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: Arnita Jones in the AHA Perspectives (APRIL)
4-1-08
... Earlier this spring National Coalition for History Executive Director Lee White and I spent a few minutes totaling up the amount of federal funding that has an impact upon history. We have the Department of Education's Teaching American History grants at $120 million for each of the last several years. The National Endowment for the Humanities received $144 million this year, much of which goes to historical projects. The National Archives, which relates to history in one way or another, cur
Source: Press Release--UC Davis
4-9-08
Susan Mann, a renowned historian of China, has been named the 2008 Faculty Research Lecturer by her colleagues at the University of California, Davis.
"Susan Mann is internationally known for her pioneering work on the history of women in China," history professor Alan Taylor said in announcing the 66th annual award last month at the spring meeting of the UC Davis Academic Senate. "... She revolutionized the study of Chinese history."
Source: Robert Townsend at the AHA blog
4-14-08
We hope members—and everyone in the profession with an interest in the future of our disciplinary society—will take a little time to read the report of the Working Group on the Future of the AHA, which can be found in both the print and online versions of the April issue of Perspectives
Source: AP
4-12-08
The University of Richmond has inaugurated its ninth president in the school's 176-year history.
Edward L. Ayers, a noted historian of the American South, recounted on Friday the university's history before outlining his goals for the school, which included a renewed focus on diversity, affordability, and improving its relationship with the city.
The former dean at the University of Virginia, who took the president's job on July 1, won a Bancroft Prize in 2004 for his b
Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca
4-13-08
History, proverbially, is written by the winning side. This has certainly been the case for 19th-century India, argues William Dalrymple, an author of history and travel books who lives in New Delhi and London.
Dalrymple’s latest book, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857, examines the downfall of the capital and imperial court of northern India’s Mughal Empire.
The author draws extensively on contemporary documentation, originally written in the court’s
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
4-14-08
Last year, John Kelsay went to Oman to talk about war. The first night there, speaking at the Grand Mosque in Muscat, he faced a large audience of students studying religion. Discussing the attacks of September 11, 2001, Kelsay argued that the perpetrators had violated the noble tradition of jihad, which is based on legal judgments about the ethics of armed struggle that stretch back to Islam's formative years. Calling on his listeners to challenge the self-styled "jihadis" who claimed
Source: http://www.dailyamerican.com
4-11-08
A local educator’s work to preserve area history is receiving national attention.
Paul Newman, a University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown professor and social historian, has been named the History Channel’s “Save Our History Teacher of the Year” for his work in history preservation.
“I am both humbled and honored to get it,” Newman said.
As a historian, Newman said he is interested in those who were not making headlines in history.
“I look for the aver
Source: Jacob Heilbrunn in a review in the NYT BOok Review of Philip Shenon's The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation.
4-13-08
... A talented historian who wrote a book with Rice, [9/11 Commission executive director Philip] Zelikow came to be loathed by much of the commission’s staff for his arrogance. Some staff members and more than a few people in the Washington press corps even viewed him as a White House mole, intent on sanitizing the Bush administration’s record. According to Shenon, Zelikow did not inform the leaders of the commission of his role in drafting the White House’s September 2002 “pre-emptive defense”
Source: NYT
4-13-08
When Stanley J. Seeger gave Princeton $2 million for Hellenic studies nearly three decades ago, the gift’s income paid for two courses in modern Greek and trips to Greece for five.
But the Seeger money, which must be spent only on matters Greek, is now worth $33 million, multiplying through aggressive investing like the rest of Princeton’s endowment. So the university offers Greek, Greek and more Greek — 13 courses this semester, including “The Image of Greece in European Cinema” an
Source: Inside Higher Ed
4-10-08
The history of American higher education since 1940 is full of dramatic changes — the growth of the modern scientific enterprise, desegregation, the impact of the GI bill, the campus unrest of the 60s, and so forth. Wilson Smith and Thomas Bender set out to tell that story with documents — from both establishment figures and their critics — in American Higher Education Transformed, 1940-2005, just published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. The book is a sequel to earlier work by Smith and
Source: Ross Douthat in the Atlantic Monthly
5-1-08
[HNN Editor: Rick Perlstein's Nixonland is the HNN Book of the Month for April 2008.]
Seven years ago, Rick Perlstein, a young and decidedly left-wing historian, accomplished a daring feat: he imagined his way into the hearts and minds of the right-wing idealists who made Goldwaterite conservatism one of the most successful mass movements of the 1960s. The result was Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consens
Source: The Age (Australia)
4-9-08
GREG Dening, one of Australia's leading ethnographic historians and author of several well-received books, has died from a stroke at Royal Hobart Hospital while on holiday in Tasmania. He was 76.
Acknowledged by his peers as one of the most imaginative, original and reflective minds working in the fields of history and historiography, Dening was appointed to the Max Crawford professorship of history at Melbourne University in 1971, and retired from there in 1990.
He was
Source: http://www.alt-arch.org/petition.html
4-9-08
For nearly a decade, all archaeological work in the Wadi Hilwe area of Silwan in East Jerusalem—that is, the City of David, the core of ancient Jerusalem and one of the most sensitive archaeological sites in Israel—has been controlled by Elad, an organization of right-wing Israeli settlers. More precisely, the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority (INPA), which has legal responsibility for this area, has appointed Elad as its sub-contractor in Silwan; Elad, in turn, has commissio
Source: Steve Plaut in the Jewish Press
4-9-08
[Steven Plaut is a professor at the Graduate School of the Business Administration at the University of Haifa and is a columnist for the Jewish Press. A collection of his commentaries on the current events in Israel can be found on his"blog" at www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com.]
... As many Jewish Press readers may
know, I have been involved in a long court case that has already run on for six
years. It involves the malicious attempt by one of Israel’s worst academic
anti-Israel extremists
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
4-7-08
Alan Dawley, 64, of West Mount Airy, an author of social history, a professor at the College of New Jersey in Trenton, and a civil-rights and peace activist, died March 12 of heart failure while on a trip to study Spanish in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
A leader in the field of U.S. social history, Dr. Dawley's first book, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn, received the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 1976. He also wrote Struggles for Justice and Changing the Wo
Source: St. John's University
4-7-08
Saint John’s University will present the 16th Colman J. Barry Award for Distinguished Contributions to Religion and Society to William Cronon in honor of his service as one of our nation’s foremost environmental historians and thinkers.
The award will be presented in conjunction with Saint John’s Day activities Friday, April 18, in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater on the Saint John’s campus. The event is by invitation only.
Cronon has devoted his career to understanding
Source: NPR
4-7-08
The state of Florida recently apologized for slavery — but historian Marvin Dunn says he doesn't any feel better. In his Miami Herald op-ed "Make the Apology Meaningful," Dunn says Old South states should think about how to pay reparations to the African American community as a whole.
"The apology is a meaningless act that only a dolt or outright racist would oppose," Dunn writes. "It cost the state nothing and of course, there was not a word about the thorn
Source: NY Sun
4-7-08
Giving money can be a way of becoming part of history. At the New-York Historical Society, which is currently looking for more than $90 million to fund a physical and intellectual expansion, giving money can be a way of ensuring the vitality of historical inquiry in the first place....
A professor emeritus of history at the University of Chicago, Neil Harris, gave a keynote address about the increasing overlap in the fields of history and art history, and the increasing responsibili
Source: http://www.pittsburghlive.com
4-5-08
David McCullough remembers when he decided history might be more than just a class in school.
He was 14 or 15 when a family in his Point Breeze neighborhood invited him along on a spring break trip to Charlottesville and Williamsburg, Va.,
"It absolutely changed my life," said McCullough, the featured guest Friday at Pittsburgh 250 History Makers Gala at the Senator John Heinz History Center. "I know that's when my interest in history began."
Source: http://www.pulitzer.org/
4-7-08
Saul Friedlander, a professor of history at UCLA, won the general nonfiction Pulitzer for The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (HarperCollins).
Related Links
Saul Friedländer: Massive history of the Holocaust is a judicious, authoritative and restrained study
