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: Guardian (UK)
10-9-08
John Lennon controversially declared they were bigger than Jesus, and the levels of fan hysteria and devotion they engendered made them synonymous with the youth culture of the swinging 60s. But a Cambridge University historian today argues that the Beatles were not heroes of the counter-culture but capitalists who cynically exploited youth culture for commercial gain. David Fowler claims: "They did about as much to represent the interests of the nation's young people as the Spice Girls did
Source: Jamie Glazov at frontpagemag.com
10-13-08
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Kevin Mattson, Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History at Ohio University and the author of many books including, Upton Sinclair and the Other American Century and When America Was Great: The Fighting Faith of Postwar Liberalism. His new book is Rebels All!: A Short History of the Conservative Mind in Postwar America.
FP: Dr. Kevin Mattson, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Mattson: Thanks for having me.
FP: What in
Source: Vancouver Sun
10-13-08
Author, who didn't know until late in life that his father grew up in an orphanage, had a racy private life.
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Pierre Berton seemed to know everything there was to know about Canadian history, but only three months before his death did the famous author learn a "shocking" secret about his own family's past.
He was 84 when he learned that in 1878 his father, Francis George Berton, then six years old, had been placed in an orphanage in Saint John,
Source: HNN Staff
10-13-08
HNN Editor: Last July Sheldon M. Stern in an email to HNN observed that Joseph Persico's new book about FDR was marred by errors. One can read his email below. One error attracted his notice especially. It was Persico's claim that TR learned of William McKinley's death as he sailed home from Europe (TR was actually camping in the woods when he heard the news that McKinley had died). Stern now tells us he has solved the mystery of Persico's blunder:
Geoffrey Ward in
Source: Campus Watch
10-12-08
One of the greatest myths in Middle East studies departments across North America and Europe is that the presence of an Israeli faculty member makes a "balanced" department. In fact, many Israeli academics have built their reputation on scholarship that is critical of Israel and its existence. These academics are frequently given center stage by the Association for Israel Studies, the Middle East Studies Association and Middle East studies centers, which host them and provide visiting
Source: Raymond Seitz in the Telegraph (UK)
10-12-08
There's nothing like a television camera to make a historian go all giddy and coy, but in this case we have Schama Unbound. His latest book is intended to accompany his new BBC series about America on the eve of its presidential election. What is an American and what makes the country tick? Like any good historian - and Simon Schama is very good - he looks backward in order to see forward. But that damn camera turns this project into performance history with Schama the Star - a couple of jokes,
Source: BBC
10-9-08
The distinguished historian Simon Schama argues that Barack Obama's emergence as presidential candidate represents a profound change in the American psyche.
"Whether or not he wins the presidency, this represents an historic shift in America's self-perception," he argues in his new series for the BBC, The American Future.
It would have been inconceivable in the 1960s that white Americans in the midst of a major economic collapse would have turned to a black man to lead them out
Source: David Kaiser at the website of H-Diplo
10-10-08
[David Kaiser is a historian at the Naval War College.]
The debate on the decision to drop atomic bombs has been carried on
repeatedly and in very lively fashion here, most notably at the time of the
50th anniversary (when the moderators actually had to call a halt) and
again about two and a half years ago. For at least 45 years, I would
suggest, the debate has done more to illuminate the current state of the
historical profession than to uncover significant new facts. Thus, the
Al
Source: Randy Saunders, 50th Space Wing Historian, writing at the website of http://www.schriever.af.mil
10-6-08
SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. - -- As a historian, I am aware of the influence history has on our present actions and attitudes and on our pathways for the future. During my recent deployment to Manas Air Base, Kyrgyz Republic, the Airmen of the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing knew their past and embraced it.
I arrived at Manas only knowing that I had a huge mission to accomplish--to build a history program where none existed before. My first goal was to learn the history of the win
Source: http://www.danwei.org
10-7-08
Yan Chongnian (阎崇年), a scholar specializing in Qing history and Manchu culture, was attacked on October 5 when he was in Wuxi to promote his new book, The Kangxi Emperor. The prolific author was smacked twice in the face, allegedly because the attacker disagreed with his historical views.
Yan is the director of the Manchu studies department at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and is a guest host on the CCTV-10 TV show Lecture Room. That program
Source: Gerald Early in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
10-10-08
[Gerald L. Early is a professor of African and African-American studies and American-culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as director of its Center for the Humanities. He is the series editor of Best African American Essays and Best African American Fiction, whose inaugural volumes will be published in January 2009 by Bantam Books.]
... Many of us black professionals, members of the black elite, keep the embers of our victimization burning for opportunistic
Source: Neve Gordon interviewed by Chris Spannos
10-7-08
Neve Gordon teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University and is the author of Israel's Occupation. Visit his website at www.israelsoccupation.info
Chris Spannos is a staff member with Z.(1) Where did your book Israel's Occupation come from? The book has two distinct sources. First and foremost, it is a product of many years of activism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. My understanding of the forms of control deployed in the Gaza Strip and West B
Source: R.J. Stove in the American Conservative
9-22-08
Connoisseurs of homicidal book reviews have long treasured the virtuosic evisceration that British immunologist Sir Peter Medawar performed in 1950 on Teilhard de Chardin, that once fashionable Gallic mountebank. Of Teilhard's The Phenomenon of Man, Medawar remarked, "its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself."
Sir Peter's slashing verdict inevitably comes to a mind confronted with t
Source: http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews
10-3-08
Stories and memorabilia from Birmingham's civil rights past and the earliest middle-class black communities may one day find a home in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Director Lonnie G. Bunch was in Birmingham on Thursday seeking ideas for the museum, which is scheduled to open in 2015 on the National Mall in Washington. Birmingham is one of several cities Bunch is visiting to help form the vision of the museum.
"None of us
Source: http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com
10-5-08
Award-winning presidential historian Michael Beschloss finds a glimmer of hope in one aspect of the upcoming presidential election.
"One reassuring thing is that both candidates realize that this is a country that needs to be healed," he said at Aurora University Tuesday. "Whoever is president is going to have to reach across the aisle."
Beschloss gave his comments during a presentation on presidential courage. He offered his opinion as to the vulner
Source: http://missoulian.com
10-2-08
University of Montana assistant professor Kyle Volk worked out a deal with El Diablo, a Missoula Mexican restaurant, to sponsor one of his history classes, then learned it was against university policy.
On the projector screen was a logo for the local burrito and taco joint, El Diablo.
The same logo was printed on the class syllabus for “The Americas: Conquest to Capitalism,” and a sticker for El Diablo was clipped to it.
“I've never seen anything like it,
Source: New Criterion editorial
10-3-08
The last time we checked, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States was in its twenty-fifth printing and had sold some 500,000 copies. It is probably more widely used in American classrooms than any other survey of the subject. This is a pity, for the book should really be titled "An Anti-American History of the United States." Although published long before the term "political correctness" gained currency, Howard Zinn's opus is a perfect specimen of political cor
Source: Daily Princetonian
10-1-08
Though rumors have been circulating on the internet recently that noted Civil War historian and Georgetown associate professor Chandra Manning may be joining the Princeton’s history department, Manning denied these rumors in an interview with The Daily Princetonian this week.
“I know that over the summer there was some internet speculation,” Manning said in an interview Monday, “but I’m actually very happy at Georgetown, and I’m planning on staying.”
Manning, who receiv
Source: Martin E. Marty in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
10-3-08
The University of Notre Dame's Mark A. Noll is one of our leading historians of religion, specializing in the history of evangelicalism. Never dull or predictable, he has consistently presented a face of evangelicalism that I hope more of the public can meet, showing its constituencies to be far more diverse than most news-media comment suggests.
Now Noll has given us God and Race in American Politics: A Short History, a book not about the 2008 presidential election, but one that —
Source: Australian
9-29-08
HISTORY has been "dulled down" by focusing exclusively on analysing evidence and argument, with historians neglecting their role as storytellers.
Award-winning historian Peter Cochrane is urging his colleagues to look to the narrative techniques of literature to recreate the past in a vivid and lively way.
Cochrane, an inaugural winner of the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History, said historians should be able to cross freely into the territory of nov
