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 Australian
8-31-11
EMINENT historian Stuart Macintyre has slammed an independent review of the University of Melbourne's school of historical and philosophical studies as lacking evidence and overseen by international academics with little experience of the Australian sector. Professor Macintyre, a former dean of arts at Melbourne and a professor at the school, said he feared the review was a "fix" to justify further staff cuts.The review blamed falling student enrolments at the school partly on the alleged reluctance of some staff to commit to the university's Melbourne model.It also said there were too many Australian historians compared with student demand and recommended that the Australian Centre scrap undergraduate teaching and cut academic staff from 12 to two....
Source: KY3
8-30-11
ROLLA, Mo. – History will look at the 10 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as a period of “breathtaking American ignorance” on the part of the nation’s leaders, offset by tremendous adaptability among U.S. military personnel, says Dr. John C. McManus, a military historian at Missouri University of Science and Technology.“From the broader view, the same Wahabbi-oriented terrorists who attacked on 9/11 were actually at war with the United States long before that terrible day,” says McManus, an associate professor of history and political science at Missouri S&T.
Source: AHA Today
8-30-11
The Oral History Association (OHA), the principal organization of practicing oral historians in the United States, is seeking a new home for its executive office and staff beginning in 2013. It also plans to hire an Executive Director to serve as its principal administrator after its new institutional home is determined.Institutions interested in hosting the OHA’s offices are invited to send an initial expression of interest to OHA by November 1, 2011. (See details below). Viable candidates will be invited to submit a full proposal, due no later than March 1, 2012. A final decision is expected by May 2012.The OHA will initiate a search for the Executive Director during the spring/summer of 2012. Appropriate personnel from the host institution will be invited to participate in this search, and applicants affiliated with that institution will be welcome to apply. Our aim is to select the Executive Director by October 2012.
Source: Salon
8-26-11
What has the left really accomplished over the past two centuries? FDR's New Deal remains one of the great American success stories. In the '60s, leftist politics created a massive countercultural movement -- and sexual and feminist revolutions. The civil rights movement transformed both American society and the American soul. But, if you compare the accomplishments of the American left to those of other parts of the world, like Western Europe, its record is remarkably dismal, with a surprising lack of real political and social impact.At least, that's the main takeaway from "American Dreamers," a new book by Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, which covers nearly 200 years of struggle for civil rights, sexual equality and radical rebellion. His book explores the way the national conversation has been changed by union organizers, gay rights activists and feminists. He also writes about how their techniques have now been adopted by the Tea Party movement. From Michael Moore to "Wall-E," he argues that, although the left has been successful at transforming American culture, when it comes to practical change, it's been woefully unsuccessful.
Source: Yale University Press Release
8-24-11
NEW HAVEN, Connecticut—Eminent scholars from the United States, Canada and Europe will gather at Yale for a centennial symposium on Franz Boas, the public intellectual who established the idea that people of every color and from every corner of the world can contribute to modern life.“Indigenous Visions: Rediscovering the World of Franz Boas” takes place Sept. 15–17—one hundred years after Boas released The Mind of Primitive Man, a landmark treatise that drew upon Boas’ studies of American Indians and immigrants to reject the idea that race determines ability and present a new theory of culture for a global age. The symposium brings together scholars involved in a reevaluation of the “father of modern anthropology,” who influenced thinkers from John Dewey to W. E. B. Du Bois, presaged the development of Africana studies, and advanced the cause of native rights.
Source: Lewis McCrary at the American Conservative
8-23-11
Lewis McCrary is a TAC senior editor....In May, Drew Faust, president of Harvard and an acclaimed Civil War historian, was invited to Washington to deliver the National Endowment for the Humanities’ prestigious Jefferson Lecture. While some lecturers shy away from controversy, Faust seemed to relish the opportunity to atone for her predecessor Larry Summers’s sins of political incorrectness.Faust properly observed that the purposes for going to war are often muddled, reminding the audience of the Bush administration’s rush to Iraq after 9/11. But then the real enemies of history were in her sights. Ron Paul and latter-day advocates of nullification—the former guilty of “declaring Lincoln and the war responsible for arrogations of central power that Tea Party originalists and libertarians are dedicated to overturn”—were classed with “significant segments of the American population, particularly in the South” who “continue to reject the slavery as a fundamental cause of the war…”Reenactors help to enforce this false narrative, said Faust, reflecting on her childhood experience of the Civil War centennial, which took place against the backdrop of the 1960s civil rights movement....
Source: The First Post (UK)
8-18-11
After more than 650 years being blamed for the Black Death, it seems the humble black rat may have been the victim of a smear campaign. In a new book, archaeologist Barney Sloane has declared that there is no evidence that the disease, which killed more than half the population of Europe in the fourteenth century, was spread by vermin after all.It has always been assumed that the disease, which arrived in London in 1348, was brought there by rats and fleas. But in his book The Black Death in London, Sloane argues otherwise.He told the Guardian: "We ought to be finding great heaps of dead rats in all the waterfront sites but they just aren't there. And all the evidence I've looked at suggests the plague spread too fast for the traditional explanation of transmission by rats and fleas. It has to be person to person – there just isn't time for the rats to be spreading it."It was certainly the Black Death but it is by no means certain what that disease was, whether in fact it was bubonic plague."...
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
8-19-11
A peculiar German inferiority complex allied to a lust to 'get on' led to the country’s collective moral collapse which allowed the Holocaust of six million Jews to happen, a new book in Germany claims.Götz Aly, an esteemed historian and social commentator, says their berserk social climbing led the ordinary people, far removed from the extermination camp system, to partake in the plunder of the Jews without troubling their consciences.His book Why The Germans? Why The Jews? comes at a time when Germany is once more in the crosshairs of critics across the continent as the euro crisis lurches from bad to worse.It is portrayed as bullying, domineering and inflexible as it tries to impose rigid, German-style rules on nations which do not share its social, political and economic ethics.Most important Aly gets away from the 'evil Nazi' comfort zone that so many postwar Germans have wallowed in....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
8-20-11
Sir Roy Strong was preparing to give a speech at Hereford Cathedral when he realised he felt so unwell that he needed to sit down and gather his strength. This had nothing to do with nerves.A seasoned writer and broadcaster, not to mention former director of the Victoria & Albert Museum (1973-1987) and National Portrait Gallery (1967-73), he was undaunted by public speaking. No, this was far more serious – he felt dizzy, listless and extremely tired. ‘I thought I had summer influenza, but a week later, despite having taken over-the-counter cold remedies, I realised this thing wasn’t going away,’ says Sir Roy, 76, speaking at his Herefordshire home. ‘I arranged to see my GP and after checking he said, “You have a pulse rate of 160 and I need to get you to the County Hospital in Hereford within the hour.”’...
Source: Irish Central
8-20-11
The 28 children who died during the 1916 Rebellion should be remembered during the 100th centenary commemoration, according to an Irish historian.A lecturer at the Maynooth’s National University of Ireland, Dr Anne Matthews made the suggestion when she was speaking at the Parnell Summer School in County Wicklow, as part of a panel concerning equality and the Irish Revolution.She stated that more than 250 civilians were killed by gunfire during the Easter Week of 1916, 28 of whom were children aged between two and 16. She said they had not been remembered because of their social class....
Source: AHA Today
8-16-11
What are history organizations, museums, and others who work in history doing on Twitter? They’re starting conversations, advertising jobs, sharing research, and much more. Whether you want to join the conversation, or just follow along, read on for five ways you can use Twitter.1. Follow Organizations Going to the archives for a research trip? See if they have a Twitter feed. It’s a good way to get updates (like early closings), see highlights of their collections, get research tips, and ask questions of staff. For example, the Library of Congress (@librarycongress on Twitter) recently tweeted about the new Poet Laureate Philip Levine, the National Archives (which has numerous Twitter feeds) noted an upcoming lecture last week, and the Folger Library posted a video on handling historic documents.
Source: Patch.com
8-23-11
A Mt. San Jacinto College student was arrested on the Menifee Valley campus after allegedly making a criminal threat against his history professor.The alleged threat occurred Aug. 15 when Beovanni C. Glover, 20, grew upset during the professor's lecture. It was the first day of classes for the fall semester at the campus that serves its surrounding communities. The History 112 class covers U.S. history since 1865.According to a student who did not want to be identified, Glover, whose race was listed as black on his arrest record, grew upset when the introductory lecture shifted to the Civil War and then the Jim Crow laws."He (the teacher) used the 'n' word in context of the lesson," the student told Patch....
Source: JTA
8-23-11
Historian Ruta Sakowska, one of the world's leading experts on the World War II Warsaw Ghetto, has died.Sakowska died Monday in Warsaw at the age of 89.Sakowska, who was born in Vilnius in 1922, served as director of the Ringelblum Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw....
Source: St. Louis Review
8-22-11
Father William Barnaby Faherty, the well-known Jesuit historian and author, died Aug. 22 at St. Louis University Hospital. He was 96 and had been a Jesuit for nearly 80 years.A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 24, at St. Francis Xavier "College" Church, Lindell and Grand boulevards in Midtown St. Louis. Visitation will precede the Mass from 4 to 7 p.m. at the College Church.Despite declining health, Father Faherty, the prolific author of more than 40 books in several genres, was working on a book about early St. Louis Archbishop Peter Kenrick at the time of his death.
Source: Kansas City Star
8-23-11
Allan Meltzer, whose comprehensive “A History of the Federal Reserve” has made him a particularly adept Fed analyst and critic, will receive the 2011 Truman Medal for Economic Policy in October.The medal, awarded every two years, recognizes Meltzer’s career in economic policy development, research and education. Meltzer also has served on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and Economic Policy Advisory Board, and he was chairman of the International Financial Institution Advisory Committee that proposed reforms to the International Monetary Fund.Meltzer is a professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research....
Source: NYT
8-12-11
Like earthquakes, financial crises seem to be accompanied by aftershocks, like the one we’ve been living through this week. They can feel every bit as bad as the crisis itself. But economic history and academic research suggest they can set the stage for a sustainable recovery — and eventual sharp stock market gains.
Source: Salon
8-10-11
Mark Adomanis maintains The Russia Hand at Forbes. As a recovering movement conservative, I have (or would at least like to think I have) a sharp eye for its flaws -- for detecting those instances in which it is simply unable to deal with the truth and thus resorts to prevarication, misdirection, or simple dishonesty.Victor Davis Hanson is one of the highest profile and most widely-read conservative commentators -- his basic shtick is to compare America’s imperial adventure du jour to those of the Greeks or the Romans. There then follows a bunch of very confused historical comparisons that invariably come to the conclusion that the answer to the present difficulty is more military force, more invasions, more bombing, and more "American leadership." Hanson has, as of late, also made a name for himself with hackneyed attacks on Obama’s Keynesianism and the generally left-wing, socialist, and nasty way in which the president manages the economy.
Source: OAH News
8-5-11
The Organization of American Historians is pleased to welcome Aidan J. Smith as its Public History Manager. Before arriving at the OAH in August 2009 as assistant editor of the Journal of American History, Smith served as reference librarian at the Southern Historical Collection Manuscripts Department at the Wilson Library housed on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith will begin September 1, 2011.
Source: Boston Globe
8-7-11
On Aug. 6, the United States marks the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing’s mixed legacy. The leader of our democracy purposefully executed civilians on a mass scale. Yet the bombing also ended the deadliest conflict in human history.In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.“Hasegawa has changed my mind,” says Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Making of the Atomic Bomb.” “The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings.”
Source: WaPo
8-4-11
R.E.G. “Ron” Davies, a leading authority on airline history and a curator at the National Air and Space Museum for almost three decades, died July 30 at a hospital in Bedfordshire, England, after a series of strokes. He was 90.Mr. Davies had left his home in McLean and returned to his native England after retiring from the museum in February. At the time of his retirement as curator of air transport, he was the oldest full-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution, said Bob van der Linden, chairman of the Air and Space Museum’s aeronautics division.Aviation experts called Mr. Davies the dean of airline historians. When he was born, one of the Wright brothers was still alive, and the first flight of their rickety machine hadn’t yet marked its 20th anniversary....
