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: Huffington Post
7-1-11
An industrious, semi-aquatic mammal with excellent engineering skills. A furry, monogamous creature that smacks its tail on the water when frightened. A buck-toothed rodent whose anal sacs contain castoreum, a substance used to make perfume.And an enduring symbol of our nation?The lowly beaver is an official symbol of the sovereignty of Canada, having received royal assent in 1975. But its presence on our communal cultural radar is spotty at best, limited to currency (the nickel), camping ailments (beaver fever) and sugary fried bread snacks in the nation's capitol (beaver tails).So is the beaver still a potent image of what it means to be Canadian? Or are we clearly due for a new and improved national symbol?
Source: NYT
7-3-11
The events in “Star Wars,” the opening credits reveal, happened “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” But did similar events happen before?That is the question posed by “Star Wars and History,” a book planned for 2013 by the publisher John Wiley & Sons. In an e-mail posted in June, Nancy Reagin, a history professor at Pace University, and Janice Liedl, an associate professor of history at Laurentian University in Ontario, asked their peers to submit essays that explore the parallels between world history and Star Wars history.For example, their note to the historians of slavery sought essays “where historical examples of slavery are detailed to inform an exploration of how slavery was depicted in Star Wars (e.g., the persistence of slavery on Tatooine) and how these parallels provide historical models for the Star Wars universe.”...
Source: IFC
7-4-11
Details are sketchy at this point, but I just received the very sad news that Robert Sklar, film historian, author, and long-time professor of cinema studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts passed away over the weekend in Spain, apparently of injuries suffered in a cycling accident. Professor Sklar -- Bob to his friends, but always Prof. Sklar to me -- was my faculty adviser for my two years at NYU and one of the best teachers I ever had, on the subject of film or anything else.
Source: Star Tribune
7-4-11
Do Minnesota students know their U.S. history?Despite a recent report showing a limited grasp of U.S. history by the nation's students, Minnesota educators generally give fair marks to the students here. Young people often have a pretty good sense of dates, places, names and basic trends, the educators say.But the teachers say that improvement is needed, and worry that the emphasis on math, reading and the sciences may detract from learning about history, which they say is crucial to becoming solid citizens with a sense of national identity."I think you're really trying to address one of the fundamentals of the human experience: Who are we, what have we done, and where are we going?" said Tim Hoogland, director of education outreach programs for the Minnesota Historical Society.
Source: WaPo
7-2-11
Anne M. Broderick, 80, a retired history professor in North Carolina who settled in the Washington area in 1974 and became a volunteer, died June 16 at the Riderwood Village retirement community in Silver Spring. She had congestive heart failure.Mrs. Broderick volunteered at St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill and So Others Might Eat. In 2006, she moved to Riderwood Village from the District.Anne Maurine O’Hora was a Chicago native and a 1949 graduate of the old Good Counsel College in White Plains, N.Y. She received a master’s degree in history from Columbia University in 1952 and a master’s degree in library sciences from the University of Maryland in 1984.She taught at schools in White Plains and then at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., from 1966 to 1974....
Source: The Day (CT)
6-26-11
In the history of the United States, there have been only two occasions in which a president has suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a person's right to challenge in court the legality of his imprisonment.Most recently, on Oct. 17, 2006, President George W. Bush, with the approval of Congress, suspended the right of habeas corpus to persons "determined by the United States" to be terrorists.While Bush was widely criticized for breaching this fundamental constitutional right, he was not the first president to do so.The first was Abraham Lincoln....Perhaps it is too soon for history to judge Bush's action, but historians have reached a verdict on Lincoln's, says Michael Burlingame, the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield, and the author of "Abraham Lincoln: A Life," which is considered the definitive work on the 16th president.Historian Mark Neely, for example, "examined the records of thousands of military tribunals and concluded that the Lincoln administration did not abuse the power of suspension by arresting people simply because they criticized his policies," Burlingame says....
Source: CNN.com
6-27-11
ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Richard Bushman, the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California.He teaches courses on Mormonism in its broad social and cultural context and on the history of religion in America. Bushman has taken an active part in explaining Mormonism to a broad public and in negotiating the tensions between Mormonism and modern culture. An emeritus professor at Columbia University, he received his Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard. Among his books is the biography, “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling.” He also serves as one of three general editors of the Joseph Smith Papers....Prof. Bushman, the character of Elder Price, an American Mormon missionary in modern-day Uganda, questions his faith, but regains it while performing the song, “I Believe.” He sings, “I believe that God has a plan for all of us. / I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet.” Is that lyric based in Mormon belief?
Source: Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters
6-27-10
Ken Shepherd is managing editor of Newsbusters.Columbia University professor Simon Schama made his Newsweek debut yesterday with a blog post that indirectly attacked Tea Party activists and conservatives for what Schama considers a historically illiterate ancestor worship of the Founding Fathers."The Constitution’s framers were flawed like today’s politicians, so it’s high time we stop embalming them in infallibility," snarked the subheading for Schama's June 26 post."True history is the enemy of reverence. [emphasis mine] We do the authors of American independence no favors by embalming them in infallibility, by treating the Constitution like a quasi-biblical revelation instead of the product of contention and cobbled-together compromise that it actually was," Schama argued, and, in the process gravely distorted the arguments of constitutional originalists.
Source: Guardian (UK)
6-28-11
Media historian David Hendy has won an international prize for outstanding journalism for a BBC radio 3 series.Hendy was given the James W Carey Award in recognition of his work as writer and presenter of Rewiring the Mind, a series of five programmes that explored the way in which modern media have shaped mental life since 1900....
Source: LA Times
6-10-11
No, not the research scientists — the newly minted Ph.D.'s in art history. What kinds of art, past and present and from around the globe, are of pressing interest?The answer is: mostly Modern art, mostly from North America and Europe. The 21st century is scrutinizing the century that preceded it.According to lists compiled by the College Art Association, a venerable professional group whose membership includes the vast majority of American academics in the field, the most-studied area for doctoral candidates in the U.S. and Canada last year — by a long shot — was art made in roughly the last 100 years. Paul Klee, Eduardo Paolozzi and Kazimir Malevich were among the subjects of 67 doctoral dissertations in the category.The 29 categories listed by CAA range alphabetically from "African (Sub-Saharan)" to "World Art," a cross-cultural, transnational discipline. Twentieth century painting, sculpture, design and other art had 50% more doctoral dissertations accepted in 2010 than the next most popular field....
Source: WSJ
James Taranto in the WSJ
Related LinksAndrew J. Bacevich: America Comes to Its Senses Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, has an innovative foreign-policy theory. "At periodic intervals," he argues in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, "the American body politic" succumbs to "war fever," which he defines as "a sort of delirium" whose symptoms are "delusions of grandeur and demented behavior."He offers a medical history beginning with the Spanish-American War: "Gripped by such a fever in 1898, Americans evinced an irrepressible impulse to liberate oppressed Cubans." Once it was all over, "no one could quite explain what had happened or why."Then, "in 1917, the fever suddenly returned. Amid wild ravings about waging a war to end war, Americans lurched off to France. This time the affliction passed quickly, although the course of treatment proved painful: confinement to the charnel house of the Western Front, followed by bitter medicine administered at Versailles."...
Source: Chronicle-Telegram (OH)
6-28-11
OBERLIN — A touching story of black and white comrades-in-arms who fought in the Spanish Civil War will be featured tonight at 8 on “History Detectives” on PBS, and Oberlin College assistant professor Sebastiaan Faber plays a major role.In the episode, Faber helps History Detective Tukufu Zuberi tell the story behind a dog-eared and yellowing tribute to an African-American soldier named Douglas Roach that belongs to Minneapolis resident David Harry Fellman.Roach, a young Communist and high school wrestler from Provincetown, Mass., was only 5 feet tall but was described as “an army by himself” in a newspaper clipping.Without giving away the secrets and surprises unveiled in tonight’s episode, Faber and Fellman said they were thrilled with the efforts of Zuberi and “History Detectives.”...The eulogy to Roach called “A Negro Hero Dies” was written by Fellman’s father, Sol, who fought in the war alongside Roach, who later died of injuries suffered in the war....
Source: Emory Wheel
6-28-11
President Obama appointed Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies Deborah Lipstadt, to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council on June 7. Lipstadt is a renowned historian who specializes in and writes about her opposition to Holocaust denial — the act of denying that the Holocaust happened. Additionally, she has published articles and books pertaining to specific Holocaust trials. She has been studying the Holocaust for over 30 years and has published four books related to the Holocaust. The council consists of 55 citizens appointed by the President, five members of the Senate, five members of the House of Representatives and three ex-officio members from the Departments of State, Education and Interior, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website. The U.S. President appoints those who are particularly accomplished in their respective fields. Lipstadt served two terms for the council under the Clinton administration and said the selection process for the current council was equally as lengthy and tough as the previous selection process she underwent years ago....
Source: Daniel Drezner in Foreign Policy
6-27-11
...[Niall Ferguson's] latest essay for Newsweek contains the laziest paragraph I will read today. In this column, Ferguson strains to displace Tom Friedman as The Creator of Inane Metaphors. He coins "IOU-solationism" to descibe the instinct to retrench because of domestic difficulties. There's a pedestrian description of rising sentiment for retrenchment. Then we get to the lazy paragraph, which happen
Source: Irish Times
6-25-11
...Democrats are handicapped by their split electorate, explains Timothy Meagher, a fourth generation Irish-American and professor of history at Catholic University. Republicans tend to be white and working or middle class, while Democrats encompass the poor, ethnic minorities and Americans with university degrees.“The language that appeals to educated Democrats is more formal, more academic,” says Meagher. “College professors love Obama, because his language is beautifully crafted. But other groups can find it alienating.”
Source: NYT
6-24-11
CHICAGO (AP) — Conrad M. Black, once a media mogul whose newspaper empire spanned several continents, is headed back to prison after a federal judge ruled on Friday that he had not served enough time for defrauding investors.
Source: FrontPageMag
6-23-11
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Jay Bergman, Professor of History at Central Connecticut University and the author, most recently, of Meeting the Demands of Reason: The Life and Thought of Andrei Sakharov, published by Cornell University Press in 2009.FP: Jay Bergman, welcome to Frontpage Interview.Elena Bonner, the widow of Andrei Sakharov, has just passed away at the age of 88. Please tell us about her.
Source: NYT
6-22-11
INDIANAPOLIS — Gov. Mitch Daniels sits in his grand cave of a Renaissance Revival office and reviews Indiana’s economic fortunes, his self-effacing manner not entirely disguising satisfaction. The state’s pension funds are relatively healthy, the unemployment rate is dropping slowly and per capita income is ticking up, slowly....
Source: The Daily
6-20-11
...In the mind of a mummy researcher, every shriveled body raises a thousand questions: How did this person die? What did they look like? What did they do for a living? How was their body preserved? Now a new method of digital tomography holds the key to providing answers.
Source: NYT
6-22-11
As Tuesday dawned, what we knew about an anonymous photo album by a Nazi photographer was only what could be inferred from its 214 pictures (all but one uncaptioned). We could see he had amazing access: taking portraits of Russian and Jewish prisoners one month, standing just a few feet from Adolf Hitler the next. We knew he had been to the Eastern Front, we surmised that he worked for the Propagandakompanie and we guessed that the pretty woman in the album’s closing pages was someone special....
