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: The Voice of Russia
5-17-12
What would you define as the key lessons the world needs to remember not to run into another tragedy, like the World War II obviously was?Well, the key lesson of World War II is that appeasement of aggression does not pay. Actually the policy which tried to compromise the European principles with Nazism failed. And the major leaders of the great European powers which were trying to prevent Germany from rising again actually contributed much to this rising, starting with the Treaty of Versailles which humiliated Germany and the Soviet Union made them outcasts in the European system.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
5-14-12
Harriet Fleisher Berger, 94, of East Falls, a Drexel University professor from 1967 to 1988 whose life was shaped by progressive causes, died of Parkinson’s disease on Friday, May 4, at her home.Mrs. Berger was the former wife of David Berger, city solicitor from 1956 to 1963 in the Democratic administration of Mayor Richardson Dilworth, which ended in 1962. Mr. Berger’s later career focused on class-action lawsuits involving the likes of the Three Mile Island and Exxon Valdez disasters.A son, Jonathan, wrote in an appreciation of Mrs. Berger that “she worked tirelessly throughout her life in support of politically and socially progressive policies for workers’ rights, occupational health and safety, environmental protection, public education, civil rights, rights for women and universal access to health care.”...
Source: Princeton University
5-14-12
Princeton University scholar Benjamin Elman has studied the history of East Asia for most of his intellectual life. Instead of getting easier, it has become more complicated — which for him is a good thing. Elman's ongoing interest is to re-examine our understanding of China and Japan by rethinking how the history of East Asia has been told, especially in the West, but also in China, Japan and Korea. To do so, he and other scholars are paying particular attention to the early modern period in East Asia and India — around 1600 to 1800 — to understand key developments. For Elman, this endeavor is crucial because it focuses on a time when this part of the world had advanced in many spheres, before the so-called ascendancy of Europe as an economic and political power over the course of the 19th century....
Source: US News & World Report
5-16-12
At 65, W. Andrew "Andy" Achenbaum, a professor of history and social work at the University of Houston, doesn't plan on retiring anytime soon. "At this point, I'm sort of an elder of the tribe … I don't want to waste my time doing things that aren't meaningful to me and hopefully constructive to others," he says. To him, mentoring students, teaching, and writing are among the most meaningful activities he can pursue.A new survey from Charles Schwab suggests that Achenbaum is not an anomaly. In fact, 32 percent of 60-something middle-income workers surveyed said they don't want to retire. Three in four respondents between the ages of 50 and 69 said they are "sticking with their jobs because they want to," and not because they have to for financial reasons. And one in four workers say this is "the happiest time in their working career."...
Source: NPR
5-16-12
Wisconsin Democrats hope to unseat Republican Governor Scott Walker in a recall election. In the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Zimmerman, a lifelong Democrat, says he is "appalled." The recall, he writes, "epitomizes the petty, loser-take-all vindictiveness of contemporary American politics." [Click on link to hear the interview]
Source: NYT
5-13-12
After Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Jr. became notorious as a Gilded Age financial schemer of rare weaselly ingenuity, his picture appeared in a manual of phrenology. The shape of his “low-top head, very broad from side to side,” was said to explain why Ward had shown the “Secretiveness, Cunning, Acquisitiveness, Destructiveness” to bilk investors, shame and bankrupt a former president and try to kidnap his own son.Within the large Ward clan Ferdinand remains “the family sociopath,” although each of his parents was a candidate for that distinction. It took a great-grandson of Ferdinand’s, the prizewinning historian Geoffrey C. Ward, to write the scandal-filled but eminently fair book that airs this dirty laundry.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
5-16-12
The warning last year from Russell Berman, who at the time was president of the Modern Language Association, was apocalyptic: If doctoral programs in the humanities do not reduce the time taken to graduate, they will become unaffordable and face extinction.Now, Berman has taken his ideas home. At Stanford University, where he is a professor of comparative literature and directs the German studies program, he and five other professors at the university have produced a paper that calls for a major rethinking at Stanford -- a reduction in the time taken to graduate by Ph.D. candidates in the humanities, and preparing them for careers within and beyond the academy. The professors at Stanford aren't just talking about shaving a year or so off doctoral education, but cutting it down to four or five years -- roughly half the current time for many humanities students....
Source: Felicia B. LeClere in Inside Higher Ed
5-16-12
Felicia B. LeClere is a principal research scientist in the Public Health Department of NORC at the University of Chicago, where she works as research coordinator on multiple projects. She has 20 years of experience in survey design and practice, with particular interest in data dissemination and the support of scientific research through the development of scientific infrastructure.
Source: Allen Mikaelian for AHA Today
5-9-12
Jonathan Gottschall’s new headline-grabbing book, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, didn’t set out to comment on contemporary historical practice. Gottschall barely mentions history in his short, cogently argued volume. But, if he is right about the reasons for the centrality of story in human life, and the type of stories preferred, he has added another pillar to Sam Wineburg’s argument that historical thinking is an “unnatural act.”
Source: Tempe in Motion (Blog)
5-6-12
When a popular professor was accused of plagiarizing content for a speech and books he authored, Arizona State University had to confront uncomfortable questions about what is simply careless copying and what is outright intellectual theft.Is it plagiarism, for example, when a speech contains many exact words from a published article but the speaker never credits the source? What about lifting entire passages from Wikipedia and using them, unattributed, in a book?Those were among the allegations from faculty members that led to the investigation of history professor Matthew Whitaker's works. Whitaker denied plagiarizing. After reviewing the claims, an ASU committee concluded last month that Whitaker had not committed "systematic or substantial plagiarism," but it added that there are "reasons for concern about occasional carelessness in the use of materials and sources and some less than optimal detail in attribution."...
Source: Lee White for the National Coalition for History
5-11-12
Archivist of the United State David S. Ferriero recently announced the appointment of William A. Mayer as Executive for Research Services for the National Archives and Records Administration, effective June 18, 2012.Mayer brings to this assignment more than 20 years of experience working in dynamic research environments, most recently having served as the University Librarian at American University in Washington, DC. Prior to his work at American University, Mayer served from 2001 to 2007 as the Associate University Librarian for Information Technology and Technical Services at George Washington University. He was directly responsible for the development, implementation, and integration of information technology services across the entire library system operation. He also served as an adjunct faculty member for the School of Library and Information Science at Catholic University.
Source: Business Insider
5-10-12
Tony Yang is getting beaten to a pulp.He's not wanted by mobsters nor is he another Cybercrime bully. The former University of California doctoral student (c/o '09) just says that's what it feels like each quarter when he wraps up an adjunct teaching gig and goes home without a permanent job offer. "It can be very tough on the pysche," he told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "The darkest moment had to be when I finished my dissertation. I turned it in and there (was) no job ... So when I graduated, the first thing I had to do was file for unemployment."As a kid, his family supplemented their income with food stamps. Decades later, he found himself in the same position, applying for welfare to get by when his doctoral degree wasn't enough to bring home a steady paycheck....
Source: Fox Carolina
5-10-12
GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina) - In South Carolina, marriage is defined as between a man and a woman.Now, North Carolina has joined the other 28 states by adding this definition to its constitution. Amendment 1 passed by a 22 percent margin on Tuesday. Only eight counties in North Carolina voted against the law....
Source: NYT
4-29-12
Faramerz Dabhoiwala has endured some awkward moments since his new book, “The Origins of Sex,” an ambitious history of sexuality in 18th-century Britain, was published to rave reviews in that country in January.One woman approached him after a lecture to ask gravely his opinion about the future of the female orgasm. A reporter from The Times of London emerged from an interview in his rooms at Exeter College, Oxford, where he is the senior fellow in modern history, to pronounce him “the younger, cuter Simon Schama.” And then there was the mini-scandal that ensued after he recited a salty 18th-century verse on a late-night BBC radio program.But on a stroll through the Museum of Sex during a recent visit to New York, Mr. Dabhoiwala, 42, seemed at ease among the vintage vibrators and up-to-the-minute fetish images, if a bit wary of being photographed anywhere near them....
Source: Daily Progress
5-1-12
“BackStory with the American History Guys,” a public radio program produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, will be syndicated on a weekly basis starting May 11. The program, which first aired as a monthly spot in 2008, has been picked up by stations in 39 states.At one point or another the program has aired on every public radio outlet in Virginia, Executive Producer Andrew Wyndham said.The show is hosted by “18th Century Guy” Peter Onuf, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation professor of history at UVa; “19th Century Guy” Ed Ayers, current president of the University of Richmond, former dean of the UVa College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and “20th Century Guy” Brian Balogh, Hugh P. Kelly professor of history at UVa and director of the Fellowship Program at UVa’s Miller Center of Public Affairs....
Source: Houston Chronicle
4-22-12
BUFFALO GAP, Texas (AP) — A frontier hunter once watched for three days as an immense buffalo herd streamed through this gap in the Callahan Divide.McMurry University professor Don Frazier can drive home that history lesson to students in a classroom at the Buffalo Gap Historic Village.But putting them behind the sights of a Sharps .45-70 rifle and pulling the trigger on a metal buffalo target at Fort Chadbourne takes history a few shots beyond imagination....
Source: Independent (UK)
5-9-12
Young history academics are too eager to convert their research into books that have only a slim chance of success in an increasingly crowded market, according to the chief judge of a leading history writing prize.Sir Keith Thomas, the Oxford historian who is chairman of the judging panel for the Wolfson History Prize, applauded the growth of interest which has seen telegenic dons propelled on to the nation's television screens and bookshop shelves, but warned that the dash for the bestseller lists risks undermining the status of academic study.Two women historians were last night named as this year's winners of the prize, which was founded 40 years ago to reward high-quality history writing that is accessible to the general public. Previous winners include some of Britain's most renowned historians, including Simon Schama, Eric Hobsbawm and Antonia Fraser....
Source: Princeton University
5-7-12
In the span of a 50-minute history class this spring, Princeton University professor Margot Canaday wove the complex tale of the Lavender Scare, in which the American government led a vigorous campaign to purge homosexuals from its ranks, resulting in more firings than the anti-communist Red Scare of the same post-World War II period. The range of materials Canaday cited — testimony from congressional hearings, executive orders, State Department and Navy memos, court cases, statistics, a quote from an anthropology paper, and anecdotes, both personal and from primary sources — showcased her style of teaching. It also revealed the way Canaday builds a case for arguments in her research — with precision, insight and massive amounts of supporting documentation.
Source: NewsOne
5-9-12
A University of Florida professor recently published an article in “Law and History Review” from Cambridge Journals, which asserts that the racist and oppressive history of police officers in New Orleans have many Blacks viewing cops as “killers behind the badge.”Jeffery S. Adler, professor of History and Criminology, researched race and police homicide in New Orleans between the years of 1925 to 1945, alleging that a practice of “fear conditioning” exists even now....
Source: Newswise
5-9-12
Newswise — Richard Mourdock’s defeat of six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in Tuesday’s Republican primary closes an eventful chapter in Indiana history and opens up interesting possibilities for the fall election, says a historian at the University of Indianapolis.“Few Hoosiers under 40 can remember a time when Richard Lugar didn’t represent them in Washington,” Associate Professor Edward Frantz says. “With his defeat, Indiana has lost all of its experience and seniority in the Senate.”Frantz is interim director of UIndy’s Institute for Civic Leadership & Mayoral Archives, which is being developed around a four-decade collection of official documents and other materials dating to Lugar’s tenure as mayor of Indianapolis and architect of the Unigov consolidation....
