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: PSNews
9-29-09
The Australian War Memorial has established a new award to promote and develop research into Australian military history.
The Bryan Gandevia Award is a biennial prize to be given to an outstanding postgraduate history thesis in the fields of military or military-medical history.
The prize commemorates Professor Gandevia, a former member of the Australian War Memorial Board, respiratory physician and Australian Army Major who served in Japan and Korea.
Source: Minivan News
9-28-09
A prominent historian has broken his silence on Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s regime to the ruling Maldivian Democracy Party, calling for justice against the former president.
In a letter to MP for Hulu-Henveiru Reeko Moosa Manik, 82-year-old Shafeeg ge Shafeeg writes that under the previous government, police raided his house and confiscated numerous diaries detailing his life and social events since he left school.
Prompted by the recent discovery of human remains on the fo
Source: Breaking News 24/7
9-28-09
LONDON - A new book by a historian has claimed that the mythical King Arthur was actually a "genocidal warlord whose deeds would have been the stuff of Nuremburg trials today."
According to a report in the Telegraph, Dr Simon Young, a historian and expert in Celtic studies, claims in 'The Celtic Revolution' that the valiant English hero of modern legend bears no resemblance to the historical reality.
Young said that Arthur was a hero of a very different kind f
Source: NYT
9-25-09
FOR Michael B. Oren, the hardest thing about becoming Israel’s ambassador to the United States was giving up his American citizenship, a solemn ritual that involves signing an oath of renunciation. He said he got through it with the help of friends from the American Embassy in Tel Aviv who “stayed with me, and hugged me when it was over.”
Born in upstate New York, raised in suburban New Jersey and educated at Columbia and Princeton Universities, Mr. Oren considers himself genuinely
Source: Haaretz
9-27-09
WASHINGTON, D.C. - His office in the embassy - with the picture of Israel's president hanging above the desk, a statuette of appreciation from the Nahal Brigade behind it and a long row of books - is probably not too different from the offices of ambassadors the world over. But the tasks confronted by Israel's top diplomat to the United States, Michael Oren, are entirely different. Since taking over the job in May, he hasn't had a moment of peace and quiet. Nonetheless, he says, "There are
Source: Chicago Reader
9-24-09
n the 1980s, D. Bradford Hunt was a Hinsdale high schooler tasting the freedom of a driver's license by tooling around Chicago in the family car. Nothing he saw on his excursions struck him as more interesting than the clusters of towers that made up public housing projects like Cabrini-Green, Stateway Gardens, and the Robert Taylor Homes. "I didn't even know what their names were at the time," he says. But "you couldn't help but go, 'Whoa!'"
Crowds of people app
Source: Columbia University Press website
7-1-09
Q: Is there any need for a new book on Japanese Americans and World War II? Many have already been written, including one by you. Hasn’t everything important already been said about
Source: Charlottesville Daily Progress
9-25-09
Merrill D. Peterson, a noted Thomas Jefferson scholar and University of Virginia history professor, died Wednesday in Charlottesville.
He was 88.
Peterson was author or editor of 37 books, including the definitive Library of America edition of the writings of Thomas Jefferson and a 1994 study of Abraham Lincoln titled “Lincoln in American Memory” that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
UVa’s Board of Visitors established a professorship in his name eigh
Source: NYT
9-24-09
Milton Meltzer, a historian and prolific author of nonfiction books for young people who helped start a movement away from the arid textbook style of the past, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.
The cause was esophageal cancer, his daughter Jane Assimacopoulos said.
“Meltzer was one of the first in a new wave of nonfiction writers who brought lively and passionate writing, grounded in original source material, to middle-grade students and young adults, w
Source: The Consumerist
9-24-09
Historians and conservationists have united in Virginia against a common foe: Walmart, which wants to build a 38,000-square-foot Supercenter near near Wilderness Battlefield, a Civil War site and National Park. The groups filed a suit on Wednesday charging local officials with brushing aside concerns about the site when they approved Walmart's plans in August.
Historians consider the Battle of the Wilderness, fought on the Locust Grove, VA, site in 1864, a key turning point in the C
Source: The Chronicles of Higher Education
9-21-09
The National Endowment for the Humanities is going semi-transparent with its grants. Its new Web site allows people to search for recipeints of NEH money by name, by field of inquiry, by date of award, or by institution. Do you want to know who is getting $30,000 to work on a cultural history of Russian food? It is Darra J. Goldstein of Williams College.
Utah Valley State College got $123,456 for a project on "Fostering Coherence in the Humanities through History of Civilizatio
Source: The Society of American Archivists (homepage)
9-24-09
CHICAGO—The Society of American Archivists (SAA) has issued “Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices,” a 16-page report that provides what professional archivists consider the best methods to use when attempting to identify and locate copyright holders. The statement, which primarily focuses on unpublished materials because they are usually found in archives, is available on the association’s website as a PDF at http://www.archivists.org/standards
Source: MyFox8.com
9-23-09
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — The source material that historian Taylor Branch used for his book on the Clinton presidency will soon be available at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Wednesday that the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and 1968 UNC graduate has given those papers to the school's Southern Historical Collection. They'll be available publicly beginning Jan. 4.
Source: The Malta Independent Online
9-23-09
“The choice of a national day is a political decision which ought to be historically-based. It is hardly the archbishop’s business to pontificate about it,” said historian Henry Frendo when contacted by The Malta Independent.
Prof. Frendo was commenting on the Archbishop’s homily to churchgoers including Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat, during the Independence Day Pontifical Mass at St John’s Co-Cathedral.
Archbishop Paul Cremona, OP, s
Source: Today.az
9-22-09
Azerbaijani Member of Parliament and historian Fazail Ibrahimli spoke to Day.Az in an interview.Day.Az: In recent times distortion of history in the pages of Wikipedia has become frequent. What, in your opinion, the purpose of distorting historical facts in this and other online resources?
Fazail Ibrahimli: Although there is a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia, an information war is going on. All of these conversations, speeches, distorted facts, false info
Source: Columbia Journalism Review
9-22-09
As the recent scandals surrounding the green-jobs advocate Van Jones and the community organizing group ACORN have shown, even under a Democratic White House and Congress, the conservative media have an ability to place a story on the national agenda. Those episodes have also prompted some mainstream media outlets to examine their own practices. A recent column by Washington Post ombudsman Andy Alexander reported that the paper’s executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, pressed his staff for more ACOR
Source: Columbia University Press
9-22-09
The following is an interview with Greg Robinson, author of A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese Confinement in North AmericaQ: Is there any need for a new book on Japanese Americans and World War II? Many have already been written, including one by you. Hasn’t everything important already been said about Executive Order 9066 and the camps?
Greg Robinson: Actually, this book contains a great deal of recently discovered material about Japanese Americans. Part of it is
Source: DailyRecord.co.uk
9-22-09
SNOOTY telly historian David Starkey has launched another bitter rant against Scotland.
The arrogant academic said devolution had turned Scotland into a "medieval" nation more obsessed with itself than the outside world...
... In his latest interview, he defended the earlier slur.
He said: "I would say that Scotland's decisions with the Libyan bomber confirms everything I said about them.
"If you want to see what happens whe
Source: DesMoinesRegister.com
9-22-09
Iowa City, Ia. -The founding director of the papermaking facilities at the University of Iowa Center for the Book is among 24 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius grants."
The $500,000 fellowships are to be announced today by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago.
For Timothy Barrett, 59, the grant means more research into how paper was made centuries ago, further unlocking the secrets of the process.
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Source: Jacksonsun.com (Jackson, TN)
9-22-09
Madison County Commissioner Gary Deaton told the commission Monday that he wants the county's official historian, Linda Higgins, to explain her sympathetic comments about Jackson native and former White House green jobs adviser Van Jones. If she is lacking an explanation, Deaton said Higgins should resign.
Deaton, a Republican, said he wants to put the discussion on October's commission agenda.
Jones, a University of Tennessee Martin and Jackson Central-Merry High Schoo
