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: NYT
4-18-09
Samuel H. Beer, a leading American expert on British government and politics who was a longtime professor of government at Harvard and who led the liberal organization Americans for Democratic Action from 1959 to 1962, died April 7 at his home in Washington. He was 97 and lived in Washington and Cambridge, Mass.
The death was confirmed by his wife, Jane K. Brooks. For 30 years, Mr. Beer taught “Western Thought and Institutions,” a legendary course that combined history, political t
Source: Jonathan Schanzer at Campus Watch
4-19-09
[The writer, an adjunct scholar at www.Campus-Watch.org, is director of policy for the Jewish Policy Center and author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (Palgrave). JPC intern Samara Greenberg contributed to this article.]
Rashid Khalidi, the former PLO spokesman-turned Columbia University professor, is convinced that Israel has constructed a "matrix of control" in the Middle East. Khalidi once cited books and articles
Source: Joseph Nye Jr. in the WaPo
4-13-09
President Obama has appointed some distinguished academic economists and lawyers to his administration, but few high-ranking political scientists have been named. In fact, the editors of a recent poll of more than 2,700 international relations experts declared that "the walls surrounding the ivory tower have never seemed so high."
While important American scholars such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski took high-level foreign policy positions in the past, that pat
Source: Ruth Rosen at her blog at TPMCafe
4-17-09
The memos about torture released by the Obama administration are horrifying to read. Nothing new, here, but they are like a punch in the stomach all over again. This is my country? This is the nation that stands for freedom and decency?
I understand why President Obama doesn't want to prosecute those who believed they were acting under laws written by the Office of Legal Counsel. But that is not the only policy he and other Democrats can pursue.
First, the men who wrote
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
4-17-09
Six years ago this month, the National Museum of Iraq was extensively looted amid the chaos of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. Among the stolen objects was the Mask of Warka, a 5,100-year-old Sumerian artifact that is believed to be one of the earliest surviving representations of a human face. The mask was found buried on an Iraqi farm five months later — but thousands of other precious objects were destroyed or disappeared into the black market.
"We do not know, and we may neve
Source: Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post
4-17-09
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has just posted a Blair Mountain Battlefield petition, which calls on the state of West Virginia and private property owners to keep the site of one of the most important and historic American labor conflicts on the National Register.
Why is Blair Mountain important today?
Threatened by possible mountaintop removal strip mining operations, Blair Mountain is the historic site of the largest armed insurrection since the Civil W
Source: Telegraph (UK)
4-17-09
Dr David Starkey, the historian, has compared a proposal to build a 'zero-carbon house' near the remains of Richmond Palace to a "snotty-nosed punk in an elegant drawing room".
On Thursday planners at Richmond council approved construction of the solar powered, triple-glazed, two-storey house near the site of the palace, which was built by Henry VIII’s father Henry VII.
Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn there and spent Christmases there, as did their daughter E
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog, Cliopatria
4-10-09
Congratulations to historians who have won Guggenheim Fellowships for 2009:Robert Beachy, Goucher CollegeJeffrey Bortz, Appalachian State UniversityKate Brown, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyVeena Das, Johns Hopkins UniversityPierre Force, Columbia UniversityPeter Galison, Harvard UniversityRisa L. Goluboff, University of
Source: Chicago Tribune
4-15-09
Franklin Rosemont, a surrealist poet and labor historian, maintained Chicago's long history of leftist activism through prolific writing and his stewardship of 123-year-old radical publishing house Charles H. Kerr.
Mr. Rosemont, 65, died Sunday, April 12, in the University of Illinois Medical Center, after possibly suffering a stroke or an aneurysm, said his wife, Penelope. He was a resident of Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood.
The son of a printers union activist, Mr
Source: Times-Picayune
4-15-09
Tulane University history professor Judith Kelleher Schafer loves uncovering the truth, whether it be pleasant or not.
"I need history to tell me what to write," she said. "I couldn't make up this stuff. The truth is so wonderful."
Schafer's third book came about by happy accident. While researching archives of the First District Court of New Orleans and the Daily Picayune from 1846-1862 for her award-winning book, "Becoming Free, Remaining Free
Source: Inside Higher Ed
4-16-09
Six years ago this month, the National Museum of Iraq was extensively looted amid the chaos of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. Among the stolen objects was the Mask of Warka, a 5,100-year-old Sumerian artifact that is believed to be one of the earliest surviving representations of a human face. The mask was found buried on an Iraqi farm five months later — but thousands of other precious objects were destroyed or disappeared into the black market.
"We do not know, and we may neve
Source: Email from Princeton University Press to HNN
4-15-09
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, established at Princeton University, is preparing the authoritative and comprehensive edition of the correspondence and papers of our nation’s third president. Jefferson’s letters are the largest component of the more than 70,000 document copies that have been assembled from over 900 repositories and private collections worldwide. Through the publication of letters and papers received as well as those written by Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson supplants
Source: China Beat (blog)
4-16-09
Philip J. Cunningham was a participant and observer of the events in Beijing in 1989. Now Cunningham has a forthcoming book, Tiananmen Moon: Inside the Chinese Student Uprising of 1989 (Rowman & Littlefield, May 2009) that details his story of the events.
###
If getting caught up in a popular uprising in China has taught me anything, it is that the past, present and future flow together as one with ferocious intensity. Looking back now at the eventful uprising at T
Source: Jay Parini in the Atlantic
5-1-09
ONE SEEDY BAR on a side street in Key West advertised its wares on a scrawled sign: LIVE GIRLS UPSTAIRS. Beats the alternative, I suppose.
With its invariable August weather and (usually more discreet) invitations to decadence, this tiny island—the southernmost point of the continental United States—has lured countless writers over the years. Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop lived there, and their houses still attract tourists. (Hemingway had the best house
Source: HAW website
4-9-09
To members and friends of Historians Against the War,
The HAW Steering Committee has endorsed a new basic statement for HAW, which would replace the 2003 statement that focused on ending the occupation of Iraq. The proposed new statement appears at the end of this message.
We are grateful to all those who gave feedback on a draft of this statement. We are submitting the final statement for ratification by people who are on our "HAW-Info" email list. This is the same
Source: Shlomo Avineri in a letter to the editor of the NYT
4-16-09
[The writer is a professor of political science at Hebrew University.]
In “Hamas Comes Out of Hiding” (Op-Ed, April 13), Paul McGeough writes that when he asked Khalid Mishal, the Hamas leader, if his organization would consider changing its charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction, Mr. Mishal answered, “Not a chance.”
What Mr. McGeough did not mention is that Hamas views all Jews, not just Israel or Zionism, as its enemies.
Its charter goes to some le
Source: Press Release
4-15-09
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation announced today that one of four 2009 Bradley Prizes will be awarded to Sir Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill and one of the world’s most distinguished historians of modern times.
Sir Martin Gilbert will be presented the award during a ceremony to be held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, June 3. Each award carries a stipend of $250,000.
“The Bradley
Source: Scott McLemee at the website of Inside Higher Ed
4-15-09
I've lauded the piece here before, and was glad to see it in the table of contents for The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills, a volume published last year by Oxford University Press and edited by John H. Summers, a visiting scholar at the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. But on closer examination, I saw that the editor hadn't simply reprinted the appendix. This version of "On Intellectual Craftsmanship" was rather different: it
Source: Columbia Spectator
4-9-09
Reported rumors have spread that Middle East and Asian languages and cultures professor Joseph Massad will be granted tenure.
Yet despite the chatter, most notably reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education on Wednesday, the outcome of the controversial Palestinian scholar’s tenure process remains to be seen and the review has not concluded. The Chronicle’s blog stated that a “professor in the department who did not want to be named said word on the grapevine within the department is t
Source: Jesse Lemisch in a letter to the editor of Perspectives, the AHA magazine
4-1-09
To the Editor:
David M. Darlington writes, “The 1968 [AHA] annual meeting was moved from Chicago to New York City in protest of the police riot at the Democratic Convention that summer (“123 in 125: A Brief History of AHA Annual Meetings,” Perspectives in History, March 2009). Not really. The AHA was so ardent about guarding what it presented as its political neutrality that it described the change of venue as a matter of convenience, and definitely not protest. Mayor Richard Daley’
