilly — or Ox Hill as it was called by the Confederates — which took place on about 500 acres near Route 50 and Interstate 66 on Sept. 1, 1862. About 1,500 soldiers were killed and wounded during the battle....
Source: Jordan Weissmann for The Atlantic
11-5-12
Jordan Weissmann is an associate editor at The Atlantic. He has written for a number of publications, including The Washington Post and The National Law Journal.Philosophy lovers, prepare to be outraged. Down in Florida, a task force commissioned by Governor Rick Scott is putting the finishing touches on a proposal that would allow the state's public universities to start charging undergraduates different tuition rates depending on their major. Students would get discounts for studying topics thought to be in high demand among Florida employers. Those would likely include science, technology, engineering, and math (aka, the STEM fields), among others. But Art History? Gender Studies? Classics? Sorry, but the fates are cruel. Unless a university could show that local companies were clamoring to hire humanities students, those undergrads would have to pay more for their diploma.
