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: Scotsman
11-3-07
AN exhibition on the archive of best-selling writer Cornelius Ryan - author of A Bridge Too Far and The Longest Day - starts next weekend.
It is part of a weekend of events organised by Edinburgh University's centre for the study of the two world wars to mark Remembrance Sunday.
The archive is one of the largest collections of first-hand information outside of government archives on D-Day, Arnhem and the Fall of Berlin.
The exhibition will feature previousl
Source: International Herald Tribune
11-2-07
'Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Hitler supposedly said on Aug. 22, 1939, as he prepared his henchmen for the savagery of race war and the slaughter of the Jews of Europe. In many ways, this link between the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis from 1941 to 1945 brings together the elements of Alan Kramer's important book, "Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World
Source: Justin Elliott at the Mother Jones blog
11-2-07
A small group of Middle East studies academics, led by Bernard Lewis, have formed a new professional group, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, according to InsideHigherEd. Their stated reasons for establishing the group are"the increasing politicization of these fields, and the cer
Source: Inside Higher Ed
11-5-07
In one of the most publicly contested tenure cases of the year, Barnard College announced Friday that it would promote Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist whose work on archaeology in Israel led to a major campaign against her.
A statement released by the college did not directly speak to the controversy that has raged around Abu El-Haj. “Like all tenured members of the Barnard faculty, Professor Abu El-Haj has successfully passed a highly rigorous review that involves both Barnard’
Source: Letters to the Editor of the NYT Book Review
11-4-07
To the Editor:
Your reviewer, the historian David Kennedy, trashes my friend and colleague Paul Krugman’s new book, “The Conscience of a Liberal” (Oct. 21), as “factually shaky” on the basis of two alleged humiliating mistakes. According to Kennedy, Krugman says that the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1964 and claims, contrary to what is “customarily” thought, that Kansas was the birthplace of Prohibition. The book does slip at one point — possibly mixing up the Civil Rights Act o
Source: WaPo
11-4-07
The great China historian Jonathan Spence has for years guided us on journeys into the worldviews and dreams of emperors and rebels, traitors and traders, mandarins and missionaries. Now, in Return to Dragon Mountain, Spence takes us inside the mind of a fellow historian, albeit one who lived more than three centuries ago.
The Ming dynasty is known for great achievements in scholarship, arts and culture. Historian Zhang Dai's long life, which began in 1597 and ended around 1680, spa
Source: Columbia Spectator
11-2-07
Controversial Barnard professor Nadia Abu El-Haj has received tenure, according to an e-mail sent by a departmental administrator to the anthropology listserv on Thursday.
“Here is the good news: Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj is now a tenured member of the Barnard and Columbia Anthropology Departments,” academic departmental administrator Xiomara Perez-Betances wrote in the e-mail. The e-mail provided no further information.
Apart from the e-mail, Spectator was unable to indepen
Source: Bob Bateman in his ongoing dissection of the work of Victor Davis Hanson on the left-wing blog, Altercation
10-29-07
[Robert Bateman is an author, historian and Army infantry officer. He was stationed in Iraq from January 2005 until February 2006. His most recent book is "No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident."]
... [Victor Davis] Hanson's basic contention
is that face-to-face infantry battle is a cultural legacy exclusive to the"West." In Carnage and Culture, he sets out to
demonstrate this by resurrecting the hoary old 19
Source: http://newsnet.byu.edu
10-31-07
Utah State University anthropologist and historian, Joseph Tainter spoke on Tuesday about energy gain and issues dealing with our future energy.
Tainter discussed the immediate future of energy in our uses of oil. He said that half of the oil consumed by the human race was used since 1984.
Tainter began by showing several examples of energy and energy yields. He discussed ants in South America as well as the Roman Empire to compare the effects on society during changes
Source: http://www.udel.edu
10-31-07
Although the terms insurgency and counterinsurgency turn up in news headlines from around the world on a daily basis, these struggles appear to be as old as civilization itself, according to a noted UD expert on military history.
“Guerrilla warfare is as old as recorded history and is a more widespread and reoccurring form of warfare than the organized clash of armies,” Raymond Callahan, UD professor emeritus of history, said during a talk on Oct. 19, in Arsht Hall, on the Universit
Source: http://www.cdispatch.com
10-31-07
Dr. Richard Guy Wilson, architectural historian at the University of Virginia, will deliver the opening presentation Friday night for the Columbus Historic Foundation's 37th annual Decorative Arts and Preservation Forum.
Wilson, who holds the Commonwealth Professor's Chair in Architectural History at the University of Virginia, will speak on “What $$$$$ Can Buy: The American Palace Race” at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Rose and Thad Cochran Hall on the Mississippi University for Women campus
Source: http://www.murfreesboropost.com
10-31-07
In 1958, in a sweltering, converted torpedo factory in Alexandria, Va., historian Gerhard L. Weinberg was combing through massive stacks of documents that the U.S. had captured from Nazi Germany – and came across an unknown prize – a secret book dictated by Adolf Hitler in 1928, the unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf.
It was this book that became the subject of the History Channel’s acclaimed 2004 documentary titled “Hitler’s Lost Plan.” This documentary will be shown at 2 p.m. on Wed
Source: Inside Higher Ed
11-2-07
Seeking to change the direction of Middle Eastern and African studies, a new scholarly organization was
announced Thursday — with some big name scholars on board and some tough criticism for the discipline. The biggest scholarly names in the new group, Bernard Lewis of Princeton University and Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University, are associated with support for the Bush administration’s view of the Middle East, a decid
Source: Times (UK)
11-1-07
A Vatican-backed historian has attacked the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age as a “distorted anti-papal travesty” that risks dividing the West just when it should be rediscovering its “common Christian roots” in the face of Islam.
Writing in Avvenire, the official organ of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Franco Cardini said that the film formed part of a “concerted attack on Catholicism” by atheists and “apocalyptic Christians”.
Professor Cardini, who holds the chair of
Source: http://pajamasmedia.com
10-25-07
I used to have a great deal of respect for the Chronicle of Higher Education. But on their recent gossipy blog, they advertise a recent hit-piece by one Robert Bateman of my Carnage and Culture, that is now appearing on the website Media Matters, funded if in part and indirectly by George Soros, under an apparently regular feature of Eric Alterman’s called Altercations. The piece is embarrassing and reminds me of playground name-calling in grade school.
Carnage and Culture has been out fo
Source: Weekly Standard
11-5-07
America has won an important battle in the war on terror. We turned an imminent victory for Al Qaeda In Iraq into a humiliating defeat for them and thereby created an opportunity for further progress not only in Iraq, but also in the global struggle. In the past five months, terrorist operations in and around Baghdad have dropped by 59 percent. Car bomb deaths are down by 81 percent. Casualties from enemy attacks dropped 77 percent. And violence during the just-completed season of Ramadan--tradi
Source: http://www.delawareonline.com
10-30-07
If the U.S. government decided to pay reparations to black Americans for centuries of slavery and the economic disparities that followed, historian John Hope Franklin would "never touch one of those pieces of silver."
However, Franklin told a rapt audience Monday at Delaware State University, black Americans are holders of a promissory note that has not been honored.
"This country needs to take note of the fact that its wealth was not made exclusively by
Source: Stanford Daily
10-30-07
The introduction at last night’s Presidential Lecture was inspirational, to say the least.
“Libraries are indeed mobbed, and there is commotion across the media, but Simon Schama has come to the rescue,” said History Department Chair Aron Rodrigue as he introduced the night’s speaker to a standing-room-only Cubberley Auditorium.
Schama, a professor of Art History and History at Columbia University, spoke on the history of the slave trade in a lecture entitled, “The Abol
Source: http://media.www.dukechronicle.com
10-29-07
John Hope Franklin and Romila Thapar treated students, professors and community members to an in-depth discussion on the role of historians in social and cultural change at the Divinity School's Goodson Chapel Saturday.
Franklin, James B. Duke professor emeritus of history, and Thapar, professor emeritus of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, discussed the evolution of the study of history in front of a packed audience Saturday afternoon. The talk-"The
Source: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com
10-29-07
The Boardwalk's Cave Train has its fans and its foes.
But few in either camp have ever thought of the kitschy, campy ride in socio-political terms.
Not so Dana Frank, a regular visitor to the Boardwalk in the '60s when her family made trips to the seashore from Los Altos.
A professor in the American Studies and History Departments at UC Santa Cruz, Frank is a professional historian, focused mainly on labor, women, trade and consumer politics.
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