Historians in the News

David Williams: Historian suggests Southerners defeated Confederacy

Generations of students have been taught that the South lost the Civil War because of the North's superior industry and population. A new book suggests another reason: Southerners were largely responsible for defeating the Confederacy. In "Bitterly Divided: The South's Inner Civil War" (New Press, $27.95), historian David Williams of Valdosta State University lays out some tradition-upsetting arguments that might make the granite brow of Jefferson Davis crack on Stone Moun

Andrew Bacevich: Spat between him and HNN blogger turns negative

On 15 August, Andrew Bacevich appeared on Bill Moyers' Journal to discuss his book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, and three interlocking crises that the United States faces. On 19 August, our colleague, Chris Bray, raised questions about Bacevich's position in a post,"A Deceptively Pristine History," here at Cliopatria. I invited Profes

A digital project by historians illustrates voting patterns over time via a series of animated maps

Borrowing a technique from Hollywood, historians at the University of Richmond have created animated maps that chart voting patterns in U.S. presidential elections since 1840. The maps show county-by-county data for every major election year in which data are available, and that information shifts over time. One map, for example, highlights counties where the victor won by only a small margin. It reveals how "battleground states" have changed over the years. The maps are d

Steven J. Dick: The Life and Times of a Public Historian

[Steven J. Dick has spent his professional career as a public historian, most recently as Chief Historian for NASA, a place where the study of history has real-world consequences in policy development and planning.] For almost 30 years now, I have worked as a public historian, first at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, and for the last five years as NASA Chief Historian. Quite aside from the omnipresent political environment in Washington (my office at the Naval Observat

Kristie Macrakis: Her new book exposes the amazing array of tricks used by Stasi to spy on people

a recording device hidden in an ashtray. A camera concealed inside a pen, an innocuous-looking deer statuette, or even a bra. A chair that captures your body scent when you sit on it, to facilitate tracking your movements later. What sound like gadgets from a James Bond movie were real-life instruments of espionage used by the Stasi—communist East Germany’s Ministry for State Security (Staatssicherheit), the secret police. Kristie Macrakis, Ph.D. ’89, learned about these devices and

Martin Kramer: Objects to apparent endorsement of an anti-Israel rally by Georgetown Arab center

Back in the spring, some students at Georgetown University took umbrage at a celebration of Israel's sixtieth anniversary, organized by a pro-Israel student group. Their protest took the form of sitting on the lawn next to the revelers, mouths taped shut. The student newspaper The Hoya covered the demonstration, and described it thus: About 30 demonstrators, many of whom were graduate students, wore black s

Ken Burns: Produces documentary about Ted Kennedy

Robert Caro: Talks more about his next LBJ volume

... Johnson died in 1973, and no writer has done more to sustain the debate than Caro, whose three LBJ books have been praised, honored and condemned. His second work, "Means of Ascent," was so harsh a portrait that former Johnson aide Jack Valenti wondered why Caro bothered with a man "he thoroughly despises." The third book, "Master of the Senate," pleased Valenti so much that he reconciled with Caro, agreed to be interviewed for the fourth volume and even asked C

Timothy Furnish: Historian returns from trip to Iran

August 10-17 I went to Iran for the Fourth Annual International Conference on Mahdism. It was an all-expenses-paid trip courtesy of the Bright Future Institute, a quasi-governmental organization dedicated to paving the way for the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam as the Mahdi. Traveling to Iran is not something one should attempt solo. I've been to other Middle Eastern countries on my own but I would never have gone to Iran without official sanction from the IRI government. And even then I

University of Chicago historian Norman Golb pioneered work on the Dead Sea Scrolls--Did another scholar not give him due credit?

University of Chicago historian Norman Golb in 1980 broke ranks with conventional wisdom in assigning the authorship of certain discovered texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Jews of Jerusalem. Peter Kaufman claims on the website, http://www.nowpublic.com, that Golb's argument has been borrowed by another scholar without proper acknowledgement.

Denise Spellberg: She denies her critical comments put the kabash on a novel about Islam

To the Editor: Asra Q. Nomani's "You Still Can't Write About Muhammad" (op-ed, Aug. 6) falsely asserts that I am the "instigator" of the Random House Press decision not to publish a novel about the Prophet's wife titled, "The Jewel of Medina." I never had this power, nor did I single-handedly stop the book's publication. Random House made its final decision based on the advice of other scholars, conveniently not named in the article, and based ultimatel

Robert Caro: Speaks of the LBJ centennial

As the centennial of Lyndon Johnson's birth approaches, historian Robert A. Caro would like to think of his longtime subject at his happiest and most fulfilled. That wasn't when Johnson was president, in anguish over Vietnam, but rather a few years before. That's when LBJ was in his glory as Senate majority leader -- a one-man legislative machine. Carol's a Pulitzer Prize-winner now in the middle of writing his fourth and final volume on Johnson's life, which will cove

Gavin Menzies: Another book, another wild theory

His first book claimed that the Chinese discovered America. Now, in a controversial sequel, Gavin Menzies says they also sparked the Renaissance Gavin Menzies does not look robust enough to take the brickbats that are surely coming his way. Six years ago, the retired submarine commander caused apoplexy among historians with his controversial theory that vast fleets of Chinese adventurers in multi-masted junks beat Christopher Columbus to the Americas and mapped the entire wor

Mark Cave: Historian collects stories of life in immediate aftermath of Katrina

So what really happened in New Orleans in the twilight-zone days immediately following Hurricane Katrina? That's one of the questions to which Mark Cave, an oral historian with the Historic New Orleans Collection, has been seeking answers in his personal interviews over the last three years with 500 police officers, firefighters, National Guard troops and emergency medical personnel who were on the ground after the storm. Since any trial lawyer knows that two people vie

Douglas Farnie: Historian of the cotton industry

Douglas Farnie was the pre-eminent historian of the Lancashire cotton industry in its 19th- and 20th-century heyday. On the staff of the History Department at Manchester University for over 30 years, he influenced generations of students. Born in 1926 in Salford, the youngest son of Arthur Farnie, a tailor, and his second wife, Ethel, Douglas went to Salford Grammar School, from which he entered the Intelligence Corps in 1944, serving in Field Security with the Indian Airborne, 1945

Andrew Ward: Drawing wide praise for his book about slaves

As the Civil War raged, those in bondage felt torn about whether to root for the Union military or to hope for the safety of their masters who supported the Confederacy. Andrew Ward, author of "The Slaves' War" (Houghton Mifflin, 386 pages, $28), notes, "The feature of the slave South that puzzled and disappointed the more idealistic Yankees was the diligence with which so many of the slaves they encountered protected and sustained their masters' plantations."

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: FBI Probed For Communist Ties (but never found any)

Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a key adviser to President John F. Kennedy, was investigated for his suspected links to communists, according to previously secret FBI documents obtained by Newsmax under the Freedom of Information Act. During the 1960s, there was so much hostility between Schlesinger and then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that Hoover scribbled a note on a document calling Schlesinger a "jackass." Schlesinger,

Ann Lambton: Did the obits. overlook her great contributions?

Ann (Nancy) K.S. Lambton, the distinguished British historian of medieval and modern Iran, died on July 19 at the age of 96. Her obituaries tell some of her remarkable story as a pioneering scholar and a formidable personality. They are also interesting for what they omit, regarding her role in the idea of removing Mohammad Mossadegh from power in Iran.The Independent

Michael Baxandall: Influential art historian, dies at 74

Art historian Michael Baxandall died on August 12 at the age of 74. One of the most influential art historians of the latter half of the 20th century, Baxandall is largely credited with introducing ideas about language and rhetoric into and broadening the context for the study of works of art. He worked at the Warburg Institute for much of his life, beginning there in 1958 in the photographic collection. In 1961 he moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum as assistant keeper in the department of

Robert Dallek: Historian to offer short bio on Harry S Truman

Fans of Harry Truman might want to know that on Sept. 2 a new, short bio of the former Missourian will be published. The author is respected historian Robert Dallek and publisher Henry Holt says that “Harry S. Truman” is the “first critical re-evaluation” of the president since David McCullough’s book “Truman” (1992) The new book is a lot shorter (not necessarily a bad thing) as it’s part of the American Presidents Series. It is expected to be about 200 pages. Dallek,