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: InsideHigherEd.com
1-7-10
The American Historical Association kicks off its annual meeting today, in San Diego, amid signs that it will be the latest disciplinary group to see a significant drop in attendance. AHA officials stress that they get hundreds of on-site registrations most years, sometimes even 1,000. But as of Jan. 1, 3,705 people had pre-registered. That's down from 5,400 last year (a meeting held in New York City, considered a major draw, and 4,366 the year before, in Washington. Of course many believe that
Source: Historiann (Blog)
1-7-10
From a distance, of course–Potterville is about 1,137 miles away, 4,659 feet higher, and 70 degrees colder than San Diego this morning. Damn! but I wish I were waking up in the Hotel del Coronado today. It’s -11 here now–but it will be sunny, at least! The sun is about the only thing San Diego will have in common today with the High Plains Sub-Zero Freezer we’re locked in until the weekend. Classy Claude will be filing a first-person report later this weekend, if he can peel himself off the
Source: Marc Bousquet at Brainstorm (Blog)
1-7-10
My piece questioning the supply-side bent to the American Historical Association's 2010 job report has gotten thoughtful replies by historiann, Alan Baumler, Jonathan Rees, Ellen Schrecker, Sandy Thatcher and others, both at my home blog and here at Brainstorm.
I really appreciate these thoughts, and want to emphasize how much I respect Townsend's work for AHA over the years, including his parsing of the data on many fronts-especially "privilege," which I believe informs h
Source: Brainstorm (Blog)
1-6-10
A funny thing happened on the way to the AHA this year -- American Historical Association staffer Robert B. Townsend issued his annual report on tenure-track employment in the field. Unsurprisingly, he concluded that holders of freshly minted doctorates face grim prospects. What raised my eyebrows -- and those of many others doing scholarship in academic labor -- was his insistence that the labor market for faculty in history is a matter of an "oversupply" of persons holding doctorates
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
1-7-10
Professional historians usually concern themselves with the past, but this week in San Diego they’ll be immersed in one of the most contentious issues of the present — same-sex marriage.
The annual convention of the 125-year-old American Historical Association, held here for the first time, will feature a 15-session “mini-convention” on various aspects of matrimony, including how its definition has evolved through time.
These free meetings, which start today and are ope
Source: Dave Lieberson, writing for HNN
1-7-10
[Dave Lieberson is an HNN intern.]
With the decade officially over we are forced to endure the lists created by mainstream media reminding us of the many notable people who have passed away. While they include many historically influential men and women like President Reagan and journalist Walter Cronkite, the lists are also inflated by the many not-so-relevant pop stars, actors, musicians and sports stars. Lost from the ranks of great historians in the last decade were,
Source: John Fea at The Way of Improvement Leads Home (Blog)
12-30-09
I have now had two readers ask me to do a post or two about interviewing at the American Historical Association annual meeting. I was unsure if I was really qualified to do this kind of thing, but then my wife reminded me that I have had many, many AHA interviews over the years and might have something worthwhile to say on the subject. I have had interviews at research universities, non Ph.D-granting state schools, liberal arts colleges, and church-related colleges. I have advanced to on-campus
Source: New York Times
1-5-10
Ihor Sevcenko, a leading scholar of Byzantine and Slavic history and literature who as a young man persuaded George Orwell to collaborate with him on a Ukrainian translation of “Animal Farm” for distribution to refugees, died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Dec. 26. He was 87.
The cause was bone cancer, said his daughter Catherine.
Mr. Sevcenko (pronounced EE-gore Shev-CHEN-ko) was unrivaled among Byzantinists for the breadth of his linguistic expertise and the vari
Source: Washington Post
1-1-10
Margaret Garritsen deVries, 87, an economist and historian at the International Monetary Fund, died of pneumonia Dec. 18 at Suburban Hospital. She lived in Bethesda.
Dr. deVries was among the first employees hired by the IMF, joining it as an economist in 1946. She represented the agency on missions to Mexico, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Turkey, Israel, Yugoslavia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
She was appointed assistant chief of the multiple exchange rate division
Source: AHA Perspectives on History
1-4-10
[Robert B. Townsend, the AHA’s assistant director for research and publications, received his PhD from George Mason University in May 2009. Directory Editor Liz Townsend and Staff Assistant Maddalena Marinari assisted with the data gathering for this report.]
The number of job openings in history plummeted last year, even as the number of new history PhDs soared. As a result, it appears the discipline is entering one of the most difficult academic job markets for historians in more
Source: Telegraph (UK)
1-3-10
A historian claims to have conclusively proved the identity of the "Man Who Never Was", whose body was used in a spectacular plot to deceive the Germans over the invasion of Sicily in the Second World War, Ian Johnston reports.
It was a turning point in the Second World War. As the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943, they wanted to dupe the Germans into thinking that their attack would be aimed elsewhere.
To carry out the deception, a plan was concocted
Source: ANI
1-2-10
Claims stating that Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual have been dismissed by acclaimed historian Harold Holzer.
Holzer, a scholar on Lincoln and the political culture of the American Civil War Era, trashed the claim made by playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer, who alleged that George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Lewis and Clark and Lincoln were all interested in men.
"I had a private conversation with him [Kramer]," the New York Post quoted Holzer as
Source: UPI
1-1-10
Israeli historian Alexander Yakobson says if the historic region of Palestine is divided into two states, it should be done without removing settlers.
Yakobson said told Friday's Haaretz evacuating settlers from the region is impractical, instead suggesting settlers remain where they currently are and simply exist as a Jewish minority in a new Palestinian state.
Israeli soldiers will simply withdraw to the new border to exist on territory where Israel has sovereignty, Y
Source: AHA Blog
12-30-09
The AHA’s 124th Annual Meeting, taking place this January 7-10th in San Diego, is just over a week away. Have you had a chance to register?During the Annual Meeting, posts at AHA Today will cover meeting highlights, news, and perhaps even a few San Diego points of interest. Check each morning, Thursday through Su
Source: NYT
12-31-09
In the fall of 2003, the new commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, decided on a new strategy. Known as counterinsurgency, the approach required coalition forces to work closely with Afghan leaders to stabilize entire regions, rather than simply attacking insurgent cells.
But there was a major drawback, a new unpublished Army history of the war concludes. Because the Pentagon insisted on maintaining a “small footprint” in Afghanistan and because Iraq w
Source: DanielPipes.org
12-30-09
A startling fact just emerged in the course of some routine maintenance work on the mailing lists for www.DanielPipes.org: One "Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan" has been subscribed as nidalhasan@aol.com since March 2009 to all the Middle East Forum mailing lists, including my own. He opened some but not many of the mailings.
In addition to the name, there are several reasons to think this is the butcher
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz
12-27-09
A second plagiarism row has engulfed book publishers Penguin, with allegations a book about 19th century Maori land wars was withdrawn and republished because its author, a senior Victoria University historian, plagiarised parts of it.
The case comes less than two months after leading New Zealand writer Witi Ihimaera admitted his latest novel, The Trowenna Sea, contained plagiarised material, and vowed to buy back remaining copies of the book and republish it with full acknowledgmen
Source: New York Review of Books
1-14-10
I suffer from a motor neuron disorder, in my case a variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Lou Gehrig's disease. Motor neuron disorders are far from rare: Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and a variety of lesser diseases all come under that heading. What is distinctive about ALS—the least common of this family of neuro-muscular illnesses—is firstly that there is no loss of sensation (a mixed blessing) and secondly that there is no pain. In contrast to almost every other serious
Source: http://www.dancohen.org
12-22-09
Out of hundreds of sessions at the 2010 American Historical Association annual meeting, nine are on digital matters. Nine. I’m on one-third of the sessions. It’s 2010, and academic historians seem to feel that digital media and technology are not worth discussing, and that we can just go on doing what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, for another hundred years. For comparison, the 2009 MLA has th
Source: AHA Blog
12-29-09
Thomas Babington Macaulay was a 19th-century British historian, essayist, and politician best remembered for his multi-volume History of England and implementation of a penal code that remains the law in India and South Asia today. But as Robert E. Sullivan (Univ. of Notre Dame) shows, there was much more to the man whose thoughts on race, subjugation, civilizing, and imperial slaughter have eluded past biographers. Through examination of Macaulay’s private letters and diaries, Sullivan has unea
