Historians in the News

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: UW Madison News
9-19-11

UW–Madison's William Courtenay named fellow of British Academy

William Courtenay, University of Wisconsin–Madison Hilldale Professor and Charles Homer Haskins Professor Emeritus of History, has been elected a corresponding fellow to the British Academy.The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for humanities and the social sciences, and corresponding fellows are scholars outside the U.K. who have gained international standing in their areas of research. As many as 15 scholars are elected corresponding fellows each year....

Source: H-Net Environment
9-16-11

Penn Phd winner of the Joel A. Tarr Envirotech Article Prize for 2011

We are pleased to announce that Christopher F. Jones is the winner of the 2011 Joel A. Tarr Envirotech Prize for his article, “A Landscape of Energy

Source: Reuters
9-15-11

Gordon Corera unearths human story of Britain's spies

LONDON (Reuters) - Writing authoritatively about a spy service is hard for an outsider but Britain's is a particularly tough case.Fact must be sifted from a big body of popular fiction, much by novelists with an intelligence background including James Bond author Ian Fleming and the current Hollywood version of John le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" starring Gary Oldman as spymaster George Smiley.Gordon Corera, author of a history of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from the Cold war to the present day, set out to solve this conundrum by persuading several former UK intelligence officers to tell him some of their best stories.These personal recollections are blended with anecdotes culled from more narrowly focused histories and memoirs written by men and women of various nationalities who dealt with SIS, also known as MI6, while toiling in diplomacy or the armed services over the decades....

Source: LA Times
9-15-11

Ground rules went too far, free speech expert says at Irvine 11 trial

A UC Irvine professor overstepped his boundaries when he told students that no disruptions were allowed during the Israeli ambassador's visit on campus last year, according to testimony given Wednesday in the so-called Irvine 11 trial in Santa Ana. UC Irvine professor Rei Terada, an expert on the history and guidelines of free speech, told the Superior Court jury that fellow professor Mark Petracca, the event's emcee, had no authority to set stringent ground rules. Before bringing Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren to the stage on Feb. 8, 2010, Petracca told the audience that he expected the highest civility....

Source: Britannica Blog
9-14-11

The Disappearance of Everett Ruess: 5 Questions for Biographer and Historian Philip L. Fradkin

In the early years of the Great Depression, a teenaged boy, an artist in training, wandered away from civilization and headed into desert country that had daunted countless explorers before him. For a few years he wandered the Colorado Plateau, and for a few years reports of Everett Ruess made their way back to the civilized places, along with occasional postcards and drawings from Ruess himself.And then—well, and then Everett Ruess disappeared, as completely as anyone has ever left this earth.In 2009, as Encyclopaedia Britannica contributing editor Gregory McNamee reported then, it seemed the mystery of Ruess’s vanishing might have been solved. Apparently not, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction. So Philip Fradkin, a longtime chronicler of the modern American West, details in his new book Everett Ruess: His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife. McNamee caught up with Fradkin at his home near San Francisco for this conversation.

Source: Entertainment Weekly
9-14-11

Jacqueline Kennedy interviews: Questions for historian Michael Beschloss

In early 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy opened up to historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. about life with John F. Kennedy, only months after his assassination.... Historian Michael Beschloss pored over and annotated the 8.5 hours of interview, in addition to writing the book’s introduction. We asked Beschloss a few questions about the newly released recordings, which had been sealed for 47 years.ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What surprised you most while studying the recordings for the first time? I was surprised that she seemed to have so much influence on JFK’s attitudes toward the people who worked for him. For instance, she she says she disliked Secretary of State Dean Rusk and wished JFK would fire him. He told her he intended to do so in 1964. Others she admired, like Robert McNamara, the Defense Secretary, did extremely well in the Kennedy government. She may not have been the only reason, but what she privately told JFK didn’t hurt. There are many other instances of this in the book....

Source: BBC
9-13-11

Academic says William Wallace was rebellion 'co-leader'

William Wallace was no more than a "co-leader" in events which sparked a Scottish uprising against Edward I in 1297, a historian has claimed.Professor Dauvit Broun argues that the killing of the Sheriff of Lanark was as much down to a knight called Richard of Lundie, as it was by Wallace.He said Wallace's status was cemented by others' death, capture or surrender.The University of Glasgow academic's claims appear in an article published on the website Breaking of Britain.Prof Broun said: "Richard of Lundie was a close ally of William Wallace and rose with him in opposition to the English occupation of Scotland."It was Lundie who led the band with Wallace that was responsible for the killing of the Sheriff of Lanark on 3 May 1297....

Source: David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
9-13-11

New Research on FDR's Controversial Views Regarding Jews and Other Minorities

New research on President Frankin D. Roosevelt's controversial views regarding Jews and other minorities will be presented by scholars at a conference in New York City on September 18, 2011. The conference, "While Six Million Lived: America and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1933-1939," is the ninth national conference of The David S.

Source: AP
9-13-11

Joe Sando, Pueblo historian and writer, dies at 88

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Joe Sando, a member of the Jemez Pueblo who became the first Pueblo member to chronicle Pueblo life as a historian and writer, has died.His publisher and friend, Marcia Keegan of Clear Light Publishers, said the 88-year-old died Tuesday of natural causes at an assist living center in Albuquerque....

Source: NYT
9-12-11

Allan Lichtman responds to Nate Silver's criticism of "Keys to the White House" criticism

Allan J. Lichtman, the presidential historian at American University whose “Keys to the White House” system we posted a critique of here last week, has kindly prepared a response. (Mr. Lichtman’s system forecasts that President Obama is a heavy favorite to be re-elected in 2012.)Mr. Lichtman’s response is reproduced below. My policy is to let authors have their own say in these cases, so any further response I have will be contained in a separate post, with the exception of a brief technical comment at the end.The Keys Work: A Response to Nate Silver Allan J. LichtmanI read with great interest Nate Silver’s analysis in the New York Times blog of my system for predicting presidential election results, The Keys to the White House. His work demonstrates the kind of lively debate that the keys can generate. However, his critique of the keys system cannot withstand scrutiny.

Source: University of Virginia
9-12-11

Significance of 9/11's impact upon U.S. foreign policy should not be overestimated, Leffler says

September 12, 2011 — Ten years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the long-term significance on U.S. foreign policy should not be overestimated, University of Virginia history professor Melvyn Leffler said Friday at U.Va.'s Miller Center. The attacks were a terrible tragedy, and a monumental act of aggression and provocation that spurred the George W. Bush administration to pivot its foreign policy and launch a "global war on terror," said Leffler, Edward Stettinius Professor of History in the College of Arts & Sciences and a faculty associate at the Miller Center. But the attacks did not change the world or transform the long-term trajectory of U.S. foreign policy, said Leffler, who has written or edited seven books and dozens of articles on the history of American foreign policy.

Source: Salon
9-12-11

New Deal lessons for Obama from popular historian Michael Hiltzik

As the current crop of Republican presidential candidates tours the United States denouncing Big Government in language virulent enough to make Barry Goldwater quail, it seems almost impossible to recall that once upon a time American voters endorsed the principle of strong government action by propelling Franklin D. Roosevelt to landslide victory after landslide victory. The contrast is heightened further when one considers how difficult it has been for the current president, who, like Roosevelt, came into office during a time of great economic crisis and on the heels of a thoroughly discredited Republican Party, to move his own agenda through Congress.FDR's New Deal remains the standard by which all Democratic presidents are judged. The government put millions of Americans directly to work building roads and bridges and schools that still exist today. The creation of Social Security established the underpinnings of a safety net for all Americans. Wall Street's tendency to excess and destructive speculation was reined in by the Securities Exchange Act and the banking system stabilized for generations by federal deposit insurance.

Source: WSJ
9-12-11

Financial historian Richard Sylla: Better days lie ahead

As stocks plunged last week, investors focused on the risk of recession and another market collapse.Richard Sylla sees something very different over the longer term: the much-longer term.Prof. Sylla is a financial historian at New York University's Stern School of Business, studying market behavior all the way back to 1790. By analyzing patterns detected years ago with two colleagues, he accurately predicted in 2000 the decade of overall declines that haunted investors.Now, Prof. Sylla has made a new forecast at the request of The Wall Street Journal. Better days lie ahead, he says.

Source: MetroWest Daily News
9-11-11

Hugh Ambrose observes parallels between WWII and fight against terror

Hugh Ambrose is the author of "The Pacific," the companion to the Emmy-award winning, 10-part miniseries of the same name which chronicled America's war against Japan.The son of noted historian Stephen Ambrose, he was at the Museum of World War II in Natick yesterday where he discussed his book and the making of the HBO miniseries with 100 visitors in the museum founded by Kenneth Rendell.Earlier in the week, Ambrose discussed parallels between World War II and the current War on Terror.Q: From writing "The Pacific," what have you learned that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan need today to be reintegrated into their families, careers and society?A: I'm a historian, not a trained psychologist. I wanted to learn the cost of war in these men's lives. Each man responded differently to the challenges of combat. That had a lot to do with his personality and where or when they served.The individual combat veteran is somebody we should respect and we, as a nation, have a debt to help with their long-term needs.

Source: Al Eisele at the Huffington Post
9-11-11

David McCullough's view of 9/11

Al Eisele is editor at large of The Hill.Everyone has their story of where they were and how they reacted to the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Here is mine:On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in my office at The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress, when my friend David McCullough called me to say that an airplane had just crashed into the World Trade Tower in New York. He was staying at the Hay-Adams Hotel, two blocks from my office in downtown Washington, and invited me to watch the TV coverage with him.I said I'd be right over, and took two young reporters, Melanie Fonder and Allison Stevens, with me. We went to his suite and at that moment, a second airplane struck the World Trade Center. Here is the story that my colleagues and I filed in the Sept. 12, 2001 issue of The Hill under the headline, "Terrorist attacks 'worse than Pearl Harbor,' says historian.""My God, Windows on the World are gone. There are no windows on the world any more. This changes everything."David McCullough, the nation's preeminent historian, grimaced in disbelief as he watched the indescribable scenes of carnage and destruction being laid out on television from the multiple terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington Tuesday morning.

Source: PR Newswire
9-8-11

Historian's Research Suggests Remarkable Deep Subsurface Scans Reveal the 'Mona Lisa' Is Not Lisa del Giocondo, but Leonardo Da Vinci's Mother Caterina

MELBOURNE, Australia, Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Advanced new research scanning suggests "Mona Lisa" was originally 40 years older than she appears today, as deep beneath the surface she is 60+ years of age and that Leonardo later "rejuvenated" her to look younger and more beautiful. According to research historian Graeme Cameron, these groundbreaking findings may prove the portrait cannot be of the 24-year-old Lisa del Giocondo but is instead almost certainly Leonardo's 63-year-old mother Caterina, whom Leonardo painted earlier "in Milan around 1493 and later 'rejuvenated.'" This could explain why he kept the painting closely with him until his death, and why his recorded portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, which he painted around 1503 in Florence, is another lost painting and not that at the Louvre.Subsurface Mona Lisa/Caterina image: http://www.ereleases.com/pic/Subsurface-Mona-Lisa.jpgCover of book by Graeme Cameron: http://www.ereleases.com/pic/Graeme-Cameron.jpg

Source: UCR Newsroom
9-8-11

Obama Nominates UCR's Catherine Allgor to Prestigious Board

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Catherine Allgor, professor of history and Presidential Chair at the University of California, Riverside, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to the board of trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation. The White House announced Allgor’s nomination on Sept. 6. Her appointment requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate before she begins serving a six-year term on the foundation. The James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation, established by Congress in 1986, promotes the teaching of the Constitution by giving fellowships to secondary school educators, enabling them to get master's degrees in American history, American government, and social studies. The fellowships honor the legacy of James Madison, the nation’s fourth president and the primary author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights....

Source: NYT
9-8-11

Historian Says Perry Misses Point on Galileo and Climate Change

In one of the more curious moments in the Republican debate on Wednesday night, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas invoked 17th-century science in discussing his doubts about climate change. He cited the astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei — often called the father of modern science — in suggesting that the current thinking that climate change is a result of human activity could be overturned. “Galileo got outvoted for a spell,” he said....Was Mr. Perry trying to depict Galileo as a maverick among scientific thinkers of his time? If so, the governor was wrong, says one historian who has studied the trial of Galileo.“If Perry means to say that at some point some body of scientists said Galileo was wrong, that didn’t happen,” said the historian, Thomas F. Mayer, who teaches at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill.

Source: Telegraph (UK)
9-2-11

Biblical scholars explore capital punishment in the Bible

When the Israelites were in the wilderness one of them was found gathering sticks on the sabbath. After Moses (pictured, from a 14th-century Haggadah) had consulted the Lord, the man was stoned to death. Does this lend support to capital punishment today?The question is asked by two scholars of the Hebrew Bible, Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky in their new book The Bible Now (Oxford, £16.99). Since there is an online petition urging a Government debate on the death penalty, the question is timely.The authors also look at: homosexuality, abortion, the status of women and the treatment of the Earth. They do not try to force the Bible text to match present-day assumptions, nor do they read across, if that were possible, from biblical injunctions to modern law-making.Before returning to the man gathering sticks, it is worth mentioning that, historically, few have thought the Bible (in part seen by Christians as the Old Testament) to be a plain manual of law. Aelfric, the Abbot of Eynsham who died exactly 1,000 years ago, translated some of the Bible into English but warned against presuming that, for example, just because the patriarchs took several wives, we might do so now....

Source: Press Release
9-6-11

Tom Fleming joins e-book revolution

Thomas Fleming has joined the e-book revolution.  He has signed a contract with Donna Carpenter, president of New Word City, to publish a selection of hishistorical articles as well as several of his novels and nonfiction narratives.  Some of his best articles from American Heritage, MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, New York, and other magazines are appearing on-line, expanded by illustrations and links. Among those already published, perhaps the most startlingis “Who Sank The Maine?” anexhaustively researched look at the explosion that sank the American battleship in Havana harbor in 1898. Fleming reveals the most likely perpetrators were NOT the Spanish, long condemned for the outrage that started the Spanish American War.Before the close of  2011, New Word City will publish an e-book edition of Fleming’s hugely successful novel, The Officers’ Wives. This exploration of how three West Pointers and their wives dealt with the agonies of Korea and Vietnam remains enormously relevant for contemporary readers. It sold two million copies world-wide.