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: NYT
6-1-11
Richard L. McCormick, a self-described “faculty brat” at Rutgers University who learned to swim at a campus pool on College Avenue in New Brunswick, N.J., and grew up to become the university president, announced on Tuesday that he would step down from that post at the end of next year to return to teaching — at Rutgers, of course — and writing.
Source: AHA Today
5-31-11
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) announced its 2011 fellows and grantees today, Tuesday, May 31st. Almost $15 million is being awarded to the 350 scholars, of which there are numerous historians. ACLS fellowships and grants are awarded to individual scholars for excellence in research in the humanities and related social sciences.
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
5-27-11
Sharon Fawcett has announced her retirement as Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries after 34 years in public service, effective June 4, 2011. Susan Donius, Deputy Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries, will be serving in an acting capacity until a replacement is named.
Source: Boston Globe
5-31-11
David McCullough was taking his customary morning stroll through the Public Garden one day last week when a woman asked for a word with him. Spotting the eminent historian was easy enough. With his mane of snow-white hair and stately, professorial mien, McCullough, 77, is as recognizable as any working — or walking — American author alive today.
Source: Jerusalem Post
5-30-11
Indonesian historian Azyumardi Azra, one of the world’s leading scholars of moderate Islam says Islam and Judaism can learn from each other.
Source: NYU Steinhardt
5-30-11
A panel “Historians, Power, and Politics” was held at New York University on May 4, 2011, exploring the history and contemporary resonance of Jesse Lemisch’s classic critique of the historical profession: “Present Mindedness Revisited: Anti-Radicalism as a Goal of American Historical Writing Since World War II.” The panel was chaired by Blanche Wiesen Cook. Panelists included historians Staughton Lynd, Rust Eisenberg, John McMillian, Jesse Lemisch, and Robert Cohen.
Source: NYT
5-27-11
In February, the last surviving American veteran of the First World War died. It is hard to imagine the day when we say goodbye to the last survivor of the Second World War, so large do the “good war” and the “greatest generation” still loom in the national imagination. But the calendar and the census do not lie. Some 16 million Americans served in the military during World War II. On the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 2001, about 5.5 million were still living.
Source: NYT
5-28-11
TORNADO experts had seen it all before: whole neighborhoods obliterated, big-box stores flattened, even a hospital badly damaged.
Source: NYT
5-28-11
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, a Russian émigré who came to the United States at 14, served in the Army during World War II and became one of the country’s leading scholars of Russian history, writing a college textbook that served as the American standard for teaching Russian history during the cold war, died on May 14 in Oakland, Calif. He was 87.
Source: NYT
5-26-11
Gertrude Stein and her family and friends are the focus of two major San Francisco art exhibitions: “Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories” at the Contemporary Jewish Museum and “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde” at
Source: Guardian (UK)
5-26-11
Oxford University has appointed its first chair of Israel studies to research the economics, society and politics of the Jewish state, following a £3m benefaction by a charitable foundation.
Source: Boston College Chronicle
5-25-11
Boston College has been served a subpoena by the US Attorney’s Office on behalf of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) requesting two tapes that were recorded as part of the University’s Oral History Archive on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Source: Chicago Tribune
5-24-11
SPRINGFIELD — Democratic lawmakers moved ahead Tuesday with their plans to redraw the state's legislative district boundaries despite complaints from a prominent Latino voting rights group that the proposal shortchanges minorities....Representatives for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said the plan falls short of the requirements of the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits diluting minority voting strength. Meeting the Voting Rights Act is a key element of redistricting.
Source: The American Independent (TX)
5-25-11
In an op-ed published in the Bryan-College Station Eagle, Texas A&M University associate professor of history Jonathan Coopersmith argues for a radical restructuring of higher education in Texas to address bureaucratic overlap.
Source: PR Newswire
5-25-11
MOUNT VERNON, Va., May 25, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The seventh annual George Washington Book Prize, co-sponsored by Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and George Washington's Mount Vernon, honoring the year's best book about America's founding era, has been awarded to Pauline Maier for Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 (Simon & Schuster, 2010).
Source: Jay P. Greene at the National Review
5-26-11
Jay P. Greene is the 21st-century professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas and a fellow at the George W. Bush Institute located at Southern Methodist University.
Source: CNN
5-26-11
Just who are the Africans who helped shape the Americas, and where did they come from?It's a question professor David Eltis and his team at Emory University in Atlanta are trying to answer with a new online project called "African Origins."Launched in April, the online database could help trace the roots of more than 100,000 Africans who were shipped to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade.
Source: MLive
5-24-11
Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck weren't the first to blame Detroit's historic decline on Democratic policies, but their high-profile status has re-invigorated a debate over the political, social and economic factors that led to the city's many problems.
Source: CS Monitor
5-24-11
An outspoken historian is facing the threat of a criminal trial for his writings on the Thai monarchy, spurring an international appeal by scholars for the protection of academic freedoms in Thailand.
