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: Chicago Tribune
3-10-09
Allen G. Debus, who introduced the history of science and medicine to the curriculum at the University of Chicago, was a widely known scholar of Renaissance alchemists and their first, halting steps toward treating illness.
Dr. Debus, 82, died of cardiac arrest Friday, March 6, in his Deerfield home, said his wife, Brunilda López Debus. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer six years ago but remained productive, particularly in pursuit of his hobby, vaudeville and early 20th Centur
Source: Meet the Press
3-8-09
[Liaquat Ahamed is the author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World.]
DAVID GREGORY: Liaquat, I want to start with you. The book"Lords of Finance," how central bankers in the run-up to the Great Depression got it wrong, is widely read around Washington. And in the epilogue you write this:"Anyone who writes or thinks about the Great Depression cannot avoid the question: Could it happen again?" That's the big question now.
MR. LIAQUAT AHAMED: Well, it coul
Source: David S. Wyman Institute
3-9-09
The controversy over the refusal of a Polish museum to return paintings created by a Holocaust survivor has entered a surprising new arena: the world of comic books.
Legendary comic book artist Neal Adams has teamed up with Holocaust historian Dr. Rafael Medoff to create “The Last Outrage,” a comic strip about Mrs. Dina Babbitt, a California resident who has been fighting for return of seven portraits that she was forced to paint in Auschwitz, by the notorious “Angel of Death,” Dr.
Source: Richard Pachter in the Miami Herald
3-9-09
Author Edwin Black is a child of Holocaust survivors. When he first saw an IBM card-sorting machine as part of an exhibit at the United States Holocaust Museum, he vowed to learn more about this machine and the role of its manufacturer. The result was 2001's IBM and the Holocaust, a devastating account of the venerated American firm's hand-in-hand collaboration with Adolf Hitler's Nazi government in identifying, organizing and exterminating Jews and others who were deemed non-Aryan and undesirab
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
3-8-09
Keith Nolan was 43 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He didn't smoke. Not regularly, anyway. He might have a cigarette now and then when he was drinking, but essentially, he was a nonsmoker. The doctors told him the cancer was probably genetic. His father had survived throat cancer and tongue cancer.
Nolan was living in the basement of his father's house when I visited him in January 2008. "The doctors say I have a year left," Nolan told me. The doctors were off by a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
3-8-09
Two years after it was published to great acclaim, Andrew Marr's bestseller A History of Modern Britain has been urgently recalled from bookshops amid great mystery.
"I am afraid I have agreed not to say a word about it," the amiable television presenter tells Mandrake.
Pan Macmillan has issued an "urgent" stock recall notice in which it said that shops needed to return all unsold copies immediately for unspecified "legal reasons".
I
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
3-7-09
He has been compared with a Holocaust denier, but David Potts does not say there was no 1930s Depression, just that its dimensions were exaggerated. The historian's The Myth Of The Great Depression has gone into reprint, updated for the current economic crisis, which so often is measured against perceptions of the 1930s.
Potts acknowledges job losses, factory closures and household evictions, but says people were more resilient, more caring and happier than might be assumed. People
Source: Chicago Tribune
3-7-09
The plot sounds like a fictional thriller: The son of a scholar of ancient religions is charged with using intricate Internet scams to discredit his father's critics.
But this is no made-up story. New York City authorities this week charged the son of University of Chicago professor Norman Golb with identity theft, criminal impersonation and harassment in connection with a campaign to smear opponents of his father's scholarly theories.
The academic subject at the cente
Source: Reuters
3-6-09
The son of an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls impersonated other experts in order to further his father's views on the 2000-year-old documents, New York prosecutors said.
During a six-month period in 2008, Raphael Haim Golb, whose father Norman Golb is a University of Chicago professor of Jewish history, created dozens of Internet aliases in the names of individuals who were active in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship.
Norman Golb has taken the position the scrolls were pro
Source: Telegraph (UK)
3-6-09
The right-wing author, who was jailed in Austria for denying the Holocaust, says that the online store is the only way he can make money after being declared bankrupt in 2002.
Items up for sale on the site include Hitler's walking stick, available for £7,000, and a goblet and spoon given as a christening present by Heinrich Himmler to Hermann Goering's daughter, which can be bought for £4,000.
Irving authenticates the goods, which are offered by other sellers, and takes
Source: http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com
3-6-09
Israel’s chaotic history reminds historian Dr. Michael Oren of a line from Irish poet William Butler Yeats: “In dreams begin responsibilities.”
Jews achieved their dream of statehood over 60 years ago. Oren, who specializes in diplomatic and military history at The Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research institute, maintains that Israel’s current leaders, much like those before them, must continue to make difficult decisions to protect the country’s hard-earned sovereignty.
Source: http://www.westbranchtimes.com
3-4-09
Democrats might not like this comparison, but one historian thinks that President Herbert Hoover and President Barack Obama have two significant things in common: both rode a wave of popularity into office and both will likely see hard economic times mark their presidencies.
Obama, however, has the chance to learn from Hoover’s mistakes. And the things he did right.
“This might be a warning for President Obama and others in the future,” Hoover historian and University
Source: Mills Kelly at edwire.com
2-26-09
I am a Habsburg historian today because of something that happened on my first day as an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia back in the mid-1970s. Like many students brand new to higher education, I had no idea what courses I ought to choose for that first semester of college and UVa offered next to no advising assistance for new freshmen. So, I asked my Resident Advisor what he might recommend. He told me that under no circumstances should I take Western Civilization because it
Source: Anthony Grafton at the dailyprincetonian.com
3-2-09
At the end of the 1960s, large parts of the academic economy collapsed. For a decade or more, universities had enjoyed prosperity: Fellowships and salaries rose, new libraries and labs provided decent working space, and those who finished their Ph.D.s often chose among multiple job offers.
Suddenly all occasions conspired against us. The economy turned sour. The anti war movement and everything that went with it made students and faculty less popular in many respectable circles. Foundatio
Source: Historians Against the War
3-4-09
To members and friends of Historians Against the War,
For the past several weeks the Steering Committee has been discussing revising or updating our policy statement that people have been signing to join HAW. We adopted the current statement on September 21, 2003, and it reads:
"As historians, teachers, and scholars, we oppose the expansion of United States empire and the doctrine of pre-emptive war that have led to the occupation of Iraq. We deplore the secrecy, d
Source: American Historical Review
2-1-09
Two thousand and eight marked the fortieth anniversary of a remarkable year, a year that has come to stand for a decade which, to rephrase Paul Kantner's memorable quip, we can only remember if we weren't there. Two months late, we present the first part of a two‐part AHR Forum, “The International 1968,” an act of historical recovery and analysis by seven historians who, whether they were there or not, offer a range of perspectives on the politics, the protests, the social and cultural tra
Source: Published letter to the editor of the NYT
3-5-09
To the Editor:
“Vatican Calls the Apology of a Bishop Insufficient” (news article, Feb. 28) reports that the Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson has consulted with David Irving. Mr. Irving is a fitting partner for him.
Strangely, Mr. Irving is described in the article as a “historian.” When he sued me for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier, the court ruled that his “falsification of the historical record was deliberate” and motivated by “ideological belief
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
3-4-09
The U.S. Army War College has suspended a widely known expert on Islamic studies partly because she had turned to the Middle East Studies Association, and threatened to contact a newspaper, with allegations that administrators there were violating her academic freedom and discriminating against her as a Muslim.
Sherifa D. Zuhur, a research professor of Islamic and regional studies in the college's Strategic Studies Institute, was suspended without pay for 10 days, effective Monday,
Source: Guardian (UK)
3-4-09
Yesterday the Russian publishing house Atticus cancelled the publication of an acclaimed book by the Russian scholar Orlando Figes about life under Stalin. The publisher said it was dropping the book for economic reasons, but the historian believes that the decision was the product of political pressure and reflects a desire by the Kremlin to rehabilitate Stalin.
The history in my book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, is inconvenient to the current regime in Russia
Source: Press Release--American Heritage
3-4-09
Rockville, MD—American Heritage Publishing today announced that Dr. Allen Weinstein, the former head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), has been elected to its Board of Directors.
“Allen is a great addition to our Board,” said Chairman Robert Breeden. “He brings great depth to the Board, not only as a noted author and educator of American history, but also as an advisor to many national and international government, educational, and civic bodies.”
