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: USA Today
12-26-08
... This year "probably is going to be one of those years like 1929, when the chapter ends and you take a breath before moving on to the Depression and the New Deal," says Paul Boyer, noted historian of the Cold War and editor of a U.S. history textbook, The Enduring Vision.
The election is a milestone — "in 50 years, a major fixture in the textbooks," says Brian DeLay, a University of Colorado history professor and co-author of Nation of Nations, another college
Source: David Leonhardt in the NYT
12-23-08
As part of my annual list of economics books (from today’s Times), I promised two online extras: a list of good books about the Great Depression, courtesy of Barry Gewen, an editor at The Times Book Review; and links to excerpts from several of the books I mentioned in the newspaper.
The Depression list starts with “Freedom From Fear,” by David Kennedy, which won the Pulitzer Prize. In a 1999 review, Mr. Gewen called the book “the best one-volume account of the Roosevelt era,” and h
Source: CNN
12-23-08
... Like Lincoln, Obama enters office without any military experience of his own, yet he becomes commander in chief during a time of not one but two wars. What can Obama learn from Lincoln's example? CNN put that question to McPherson, but first we discussed how the 16th president developed into arguably the country's greatest commander in chief. The following is an edited version of the interview.
CNN: Abraham Lincoln came into office in 1861 with the United States on the brink of
Source: AP
12-20-08
Elizabeth Alexander was a toddler in a stroller when her parents took her to hear Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.
Now it's Alexander's turn to move the nation.
Alexander, professor of African American studies at Yale University, was chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to compose and read a poem for his inauguration on Jan. 20.
"I'm completely thrilled and deeply, deeply honored," Alexander said Thursday.
Source: Jamie Glazov at frontpagemag.com (Rpt. Spero News)
12-22-08
Investigative journalist Edwin Black is the bestselling author of the award-winning IBM and the Holocaust, which documented for the first time IBM’s indispensable 12-year relationship with the Hitler regime, and Internal Combustion which chronicled how governments and corrupt corporations needlessly addicted the world to oil. His new book is The Plan--How to Rescue Society the Day the Oil Stops--or the Day Before. He was interviewed by Jamie Glanov, managing editor of Frontpage.com.
Source: CNN
12-16-08
Jon Meacham is quick with a quip when asked why he decided to write a
biography of Andrew Jackson.
"Any president who tried to attack his own assassin is worth writing
about," Meacham says.
But Meacham quickly turns serious when tallying the seventh president's
historical importance -- and personal flaws."He is the president [of his era] most like us," the Newsweek editor says
in a phone interview from Charleston, South Carolina."He was capable of
great grace, but he could als
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
12-20-08
Recently, Human Rights Watch issued a press release about the raid on Memorial (one of the world’s most complete archives on Stalinist crimes) in Saint Petersburg on 4 December 2008. Although no campaign, this news is important enough to merit separate distribution. It is preceded by a NCH summary of the case.
With best wishes,
Antoon De Baets
(Network of Concerned Historians)
==========
NCH SUMMARY
On 4 December 2008, maske
Source: http://www.army.mil
12-18-08
FORT MCPHERSON, Ga. -- In the basement of the U.S. Army Reserve Command (USARC) Headquarters building, he lives on, despite having drawn his last breath more than 64 years ago.
Through the work of the USARC historians, the memory and account of 1st Lt. Maurice Myers, who served with the 301st Infantry Regiment, 94th Infantry Division, in World War II, and those of countless others, is still being kept alive.
"The Greeks said no one is truly dead until his or her
Source: Arizona Republic
12-18-08
Noel Stowe, a Chandler resident and Arizona State University professor who helped start the city's public history kiosk program, died Saturday.
Stowe, 66, had been involved with planning for the city's first museum, said Jim Patterson, president of the Chandler Historical Society. "He was a great resource and always interested in doing what was right to preserve Chandler's history," said Patterson, who added Stowe had been battling cancer.
Earlier this year, S
Source: Telegraph (UK)
12-19-08
Conor Cruise O'Brien, who has died aged 91, was the leading Irish intellectual of his generation, though he assumed so many guises – diplomatist, historian, literary critic, proconsul, professor, playwright, government minister, columnist and editor – that he defies further categorisation.
His views were as variable as his career. At one time responsible for Irish government propaganda which peddled an irredentist Republican policy on Northern Ireland, he later became a campaigning
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
12-19-08
Did you know that a pirate roamed the Eastern Seaboard as late as the 1870s, and lived into the 20th century? Edward Owens haunted the lower reaches of the Chesapeake Bay after the economic crash of 1873 wiped out his living as an oyster fisherman. Owens robbed but didn't kill his victims, and when the economy picked up, he gave up piracy for good. He died in 1938.
Owens's exploits might have been lost to the mists of time if not for an undergraduate student named Jane Browning, who
Source: International Herald Tribune
12-18-08
For such a bold writer, Yang Jisheng comes across as a surprisingly quiet,
almost shy, scholarly man. Yet this slightly built 68-year-old retiree has
become something of a thorn in the side of the Chinese authorities in
recent years.
After a 35-year stint as a journalist for Xinhua, the official Chinese
news agency, Yang has made a name for himself writing about things the
Chinese Communist Party would rather people forgot.
His latest book,"Mu Bei" ("Tombstone"), published thi
Source: Economist
12-11-08
... In January the government commissioned Sir Jim Rose, a former chief inspector of primary schools, to trim ten existing required subjects to give extra space to computing skills and to accommodate two new compulsory subjects: a foreign language and the now-optional “personal, social, health and economic education” (eating fruit and veg, refraining from hitting one’s classmates and much more). On December 8th he published his interim report—and many fear that, as well as losing fat, education
Source: AHA Blog (Click here for embedded links in this post.)
12-18-08
AHA president Gabrielle Spiegel and executive director Arnita Jones sent a letter (PDF) yesterday to Russian Federation president Dmitrii Medvedev, expressing on behalf of the American Historical Association concern over the violent raid on the offices the Russian human rights organization Memorial on December 4, 2008. The letter called for the authorities in St. Petersburg to return the wrongfully confiscated materials to the Memorial’s offices so they are available to scholars and uphold the i
Source: NYT
12-17-08
Martha S. Putney, who became one of the first black women to serve in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II and who went on to write pioneering works of history on black Americans in the military, died Dec. 11 in Washington. She was 92 and lived in Washington.
The death was confirmed by her son, William M. Putney Jr.
Mrs. Putney, whose life was featured prominently in “The Greatest Generation,” Tom Brokaw’s popular history of the war and the unsung Americans who to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
10-21-08
German authorities are investigating a suspected Nazi war criminal after
he was tracked down by a student working on an university project.
The 89-year-old former member of the notorious Waffen SS, whose name
cannot be revealed for legal reasons, is accused of participating in the
murder of 60 Jewish slave workers in 1945.
The massacre took place in Deutsch Schuetzen in Austria and the victims
were buried in a mass grave which was only discovered in 1995.
The name of the
Source: Times (of London)
12-17-08
Professor Angeliki E. Laiou was a distinguished historian who pioneered the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire — the medieval successor to the Roman Empire in the East.
She was born in Athens in 1941. Her family originated partly from the Greek communities of the western Black Sea coast. She began her university studies in 1958-59 at the University of Athens (where the leading Greek Byzantinist, Dionysios Zakythenos, kindled her interest in Byzantium).
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
12-17-08
Peter Stanley is one of those people whose course in life was set early. He knew at seven that he wanted to be a historian and by university that he would focus on military history.
"The idea of travelling mentally to different times and places really interested me," says Stanley, now 52, who is the director of the centre for historical research at the National Museum of Australia.
But he emphasises that he is not the type of military historian who enjoys &quo
Source: Inside Higher Ed
12-17-08
In 2005, the American Historical Association decided to retire its statement banning age discrimination, and simply added a line to general statements about all kinds of discrimination condemned by the society. This month, responding to reports of age discrimination in faculty hiring, the association has reinstated its original explanation about why age discrimination is both illegal and wrong. And some e
Source: http://canadafreepress.com
12-13-08
“FDR made the Depression worse”? “The Marshall Plan didn’t get Europe back on its feet; free markets did”? “American workers prospered without labor unions”? “During the decade of greed,” charitable giving grew at a faster rate than it had during the previous 25 years”? In 2004, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D, shocked the chattering classes when his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History hit the bookstores, and raced up the New York Times bestseller list.
So, who is
