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: Press Release--Washington College
7-22-08
He is a renowned author, a prodigious researcher, and a compelling speaker, whose work has been praised by literary critics and academic historians alike. And now Henry Wiencek, whose honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History, has been named the first Patrick Henry Fellow at Washington College, launching a new program that will provide annual writing fellowships to nationally prominent historians.
The highly c
Source: Letter to the editor of the NYT (unpublished)
7-19-08
Re: NYT: New York's Birth Date: Don’t Go by City's Seal
Dear Editor:
There is, in fact, a great deal of evidence in support of 1625 as the date on the City Seal, since 1625 marked the start of the first permanent settlement of what is now New York City. In June, 1625, Cryn Fredericksz, an engineer and surveyor, arrived in New Netherland with instructions issued on April 25, 1625 from the Directors of the Du
Source: Benny Morris in an op ed in the NYT
7-18-08
ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange
Source: David Liebers, HNN intern
7-18-08
Bruce Kuklick is Nichols Professor of American History at the University of
Pennsylvania. He has written ten books ranging in subject from baseball to
American philosophy, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in
2004. His most recent book Black Philosopher, White Academy is a bio
Source: NYT
7-13-08
David H. Greene, a leading scholar of Irish literature and one of the authorized biographers of the playwright J. M. Synge, the author of “The Playboy of the Western World,” died on Wednesday near his home in Boynton Beach, Fla. He was 94.
The cause was pneumonia, his daughter Candy Moss said.
For nearly 40 years, Professor Greene taught at New York University, often in large classrooms packed with students soaking up his passion for Irish culture. He traced his patrili
Source: Sheldon M. Stern in an email to HNN
7-17-08
[Stern served as historian at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston
from 1977 through 1999. He is the author of Averting ‘the Final Failure’: John F.
Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings (2003), and The Week
the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis (2005) in the Stanford
University Press Nuclear Age Series.]
During a recent visit to our local public library, I spotted a copy of Joseph Persico’s new book, Franklin & Lucy: President Roose
Source: Brendan Trembath at http://www.abc.net.au
7-17-08
There are about 30 civil wars being fought around the world, from Afghanistan to Uganda.
And there's a lot of debate about whether Iraq is on the grip of civil war.
An authority on civil wars from ancient to modern times is the Harvard University Professor of History, David Armitage.
He says the cost of the wars currently being waged is about $100-billion a year.
Professor Armitage is visiting Australia and next week is due to speak at the Uni
Source: Episcopal News Service
7-17-08
Rhoda Elizabeth Armstrong Hackler, Ph.D., historian, researcher, writer, and teacher in Hawai'i for 43 years, died on July 7. She was 84.
Hackler was a lecturer in Hawai'ian history at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and a prolific writer on historical subjects, including Hawai’ian history and culture, Asian art and the Episcopal Church in Hawaii.
An active member of Church of the Holy Nativity and later of St. Clement’s Church, both in Honolulu, Hackler served on vestries
Source: Martha Kinney at the website of Inside Higher Ed
7-17-08
[Martha Kinney is an assistant professor of history at Suffolk County Community College and a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves.]
Thirteen years ago I began graduate school, and 24 years ago I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Of the two institutions — graduate school and the Army — perhaps surprisingly, my military experience has been most important in shaping my practices in the classroom. That may be because I teach survey courses at a community college
Source: HNN Staff
7-16-08
To the surprise of many historian H.R. McMaster has been nominated by President Bush for a promotion from colonel to brigadier general.
Only last year critics of the army were saying that McMaster's being passed over twice for promotion indicated army leaders opposed his kind of soldier: strong and independent-minded. An article by Slate's Fred Kaplan in the
Source: Independent (UK)
7-16-08
Charlotte Erickson was a superb historian, a marvellous person, a great teacher and a very influential exponent of American society, past and present, to a British audience. For two years at Vassar College in New York State, for 27 years at the London School of Economics and for a further seven at Cambridge University, she enthusiastically taught history as a social science, with special reference to the Anglo-American experience.
From 1952, she lived primarily in England, acquiring
Source: John H. Summers at the website of Times Higher Education
7-10-08
I joined the staff of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University in 2000. As tutor, then as lecturer, I advised senior theses, conceived and conducted freshman and junior seminars and taught the year-long sophomore tutorial, Social Studies 10, six times. The fractured nature of my appointment, renewed annually for six successive years while never amounting to more than 65 per cent of a full-time position in any one year, kept me on the margins of prestige and promotion even
Source: http://www.la.cityzine.com
7-15-08
As the campaign motorcades and jets wiz in and out of cities and town across the U.S. this summer, there are hints and reminders of the campaign trail from 40 years ago. With arguable similarities to our current Democratic candidate, a candidate with a great vision for change and equality had managed to give a new generation of Americans hope after incredible tragedy. But too soon, here in our own fair city, Robert F. Kennedy’s life and work were tragically cut short by the hand of what some sa
Source: Guardian
7-15-08
When a friend dies, a part of you dies too. When Bronislaw Geremek was killed in a car accident on Sunday, a part of Europe was lost as well. I remember him once turning to me in a corridor of the Polish parliament, which he had helped to make again a true parliament, stopping in his tracks, taking his ever-present professorial pipe from his mouth, touching his beard, and saying with sudden passion: "You know, for me Europe is a kind of Platonic essence."
Europe will not s
Source: Grand Rapids Press
7-12-08
Perhaps the worst that could be said of Gerald Ford is he was the last act of the Nixon Administration, an accidental president who pardoned his predecessor and accomplished little else.
Eighteen months after Ford's death is not too soon to begin examining him as a more-complex historical figure, said Richard Norton Smith, a message he will deliver Sunday evening at the presidential museum he once led.
"We're in the very early stages of forming historical impressio
Source: AP
7-13-08
A new television series celebrating the
history of America's national parks will air on PBS in the fall of 2009."The National Parks: America's Best Idea," is a 12-hour, six-part film
that traces the origins and growth of the national parks system over 150
years. It was directed by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and will
feature his trademark blend of archival photos, interviews and what PBS
called"breathtaking images" of the national parks system.
Among the actors who lend their
Source: Elizabeth Redden at the website of Inside Higher Ed
7-14-08
For a while, Calla Wiemer said, she held it close.
“We all hoped that the problem would be resolved quickly,” said Wiemer, who counts four visa denials stamped into her passport. On a couple of other occasions, her application was declined before it even got to a stamp-wielding bureaucrat. In one more case, the U.S. Embassy intervened to ask the Chinese Foreign Ministry if Wiemer would be approved if she applied. The answer was no.
“Now that it’s gone on for all these y
Source: Letter sent to the Editor of the NYT Book Review
7-13-08
Kevin Boyle’s review of “The Colfax Massacre” and “The Day Freedom Died” (May 18) details one of the truly infamous terrorist attacks during Reconstruction. “Reconstruction was dead,” Boyle wrote, within a year after the perpetrators of the massacre were freed. Furthermore, “the United States began its descent into a systematic segregation so powerful it would endure for almost 100 years.” This interpretation, however, underestimates the full character of the post-Civil-War Reconstruction. Recon
Source: Linda Mamoun in the Nation
6-17-08
"It's important not to view history as a mere creature of geopolitical forces. Popular resistance has altered the course of history. The decolonization movement, the antiapartheid movement, the movements to free the peoples of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination are all examples of struggles that seemed to defy the geopolitical structures that existed." --Richard Falk
In the course of a scholarly life that has spanned more than five decades and includes fifty-four books and dozens more a
Source: WaPo
7-11-08
Richard Frederic Evans, 71, a ubiquitous volunteer who used his encyclopedic knowledge of Washington history to assist researchers, museums and thousands of tourists, died June 27 of congestive heart failure at his home in the District.
Mr. Evans, a professional engineer, spent more than three decades researching, preserving and sharing the rich past found within the halls and on the walls of Washington museums and historical societies.
"He was kind of like the liv
