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: Christopher Phelps in the Nation
11-5-07
[Christopher Phelps, who teaches history at Ohio State University, Mansfield, is the author of Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist (University of Michigan).]
When mourners filled Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan on October 16, 2003, to commemorate the life of Herbert Aptheker, the Marxist historian of slavery who died at 87, they did not lack for panegyrics. Eulogists celebrated Aptheker's commitment to interracial equality. They deplored the cold war stigma that precluded hi
Source: NYT
10-19-07
For decades historians accepted the portrait of Stalin painted by his rivals. He was, in the words of one political adversary, Nikolai Sukhanov, “a gray blur,” a mediocre party hack who managed, through stealth and intrigue, to wrest the levers of power from the brilliant revolutionaries surrounding him. History, in this case, was written by the losers, notably Leon Trotsky, who never could accept that he had been bested by a pockmarked thug from Georgia with shaky intellectual credentials.
Source: Mark Bauerlein in the Des Moines Register
10-10-07
What does "diversity" mean at the University of Iowa?
Its nondiscrimination statement provides a roll call of categories: "The University of Iowa prohibits discrimination ... on the basis of race, national origin, color, creed, religion, sex, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or associational preference." The listing is customary - except for the final entry. Most people haven't heard of "associational preference," an
Source: Joseph Lelyveld in the NY Review of Books
11-8-07
The first volume of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s memoirs, A Life in the Twentieth Century,[1] didn't exactly race through his early years. When it ended at the century's midpoint on page 523, its hero was thirty-three. The justification for all those pages was in the good-humored and reflective telling, his passion for witnessing history as well as writing it, and its unusually large cast of characters. The young historian may not have known everyone who counted politically and intellectually in
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
10-19-07
The late Chuck Hansen, a relentless and resourceful researcher, worked
for decades to document the history, technology, design and development
of nuclear weapons. His findings helped nurture a continuing wave of
scholarship and historical reflection on nuclear policy and technology.
An extensive new collection of his most valuable and important
acquisitions has recently been published on compact disk under the
title Swords of Armageddon, Version 2. It is a veritable encyclopedia
of
Source: AP
10-19-07
Arvarh Strickland came to the University of Missouri nearly four decades ago to teach history.
On Friday, the school's first black professor made some history of his own when a prominent campus building was renamed in his honor.
More than 100 former students, colleagues, friends and well-wishers turned out for the unveiling of Arvarh E. Strickland Hall, formerly known as the General Classroom Building. The building is in the heart of campus next to the Brady Commons student c
Source: Monsters & Critics
10-19-07
Warsaw - He is a historian with a passion for football and come Sunday he hopes to make history by scoring a victory for his opposition liberal Civic Platform (PO) party in Poland's seventh parliamentary election since the demise of communism in 1989.
Just days ahead of Sunday voting, surveys show Donald Tusk's PO is running neck-and-neck with the governing conservative-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Following a slow start
Source: http://www.zwire.com
10-16-07
Paul V. Dutton, a professor of history at Northern Arizona University and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, wants Americans to pay attention to their health-care system.
His new book, "Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France" (Cornell University Press, $29.95), has a long name, but a clear purpose.
It describes how the two systems work, how they evolved and th
Source: Boston Globe
10-19-07
AMHERST - Students shuffle into the morning history class to a dreamlike drone, a fog of fuzzy guitars, and sleepy harmonies. It's a wistful, faraway sound, a lingering echo from a distant time.
In this University of Massachusetts-Amherst course, the '60s never died, burned out, or faded away, and the Grateful Dead is alive and trucking. The students were born two decades after the legendary band sprung from the San Francisco rock scene, but many know every riff and every word to th
Source: Perspectives, the newsmagazine of the AHA
10-1-07
[George J. Sanchez is professor of history at the University of Southern California.]
In 2005, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation issued a major report on diversity in doctoral education that concluded that despite decades-long national efforts, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are still significantly underrepresented among recipients of PhDs in the United States. Despite comprising 32 percent of all U.S. citizens in the typical age range of PhD cand
Source: http://www.commercialappeal.com (Memphis)
10-18-07
When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the nation's separate-but-equal schools in 1954, Dr. John Hope Franklin briefly thought it was a new day for black America.
"I was very optimistic for about 15 minutes. Southern senators met the next day and said they would oppose it with all their mights," says Franklin, the historian who had prepared the legal history used as background for the Brown vs. Board of Education lawsuit in Topeka, Kan.
Fifty-three years late
Source: http://www.redrocknews.com
10-18-07
To recognize Arizonans dedicated to preserving state history, the Arizona Historical Foundation, the state historian and Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale created the annual Arizona Culturekeeper award.
Sedona’s own Janeen Trevillyan, a historian with the Sedona Historical Society, was among nine individuals and one organization selected to receive the award this year and she will be one of less than 100 Arizonans overall to receive the award before it’s laid to rest at
Source: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk
10-17-07
Keynote speaker, David Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor in the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Imperial College, discussed how we need to change the way we understand science.
"We need to change and improve the elite understanding of science," says Professor Edgerton, "We need to learn from the long and significant interactions there have been between science and society, not least in Britain itself."
In his lecture, Professor
Source: James Kirchick in the New Republic
10-15-07
... Yet while the audience in the Roone Arledge Auditorium and millions of television viewers laughed and booed at the Islamist rube [i.e. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad], there was one man--ensconced at Columbia University, no less--who was likely nodding along in agreement. His name is Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, and he legitimizes, with a complex academic posture, the deservedly reviled views on homosexuality espoused by Mahmoud
Source: Tulsa World
10-18-07
Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts issued a written statement on Wednesday saying he is taking an indefinite leave of absence, following intense scrutiny spawned by financial, political and other allegations raised in a lawsuit.
This announcement comes eight days after Roberts said on national television: "I have not done anything wrong for which I needed to step aside."
Billy Joe Daugherty, pastor of Victory Christian Center, has been named ex
Source: Sidney Blumenthal in Salon
10-18-07
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who died this past February, would have celebrated his 90th birthday this week, on Oct. 15, an event commemorated with the publication of his "Journals: 1952-2000," culled by two of his sons, Andrew and Stephen, from 6,000 pages down to a mere 858, far too short. If the American century were cast as a Broadway show, this would be the playbill.
Schlesinger lived many lives, in academia, in politics and in cafe society. Of course, he was among the
Source: NYT
10-17-07
Judy Crichton, one of the first women to produce news on network television and the first executive producer of “American Experience,” the acclaimed public television history series, died in Manhattan on Sunday. She was 77 and lived in Manhattan.
The cause was complications of leukemia, her daughter Sarah Crichton said.
As executive producer of “American Experience” from 1988 to 1996, under the auspices of WGBH, the Boston PBS affiliate, Ms. Crichton oversaw the product
Source: http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com
10-15-07
“Clarifying” professor Charles Piot has published his attack on the blog—promised in his appearance at the February “Shut Up and Teach” forum, in which he said that critics of the Group of 88 should “shut up and teach”—in the most recent issue of Transforming Anthropology.
In reading this post, keep in mind: above all else, the Piot article gives a sense of what is considered a scholarly publication in his field.
The “Piot Principles,” as laid out in his article:
Source: Tim Rutten in the LAT
10-10-07
The social historian and essayist Garry Wills is one of our most lucid public intellectuals, and no one working today writes more clearly or with greater authority on the intersection of religion and public life.
"Head and Heart: American Christianities" is a major contribution to the national debate over separation of church and state and ought to be read by anyone perplexed by the current interplay of religion and politics.
If you've wondered whether Sen. Jo
Source: Daily Nebraskan (Student newspaper)
10-12-07
Barbara Weinstein made a stand Thursday night by calling for the prevention of government intervention in the academic community.
Weinstein, a history professor at New York University, spoke as part of the sixth annual Carroll R. Pauley Memorial Lecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, calling out restrictions set by the government on records, visa applications and other limits to academic freedom.
Her lecture was followed by a response from Waskar Ari, UNL profes
