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: PRI
11-16-11
Some historians are raising concerns about a new book by Fox News star Bill O'Reilly, looking at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.A reviewer for the National Park Service's bookstore at Ford's Theatre has recommended that the store pull the book due to "lack of documentation" and "factual errors." Another review from the Civil War Society said the book contains numerous errors and one passage that is completely untrue."In 325 pages, there are four, minor misstatements, all of which have been corrected. There are also two typeset errors, one involving a date. That's a pretty good record," O'Reilly said on his show recently. He declined to discuss the matter further.Kenneth C. Davis, author of the "Don't Know Much About History" series of books, is currently working on a book called "Don't Know Much About The Presidents." He said that minor factual errors, especially typos, or misstating the acreage of a farm, as O'Reilly's book does, shouldn't be a big deal....
Source: LA Times
11-15-11
Newt Gingrich appears to have a different definition of the word “historian” than, say, Webster's. Gingrich was asked last week at a Republican debate in Michigan about his $300,000 contract to work for mortgage giant Freddie Mac five years ago. Gingrich said he was a retained as a “historian” and that he warned executives there that reckless loans would lead to collapse. “I offered them advice on precisely what they didn’t do,” he said at the debate. “My advice as a historian, when they walked in and said to me, ‘We are now making loans to people who have no credit history and have no record of paying back anything, but that’s what the government wants us to do.’ As I said to them at the time, this is a bubble. This is insane. This is impossible.”...
Source: NOLA
11-15-11
Richard Greenleaf, a historian who was chairman of Tulane University's history department and director of its Stone Center for Latin American Studies, died Nov. 8 in Albuquerque, N.M., of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 81.Dr. Greenleaf was "a pioneering and towering figure in Latin American colonial history," said Thomas Reese, who succeeded Dr. Greenleaf as the Stone Center's executive director. "He trained generations of scholars."A native of Hot Springs, Ark., Dr. Greenleaf grew up in Albuquerque and earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at the University of New Mexico.He started his teaching career in 1953 at the College of St. Joseph on the Rio Grande in Albuquerque.A year later, he moved to Mexico City to teach at the University of the Americas, where he was chairman of the department of history and international relations, academic vice president and dean of the Graduate School....
Source: NYT
11-15-11
Les Daniels, one of the earliest historians of comic books — from the launching (off the doomed planet Krypton) of Superman in 1938 through the countercultural comix movement of the ’60s — and an author of horror novels, died on Nov. 5 at his home in Providence, R.I. He was 68.The cause was a heart attack, said Diane Manning, his sister and only immediate survivor.Mr. Daniels wrote 10 nonfiction books — among them histories of superheroes and of major publishers like DC and Marvel — and five works of fiction, all revolving around a globe-trotting, time-traveling vampire, Don Sebastian de Villanueva.
Source: AFP
11-14-11
BAGHDAD — US army Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Brooks is on his third tour in Iraq, but his mission has not been a typical one: as an army historian, he is charged with documenting the history of the Iraq war.On his latest deployment, Brooks, 48, is the command historian for United States Forces - Iraq (USF-I), making him the army's top historian in the country.He is still working to document the history of the conflict, with emphasis on American involvement, even as US forces are leaving Iraq. The US withdrawal is to be completed by year's end.There were once 16 army historians in Iraq but that number is now down to two, Brooks said....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
11-15-11
David Starkey has provoked more controversy by claiming that most of Britain is a ‘mono-culture’ and that immigrants should assimilate.The TV historian rejected claims by other academics that it is a diverse country, describing it as 'absolutely and unmitigatingly white' outside of London.His outburst comes three months after he blamed ‘black culture’ for the summer riots and claimed that parts of Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' speech had been right.He made his latest comments during a historians conference discussing Education Secretary Michael Gove's announcement that he wanted to put ‘our island story’ at the heart of Britain's national curriculum....
Source: Kansas City Star
11-12-11
Felicia Hardison Londre, a respected theater historian on the faculty of the UMKC theater department, was eager to see director Roland Emmerich’s new film, “Anonymous,” and not just because it delves into the world of Elizabethan actors and playwrights.She was excited to see the movie because Emmerich and screenwriter John Orloff embrace a theory about the authorship of William Shakespeare’s plays and poetry that has been subject to disdain and outright mockery by traditionalists for decades: that the true writer was Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. That’s what Londre, a proud Oxfordian, thinks.The idea articulated by the film is that Oxford wrote the tragedies, comedies, history plays, sonnets and narrative poems attributed to Shakespeare but, because of his social station, could not attach his name to his literary works....
Source: AP
11-12-11
MADISON, Wis.—It's Richard Nixon unplugged. Newly-released documents and recordings of the former president are the result of years of work by University of Wisconsin-Madison emeritus professor Stanley Kutler.His successful court challenge is responsible for the release of the secret records and documents, including a transcript of Nixon's grand jury testimony related to the Watergate investigation. The National Archives and its Nixon Presidential Library released the testimony Thursday, which afforded a rare look inside grand jury proceedings....
Source: Ottawa Citizen
11-11-11
OTTAWA — China will attempt to drive an economic and political wedge between Canada and the United States as it moves for a greater stake in this country's natural resources, celebrity historian and author Niall Ferguson said Friday."It wouldn't be China if it wasn't looking for a chance to detach Canada from its big southern neighbour and to exploit the resentment many Canadians feel about the United States," said Ferguson."There will be more friction between China and the U.S. in the next 10 or 15 years and Canada will find itself in the middle if that becomes a rather fraught relationship," he added."Imagine if either the United States or China said to Canada, 'You have to choose.'"...Canada and other western nations should consider China a "threatening state," he said."Look behind the facade," he said. "It looks westernized — you see Kentucky Fried Chicken signs practically the moment you get off the plane. It looks a lot like they're westernized — more than Japan actually — but behind the facade is a one-party state where the power of the state is pretty much sacrosanct and individual freedom is circumscribed in a way we would find intolerable"...
Source: Guardian (UK)
11-14-11
It is shaping up to be the tastiest historical scrap since Rob Newman's comedy professor character compared the girlfriend of David Baddiel's don to Peter Beardsley. The warring academics, beloved of 1990s students for their "that's you, that is" repartee, have made way for Niall Ferguson and Pankaj Mishra, after the latter likened Ferguson to Tom Buchanan in the Great Gatsby.As with all the best academic spats, spectators are advised to equip themselves with a dictionary and a history degree to follow the action.
Source: Yale Daily News
11-14-11
The History Department hopes to determine why the number of history majors has dropped significantly in recent years as it prepares for an external review next semester.The University awarded 131 history degrees in the 2010-’11 year, down from 217 in 2001-’02, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research. History professors interviewed said the department is investigating the cause of the decline, but they and students disagreed over whether it should be cause for concern.“We want to be reactive to any kind of changes in the undergraduate environment,” Steven Pincus, director of undergraduate studies for the History Department, said. “Yes, there has been a decline in the number of majors — it is not a catastrophic decline, but we want to know why that’s happening and what we can do to make the major more attractive to undergraduates.”In February, a committee of professors from other universities will visit the department to assess its strengths and weaknesses and make suggestions for future improvement, History Department chair Laura Engelstein said. The department held its first meeting last Tuesday to discuss changes, and Pincus has assembled an advisory committee of current history majors to receive student feedback on the major, he said....
Source: Salon
11-12-11
On Friday I wrote about the decision of Ford’s Theatre not to offer Bill O’Reilly’s bestsetlling new book on the Lincoln assassination at its bookstore because an expert National Park Service reviewer found the work to be riddled with factual errors.Now, in a review in a leading Civil War magazine, a second expert has flunked O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln,” calling it “somewhere between an authoritative account and strange fiction.”The review (which is not online) appears in the November issue of North & South, the official magazine of the Civil War Society.“The narrative contains numerous errors of people, place, and events,” writes reviewer Edward Steers Jr., author of more than five books on the Lincoln assassination. He goes on to list about 10 errors of fact in “Killing Lincoln,” which O’Reilly co-authored with Martin Dugard and which has been atop bestseller lists for weeks....
Source: BC Local News
11-9-11
They might not have been Canada’s fights but some of the Canadians who chose to take up arms became some of the most distinguished soldiers on the battlefield.Of the 10,312 soldiers buried in the U.S. Civil War cemetery at Marietta, Georgia, only two received the highest American award for bravery in the face of the enemy. One of the men to receive the Medal of Honor was Denis Buckley, a Canadian.Buried under the wrong name for 140 years, Buckley is one of 104 known Canadians who have earned the medal. Bart Armstrong, a Saanich resident and the only Canadian member of the Medal of Honor Society, was instrumental in uncovering Buckley’s story and that of some 50 other Canadians who were awarded the highest honour in the U.S. military.For the second year in a row, the 62-year-old Armstrong is hosting an information booth at the Royal B.C. Museum to educate visitors on the Canadian recipients of the medal....
Source: Banning-Beaumont Patch
11-2-11
Katherine Siva Saubel, a Native American scholar, Cahuilla historian, co-founder of the Malki Museum, and one California's most respected tribal elders, died Tuesday at her home on the Morongo Indian Reservation, her nephew and caregiver said Wednesday."It is windy today, because the wind is looking for her," Kevin Siva, a lifelong resident of the Morongo Reservation, said in a phone interview. "She always told me stories about the wind when I was younger."Saubel died Tuesday at home in bed, "very peacefully," said Siva, who has been his aunt's caregiver for the past 15 years.Saubel was born in March 1920 in her village Pachaval in northern San Diego County, Siva said....
Source: Toronto Sun
11-6-11
Is Ottawa creating squadrons of rent-a-regiment re-enactors by flooding Ontario and Quebec with funds for its War of 1812 bicentennial bash?That's what historian Gordon Terry fears.Federal funds are flowing to support more than 100 historical events in towns scattered throughout the two provinces - and Terry cautions the municipalities may have to sweeten the pot to entice overworked volunteer re-enactors to over to their camps."What is not realized is it is a finite resource," he said, cautioning an influx of government cash could create a fiercely competitive market environment."It's the same money but it competes with itself to buy, to outbid participation."...
Source: Ria Novosti
11-7-11
Russian police said Monday that a historian arrested last week for desecrating several Nizhny Novgorod cemeteries had kept 29 female mummies at home and dressed them up like dolls.The 45-year-old local resident was detained last week and accused of digging up dead bodies at the local cemeteries over the past two years.A search of his apartment came up with 29 self-made dolls made of mummified human remains and dressed up in clothes of the buried women. Police said that several plaques from gravestones, maps of local cemeteries and doll-making manuals had been retrieved during the search. Forensic experts matched the man’s fingerprints and footprints with the ones lifted from disturbed graves at the Nizhny Novgorod cemeteries....
Source: NYT
11-8-11
Browsing the bookstore shelves can pose its grim challenges for the ordinary mortal. The reproachful cover of “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” is bad enough. There’s also “100 Birds to See Before You Die,” “100 Belgian Beers to Try Before You Die!” and “1,001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.” Make your way through “50 Places to Play Golf Before You Die” and you’re still not done: “50 More Places to Play Golf Before You Die” is staring right at you.nto this profusion of lists comes Matthew White, a self-described “atrocitologist” and numbers freak from Richmond, Va., who has compiled yet another — more sobering — roll call to ponder. With its stylishly lurid graphics and goofy asides, “The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities” may seem more like an aspiring classic of macabre bathroom reading than a serious effort. But Mr. White’s book, published this week by W. W. Norton, arrives trailing some impressive scholarly affirmation, including a ringing foreword from the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker....
Source: UW Madison
11-8-11
Historians and political junkies soon will have more Richard Nixon material to kick around, thanks to a UW–Madison professor emeritus who has fought for years to get the secret records of the former president made public.Stanley Kutler, the emeritus professor of law and history whose successful court challenge is responsible for their release, says the records will be a chance to hear Nixon minus his lawyers, handlers and “spinmeisters.”“This is a chance to hear Richard Nixon unplugged, if you will,” says Kutler, nationally recognized as a top expert on the Nixon administration and the Watergate era.The National Archives and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on Thursday, Nov. 10 will release the recordings and documents, including a transcript of Nixon’s grand jury testimony related to the Watergate investigation....
Source: AP
11-7-11
MOSCOW — The Russian historian had always been open about his interest in the dead and eagerly described how he loved to rummage through cemeteries, studying grave stones to uncover the life stories behind them.What he failed to mention, according to police, was that he had dug up 29 bodies and taken them back to his apartment, where he dressed them in women's clothes scavenged from graves and then put them on display.A police video of the man's apartment in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod released Monday shows his macabre collection of what look like dolls. Lifesize, they are dressed in bright dresses and headscarves, their hands and faces wrapped in what appears to be cloth. Police said they were mummified remains....
Source: Purdue Exponent
11-7-11
The field where the Battle of Tippecanoe took place looked eerily similar to how it did 200 years ago, right before the fight began.This weekend marked the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Tippecanoe. The Tippecanoe County Historical Association organized a three-day event to remember both sides of the conflict, with events in two locations.In Battle Ground, Ind., basic tents were scattered on the wooded ground while hundreds of men dressed as camping soldiers. These men created a living history of the scene before the famous battle that started the War of 1812. Visitors got to tour the battlefield and see military demonstrations by the reenactors.A few miles away, Prophetstown, Ind., looked like a Native American village, hosting wigwams, trading posts and dance ceremonies, along with an archeological history of the area. This site was representative of the Native American men who fought in the Battle of Tippecanoe....
