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: Robert Townsend in the AHA magazine, Perspectives on History
9-1-09
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Inside Higher Ed: The Economic Freeze on History
Heading into the new academic year, history departments across the country are struggling through a wide range of cuts and general uncertainty about their departmental budgets. The effects of the current down economy seem to be affecting most departments—whether large, medium, or small, and at private as well as p
Source: Inside Higher Ed
9-14-09
More than two-thirds of history departments are experiencing budget cuts that have "required real reductions in resources, faculty and staff," according to a survey released Friday by the American Historical Association.
The AHA sent surveys to 110 departments and received responses from 63, in an attempt to measure the impact the current economic downturn is having. Only five departments reported being relatively untouched, and another 15 characterized their cuts as "
Source: The Sikh Times
9-14-09
A renowned Sikh author has been short listed for the annual EDP-Jarrold East Anglian Book Awards, for his book on Maharajah Duleep Singh
Peter Bance is a historian who has shattered the glass ceiling in western journalism, publishing a book on the life of Maharajah Duleep Singh, the youngest son of the Maharajah Rajit Singh, king of the Sikh Kingdom, which ended in 1849
It's the biggest celebration of the best in new East Anglian writing - and has reveal the shortlisted
Source: Time Magazine
9-14-09
For more than 30 years, filmmaker Ken Burns has been creating award-winning documentaries on topics ranging from the Brooklyn Bridge to baseball. In his latest project, Burns used more than six years worth of footage and dozens of interviews to explore the creation of America's national park system, the first such effort in history. The 12-part series, “America's Best Idea,” airs Sept. 27 on PBS.
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Source: Steven Plaut at frontpagemag.com
9-9-09
Tony Judt is a Jewish British professor of history now at New York University. He was born in the same year as Israel. He has devoted his recent years trying to lay the groundwork for Israel’s death. Although cloaking his arguments in sophisticated post modern discourse, he has acted as an intellectual collaborator with Islamists seeking to wipe Israelis and Jews generally off the face of the map. Because he has been called on the implications of his steady and increasingly radical attacks o
Source: The Sun
9-15-09
The Lost Symbol is expected to make claims about the influence of secret organisation the freemasons on US leaders.
And it is tipped to brand first President George Washington a TRAITOR.
Freemasons have been accused of influencing judges, police, civil servants and academics.
The 1.5million members of America's 2,000 lodges are also regularly accused of occultism and Satanism, which they strongly deny.
British historian and Masonic expert Ashle
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
9-14-09
When the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's landing in New York takes place this month, there is a good chance that an elementary-school student will know more about the man than you do. Why? Simply put, explorers fascinate children (and other nonacademic readers) but rarely make their way inside the walls of the university. Academic historians tend to analyze the forces that shaped earlier societies, such as colonialism or imperialism. We train our graduate students to investigate new approach
Source: Press Release
9-14-09
Alger Hiss has been dead now for over a decade, yet, the controversy over his life and activities continues to stir the emotions of aging liberals, die-hard conservatives, several generations of history buffs, and serious students of Cold War America. R. Bruce Craig, past Executive Director of the National History Coalition and now a professor of history at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada has signed a contract with Chicago publisher Ivan R. Dee, to write a new biography of Alge
Source: NYT
9-11-09
Nicholas Thompson is not bragging when he says that his new book about the two master builders of America’s cold war strategy, Paul Nitze and George Kennan, could have been written only by him.
After all, Mr. Thompson is Nitze’s grandson, and he had access to all of his grandfather’s personal papers and letters, as well as to his family, his closest friends, even to his opponents, the old Soviet warriors who sat opposite him at the negotiating table.
“I did about 150 in
Source: Free Speech Radio News
9-11-09
[Audio: 6:08 minutes]
Nine-eleven commemorations across the country have focused on those who died and their families. Some critics say we should pay greater attention to those who survived.
Historian and writer Rebecca Solnit recently published a book on people's reaction to terrorist attacks and natural disasters. In Paradise in Hell Solnit argues that eve
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
9-12-09
Campaign Talk: Why Elections are Good for Us by Roderick Hart was named the best political communication book of the last decade by the American Political Science Association.
Hart conducts a long-term (1948-1996) analysis of thousands of texts from several genres of campaign discourse -- including campaign speeches, print and television news coverage, debates, advertisements and letters to the editor -- with a computerized content analysis program and sheds light on the important
Source: AngolaPress
9-11-09
Luanda – Angolan historian Júlio Mendes defended on Friday in Luanda that the legacy of the poet and first President of Angola, António Agostinho Neto, needs a deeper research in order to pass them to future generations.
Júlio Mendes, who is also a lecturer at Higher Institute for Educational Sciences (ISCED), defended this stand whilst addressing the workshop on "Agostinho Neto, national and foreign cultural values" at the auditorium of Oscar Ribas University.
Source: Bernard A. Weisberger in American Heritage
8-17-09
IN HIS MARVELOUS MEMOIR, Flights of Passage, my friend and onetime colleague Samuel Hynes, a Marine Corps combat aviator in World War II, writes that the war is the shared secret of his generation—those young men who came of age between December 7, 1941, and September 2, 1945. For those of the approximately 12 million Americans in uniform for some or all of those years, it was an experience both personal and collective like nothing before or after. Those who went through the hell of combat carry
Source: USPRWire
9-10-09
Historian John Hafnor studied the British and American book covers and various clues in advance of the September 15 release of The Lost Symbol, and offers a prediction on Dan Brown’s theme for the new blockbuster:
“The Da Vinci Code’s overarching premise was an Old World clash of religion and science,” Hafnor said, “while the fresh theme for The Lost Symbol is likely to be a uniquely American power struggle between secret societies and the experiment known as democracy.”
Source: Winnipeg Free Press
9-9-09
A prominent Winnipeg author has signed with a Toronto publisher to write a popular biography of one of Canada's greatest prime ministers.
Allan Levine hopes to finish his one-volume book about William Lyon Mackenzie King in time for fall 2012 publication by Douglas & McIntyre.
D&M issued a news release on the signing Wednesday.
"It's really the history of Canada in the first half of the 20th century," said Levine, 53, who has previously pu
Source: Press Release--George Mason University's Center for History and New Media
9-9-09
The Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, signaling the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era in transatlantic relations and European unity. November 9, 2009 celebrates 20 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down. Long a symbol of isolation and contention, the Berlin Wall now symbolizes hope, change and unity. Students at more than 25 US universities will celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by organizing Campus Weeks with financial and organizatio
Source: WMU News
9-9-09
KALAMAZOO--A geoscientist known for his wide-ranging research and a historian specializing in the events of modern Japan will be honored as emerging faculty scholars by Western Michigan University on Thursday, Sept. 10, during a campuswide awards ceremony.
Dr. G. Michael Grammer, associate professor of geosciences, and Dr. Takashi Yoshida, associate professor of history, will be presented the Emerging Faculty Scholar Award during WMU's Academic Convocation ceremonies beginning at 3:
Source: Jewish Info News
9-2-09
Arnold Reisman is a distinguished American scholar and author. His latest book, “Shoah: Turkey, the US and the UK,” due to be published late September by BookSurge and available on Amazon, addresses the little known role that the Republic of Turkey played in saving Jewish lives before, during, and for three years after WWII.
Reisman explains that the job of the historian is to write about history. By reproducing a multitude of archival documents and testimonies, most of which have
Source: John V. Pickstone, University of Manchester, writing for H-Net
9-4-09
Olga Amsterdamska, sociologist of science and historian of science and medicine, died Thursday, August 27, 2009, from cardiac insufficiency, a complication of myositis.
Olga was born in Lodz, Poland in 1953. She studied philosophy and sociology at Yale University (BA, 1975) and completed her graduate education in sociology at Columbia (PhD 1984). Her dissertation, written under the supervision of Robert K. Merton, was published as Schools of Thought: The Development of Linguistics
Source: The Bee
9-2-09
The OMNIMAX Theater at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) was filled with people who came to hear internationally renowned authority on space exploration and NASA historian Andrew Chaikin speak, on July 28.
Chaikin's books include the best-selling chronicle of the Apollo moon missions “A Man on the Moon”, which served as the primary basis for Tom Hanks’ Emmy-winning HBO miniseries, “From the Earth to the Moon”.
“We look for opportunities to bring acknowled
