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: Independent (UK)
5-14-10
It isn't every day that one interviews a figure described on an official British Council website as "notorious". That badge, which this fearsome foe of drippy-liberal state culture will wear with pride, comes inadvertently via Robert Harris. In his novel Archangel, Harris created the "dissolute historian" (© the British Council and our taxes) Fluke Kelso: an "engaging, wilful, impassioned and irreverent" maverick on the trail of Stalin's secret papers.
Source: Irish Central
5-14-10
An influential Washington Post columnist has likened Bono to Abraham Lincoln and said he is a great world leader.
Nancy F. Koehn, a historian, at the Harvard Business School, and author, celebrated Bono’s 50th birthday by celebrating the Irish musician and campaigner for his great skills as a leader.
She said “Bono, like Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago, has not let himself become isolated in an elite atmosphere. He has used his touring and travels as classrooms to help hi
Source: NYT
5-13-10
If someone was an important figure in American culture in the 20th century, chances are he or she was interviewed by Studs Terkel.
Conversations with Rosa Parks, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr. and Louis Armstrong are among the nearly 6,000 hours of interviews conducted by Mr. Terkel, the colorful Chicago author and oral historian, for WFMT radio from 1952 to 1997.
Under a deal signed Monday between the Chicago History Museum and the Library of Congress, tapes of tho
Source: Kuensel Newspaper
5-14-10
The essence of democracy is discourse, disagreement and debate, through which to equip citizens with critical wisdom to make crucial decision that concerns the community they form.
For that to happen, a democratic society must encourage public spaces, in which numerous ideas and opinions on issues facing the nation could come into play.
However the idea of public space, professor of history, emeritus, Stanford university, California, Mark Mancall said, has never been fu
Source: WaPo
5-14-10
Norman A. Graebner, 94, who shaped the field of diplomatic history with his critiques of American foreign policy, died May 10 at the Colonnades retirement community in Charlottesville after a stroke.
Dr. Graebner was a professor of history at the University of Virginia from 1967 to 1982 and an emeritus professor thereafter. He taught at a number of schools, including the University of Illinois and Iowa State University....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
5-13-10
The Soviet Union was on the brink of launching a nuclear attack against China in 1969 and only backed down after the US told Moscow such a move would start World War Three, according to a Chinese historian....
Liu Chenshan, the author of a series of articles that chronicle the five times China has faced a nuclear threat since 1949, wrote that the most serious threat came in 1969 at the height of a bitter border dispute between Moscow and Beijing that left more than one thousand peop
Source: Robert Townsend in Perspectives
4-22-10
[Robert Townsend is the AHA’s assistant director for research and publications.]
Historians in academia saw little, if any improvement in their wages over the past academic year, as average salaries for regular full-time faculty at most ranks grew by less than 1 percent according to a new study from the College and University Personnel Association for Human Resources (CUPA–HR). This represents the smallest average increase in salaries for historians in 15 years.
To make
Source: Spiegel Online
5-6-10
Historian Nikolai Svanidze spoke to SPIEGEL about the reasons for Stalin's popularity in Russia. He argues that the archives need to be opened in order to reveal the dictator's crimes and explains why President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have very different approaches to Russian history.
SPIEGEL: How does one explain that Stalinists or Stalin apologists are a largely accepted part of the political landscape in Russia?
Nikolai Svanidze: Because Sta
Source: NY Daily News
5-11-10
RESCUE HISTORIC buildings from demolition. Uncover long-lost facts. Captivate tourists through lectures and tours.
Just don't expect a paycheck.
The role of borough historian doesn't come with a salary - but it's a bully pulpit from which many have documented and saved underappreciated sites.
"Queens isn't going to slide into Long Island Sound if there's no borough historian, but it's a nice resource," said Michael Miscione, Manhattan's official h
Source: Tibetan Review
5-11-10
A famous Chinese history teacher has openly called Mao Zedong a dictator who massacred people. He has said the only right thing he did since founding the PRC in 1949 was his death, according to Global Times, international edition of China’s party mouthpiece People’s Daily, May 8.
"If you want to see Mao, you can go to his mausoleum at the Tiananmen Square. But don't forget it's a Chinese version of the Yasukuni Shrine, which glorifies Mao, under whose hands many people were mas
Source: Kansas City Star
5-9-10
...A study by Naomi Oreskes, professor of history and science studies at the University of California-San Diego, found 928 peer-reviewed articles on climate change; none opposed the unanimous conclusion that human-released greenhouse gases are affecting our climate.
With data gathered from ice cores, tree rings, and coral, climatologists have been able to accurately reconstruct temperature fluctuations over the past 1,000 years. The data confirms what James Inhofe, Glenn Beck, Rush
Source: Panorama.am
5-11-10
Dr. Taner Akcam, one of the first Turkish scholars to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, delivered two important lectures in Southern California last week. Based on historical research, he analyzed the underpinnings of Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide and proposed solutions for its official acknowledgment.
Prof. Akcam made his first presentation at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino on May 6, before the screening of Dr. J. Michael Hagopian’s Genocide documentary “The River Ran Red
Source: Huffington Post
5-10-10
"I think it's a home run."
That was the reaction of David Greenberg, professor of history and journalism at Rutgers University, to the news that President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.
"She's young, liberal, eminently qualified and personally appealing," Greenberg added.
So at age 50, Solictor General Kagan becomes only the fourth woman nominated to the nation's highest court; two of those nominations coming within th
Source: Press Release
5-10-10
Z STREET awarded Daniel Pipes, the Director of the Middle East Forum and pre-eminent Middle East scholar, its first annual Z STREET Peace Plan Prize for his article, “My Peace Plan: an Israeli Victory.” Z STREET is a staunchly pro-Israel organization.
In his article Pipes explains that throughout history, what had been intractable conflicts were resolved only when the victor caused his enemy to abandon his war goals.
“Evidence that the Arab Palestinians already know
Source: Radio Times (UK)
5-8-10
“It’s almost impossible to recapture how strongly people felt about the defense of their system, their civilization,” Professor Richard Overy told RT, explaining why the war was fought with such ferocity.
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Prof Overy, who has written on the history of WWII, thinks the close cooperation of the anti-Hitler allies made it possible to stop the worst war in history....
Source: Irish Times
5-8-10
LIKE SIR Walter Elliott in Jane Austen’s Persuasion , many of the owners of country houses in Ireland have “found consolation and an interest that never fails” in reading the history of their family in Burke’s Irish Family Records.
Mark Bence-Jones, the genealogical researcher who has died at the age of 79, was the most eminent historian of the social mores of the Irish ascendancy in its decline over the last 100 years.
His most important and popular book is The Guide t
Source: NYT
5-7-10
[David Brooks is a columnist for the New York Times.]
They say that intellectual history travels slowly, and by hearse. The old generation has to die off before a new set of convictions can rise and replace entrenched ways of thinking. People also say that a large organization is like an aircraft carrier. You can move the rudder, but it still takes a long time to turn it around.
Yet we have a counterexample right in front of us. Five years ago, the United States Army wa
Source: Epoch Times
5-5-10
As Canada and its Second World War allies prepare to celebrate the 65th Anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day on May 8, the Netherlands is honouring a Canadian military historian with a knighthood.
Dr. Dean Oliver, director of research and exhibitions at the Canadian War Museum, has received the Dutch honour, Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau.
The esteemed decoration is bestowed by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands on Dutch citizens and foreign nationals who have
Source: Telegraph (UK)
5-6-10
Terry Dean travelled to in San Sebastian, the capital city of the Basque Country, to pay his respects to Sir Gilbert Mackereth, who won the Military Cross for gallantry as a member of the 17th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
Mr Dean left a note by the soldier’s resting place detailing his admiration for Sir Gilbert, who had died in retirement in Spain, and chronicling his heroics on the Western Front.
But, on Mr Dean’s return to his home in Preston, Lancs, the local his
Source: NYT
4-26-10
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.
“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter....
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corp
