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: WaPo
1-20-11
Forbes writer Rick Ungar is getting some attention for a piece arguing that history shows that John Adams supported a strong Federal role in health care. Ungar argues that Adams even championed an early measure utilizing the concept behind the individual mandate, which Tea Partyers say is uncon
Source: CHE
1-16-11
Beginning 35 years ago, members of the Hmong hill tribe from Laos have resettled as refugees in the United States. Now a Hmong-American historian offers a rare scholarly insider’s look at their experience.
In Hmong America: Reconstructing Community in Diaspora (University of Illinois Press), Chia Youyee Vang traces the path of the Hmong from the highlands of Laos, where they were embroiled in the conflict between pro-Communist and U.S.-backed anti-Communist forces, to resettlement.
Source: NYT
1-22-11
AS the states dream up budget plans for a new year, some find themselves staring at deficits in the billions of dollars, vanishing federal stimulus funds, mounting health care costs, their own struggling cities and a canyon of underfunded pension liabilities ahead....
As it happens, the most recent such collapse occurred during the Great Depression, when Arkansas found itself, in the words of one state historian, “plain, flat broke.” There are familiar threads then and now, not leas
Source: Jesse Lemisch, in The Nation
1-21-11
[Jesse Lemisch is professor emeritus of history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.]
With a knee problem and a chic all-black walker, I have found more and more New York City cabs inaccessible. The new hybrids are good for anti-pollution but are perilously high off the ground, with difficult sliding doors. Drivers are as helpful as they can be—many come from immigrant cultures friendly to older people—but, spotting my walker, many pass me by,
Source: C-SPAN Press Release
1-6-11
C-SPAN, cable’s public affairs network, is expanding its programming offerings with a new history-based service airing weekends on C-SPAN3. Launching the weekend of January 8-9, 2011, American History TV (AHTV), a “network in a network,” features programming geared toward history lovers with 48 hours every weekend of people and events that document the American story.
The C-SPAN Networks last launched a “network within a network” in 1998 with Book TV, which airs weekends on C-SPAN2. C-
Source: NYT
1-17-11
A promotional trailer for “The Kennedys,” a multimillion-dollar mini-series prepared for the History channel, suggests it will offer a sweeping inside look at the backrooms and bedrooms of that political clan. There are stylized re-enactments of the life of President John F. Kennedy and his family, and a title card that reads, “Behind the public image lies the story of an American dynasty.”...
n February a group of historians organized by a liberal filmmaker, Robert Greenwald, issue
Source: Newark Advocate
1-19-11
NEWARK -- Mitch Lerner's classroom in Ohio State University at Newark's Reese Center looked a little bit different Tuesday morning.
Two giant light stands, two cameras and a Columbus-based film crew filled half of the room, taping a lecture titled, "The Roots of Progressive Reform," for the C-SPAN program, "Lectures in History."
"I had not anticipated such an impressive (display)," Lerner told his freshman history class. "When I'm a bi
Source: Institute for the Study of the Americas
1-17-11
In 1960, US political scientist Richard Neustadt began his seminal book, Presidential Power,
with the observation: “In the United States we like to ‘rate’ a President. We measure him as
‘weak’ or ‘strong’ and call what we are measuring his ‘leadership.’” In the half century since
then, systematic presidential rating has become a regular exercise for US scholars. Over the
same period, study and research of US history and politics expanded dramatically in UK
universities. Until no
Source: The Atlanta Post
1-18-11
He’ll rack up on the speakers’ circuit. He’s one of the world’s most gift orators. So, money won’t be an issue.
Neither will his age. When he leaves the ...White House — in either 2013, or 2017, at the age of 52 or 56, depending on the outcome of the next election — he will still have a dangerous jump-shot and a bop in his walk, and his children will still be youngsters.
“He’ll be a relatively young ex-President, so he’ll have a long career,” said Alan Brinkley, a histo
Source: Trend (Azerbaijan)
1-17-11
Former general secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, must take the primary responsibility for the 20 January tragedy, he should be punished in accordance with international law, doctor of historical sciences, Professor Jamil Hasanli, told Trend.
"It should be noted that this issue was discussed at the Politburo, which was considered the supreme organ of the Party, and the defense ministry was directly instructed to enforce this decision, and Baku was
Source: Washington Examiner
1-16-11
Craig Shirley, a Washington public affairs executive and author of two books on President Reagan, says the former president's son has no evidence to base his allegation that his father was afflicted by Alzheimer's Disease as early as his first term in the White House.
"Ronald Reagan deeply loved his son, Ronald Prescott and indeed all of his children. He demonstrated that love in countless ways throughout his life. If one reads President Reagan's diaries from 1981 until 1989, t
Source: Guardian (UK)
1-16-11
Hampstead Heath, in leafy north London, is proud of its walk-on part in the history of Marxism. It was here, on a Sunday, that Karl Marx would walk his family up Parliament Hill, reciting Shakespeare and Schiller along the way, for an afternoon of picnics and poetry. On a weekday, he would join his friend Friedrich Engels, who lived close by, for a brisk hike around the heath, where the"old Londoners", as they were known, mulled over the Paris Commune, the Second International and the nature of
Source: NYT
1-13-11
[A] reporter invited Mr. Caro to join her for a sneak peek at the budding musical, “Robert Moses Astride New York,” a work in progress that will have its world premiere in a one-night-only free performance at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan.
Bridges rise;
Roads blast through;
Parks blossom:
Triborough, Whitestone, Throgs Neck, Verrazano;
Northern State, Southern State, Saw Mill, Henry Hudson;
Source: Politico
1-14-11
Two weeks after President Barack Obama returned from a Hawaiian vacation spent reading a 900-page biography of Ronald Reagan, he delivered a speech in Tucson, Ariz., Wednesday that incorporated, but didn’t parrot, the gilded, common-touch oratory of the 40th president.
The pageantry and patter of the Oval Office that came so naturally to Reagan and Bill Clinton haven’t come quite as easily to Obama, an electrifying campaign performer who is finally mastering the intimate, idiosyncra
Source: HNN Staff
1-7-11
The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University announced this evening that the fundraising drive to rename the CHNM after its late founder, Roy Rosenzweig, has reached $950,000, only $50,000 short of the $1 million goal.Jack Censer, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, and Gary Kornblith, professor of history at Oberlin College, made the announcement at a reception to celebrate the posthumous release of Dr. Rosenzwei
Source: US News & World Report
1-14-11
...Before World War II, about 25 percent of Americans were in multigenerational households. After the war, rising affluence and a mobile society led to a steady decline. "In 2008, an estimated 49 million Americans, or 16 percent of the total U.S. population, lived in a family household that contained at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation," the Pew Research Center reported in a study last year. "In 1980, this figure was just 28 million, o
Source: FoneHome (UK)
1-14-11
...[I]t’s an interactive book on the subject of, you guessed it, the war in the Pacific....
...The whole app has been compiled by Richard Overy, Professor of History at the University of Exeter. You can’t get much more credible than that. It’s a fresh new move from one of the best iPhone game makers out there, and is available now for £5.99.
Source: The Daily Caller
1-12-11
As the shock wanes from the aftermath of Saturday’s Tucson tragedy, how might this event be remembered historically?
According to noted historian Douglas Brinkley, a fellow at the Baker Institute and a professor of history at Rice University, it will rank up there with one of the bloodiest times in U.S. history, the Civil Rights Era in Alabama, including the September 15, 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham and the March 7, 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma....
Source: OC Weekly
1-12-11
The Weekly has chimed in when author/KPFK radio host/UC Irvine history professor Jon Wiener has pressed the federal government to release secret FBI files on John Lennon, academia to better police historians and
Source: NPR.org
1-12-11
When Sarah Palin accused journalists and pundits of "blood libel" in the wake of the deadly Arizona shootings, she reached deep into one of medieval history's most sordid chapters to make her point.
The term "blood libel" is not well known, but it is highly charged — a direct reference to a time when many European Christians accused Jews of kidnapping and murdering Christian children to obtain their blood. Jews were tortured and executed for crimes they did not c
