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: Radio Free Europe
9-12-07
Frederick Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy At West Point, is regarded as the chief intellectual architect of the military "surge" in Iraq.
In January 2007, Kagan published a report entitled "Choosing Victory: A Plan For Success In Iraq," which advocated many of the steps later adopted by President George W. Bush. RFE/RL correspondent Heather Maher asked Kagan for
Source: AFP
9-12-07
Lithuania wants to grill leading Israeli Holocaust historian Yitzhak Arad over his alleged role in war crimes against civilians and prisoners during World War II, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
"We have despatched a request to Israeli prosecutors for legal help,"
prosecutor Rimvydas Valentukevicius told AFP.
"We want to send Mr Arad a notice on our suspicions and to interrogate him in the framework of a preliminary probe on his possible participatio
Source: Cuba News
9-12-07
Havana Historian Eusebio Leal Spengler has been granted the UN-Habitat international award in recognition to the Cuban efforts in the recovery and preservation works in Old Havana.
The Scroll of Honor of UN-Habitat 2007 was granted by an international committee that chose Leal among a long list of candidates and praised his work and leadership ahead of the Old Havana Restoration and Preservation Office.
In an interview granted to the Opus Habana magazine, the Historian
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) summary of an article, "Why Study War?" by Mr. Hanson in City Journal.
9-13-07
For the last three decades, colleges and universities have shied away from the study of war, leaving most Americans without a "basic understanding of military matters," says Victor Davis Hanson, an emeritus professor of classics at California State University at Fresno and a contributing editor to the journal.
"This state of affairs," he writes, "is profoundly troubling, for democratic citizenship requires knowledge of war -- and now, in the age of weapons of mass
Source: Daniel Byman in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
9-13-07
[Daniel Byman directs the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and is the author of The Five Front War: The Better Way to Fight Global Jihad (Wiley & Sons, 2007).]
Haleh Esfandiari's recent incarceration in Iran's notorious Evin prison highlights the dilemmas facing researchers who study the society and politics of repressive regimes.
Esfandiari, an
Source: Spiegel
9-10-07
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, American military historian Gabriel Kolko argues that the situation in Iraq is worse than ever and that the artificial nation, created after World War I, is breaking up. The "surge," he says, is also failing.
SPIEGEL: The long awaited results of the "surge" are now in. Has the surge succeeded? Is there reason for optimism in Iraq?
KOLKO: Both United States General David H. Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocke
Source: David Martinez at Counterpunch.com
9-11-07
Iain Boal is an Irish social historian of science and technics, associated with
Retort, a group of antinomian writers, artisans and artists based in the San
Francisco Bay Area. He is one of the authors of Retort's Afflicted Powers:
Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (2nd edn, Verso, 2006). This chapter
is based on a conversation prompted by David Martinez, a San Francisco-based
filmmaker and journalist, in late 2005. It also draws on material from a
forthcoming book by Iain Bo
Source: Adam Kirsch in the New York Sun
9-5-07
To the historian of Poland, the history of all Europe looks different. Ordinarily, Eastern Europe is thought to begin somewhere around Prague, with everything beyond relegated to mystery and backwardness. Half a century behind the Iron Curtain only deepened the traditional estrangement, making it seem natural to regard countries with very different identities as part of a monolithic Eastern Bloc. People who instinctively recognize the difference between the Germans and the Dutch feel no need to
Source: Daniel Martin Varisco
9-13-07
[Daniel Martin Varisco is Chair, Anthropology Department at Hofstra University.]
As an individual in Academe who has already achieved the career-defining rite of pedagogical passage known as “tenure,” the issue of a fellow scholar potentially being denied tenure in a highly politicized media campaign becomes an issue of concern. I am not so puffed up to think that tenure status is ipso facto a mark of praiseworthy expertise. There are far too many examples out the
Source: Max Boot at his Commentary blog
9-7-07
Fred Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, has become one of the most prolific and influential voices when it comes to Iraq policy. Just keeping up with his writings can be a full-time job—but a rewarding one. What he has to say is always worth paying attention to. He has a number of new articles that are “must reads” for those following the debate over the war and the surge.• This
Source: Jeffrey T. Richelson in Washington Decoded
9-11-07
[Jeffrey T. Richelson is a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. He is the author of several books on U.S. intelligence, including, most recently, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (W.W. Norton, 2006), and The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (Westview Press, 2001).]
Every author hopes for a news event that will draw attention to the subject matter of his
Source: Inside Higher Ed
9-11-07
The University of Michigan Press last month halted distribution of Overcoming Zionism, which argues that the creation of Israel was a mistake and urges adoption of the “one state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians would form a new country, without a Jewish character. The book was written by Joel Kovel, distinguished professor of social studies at Bard College. The publisher is Pluto Press, a British outfit that describes itself as having a left-wing
Source: Inside Higher Ed
9-12-07
The University of Michigan announced late Tuesday that the University of Michigan Press would resume distribution of Overcoming Zionism, a book that calls the creation of Israel a mistake and that prompted several pro-Israel groups to complain to the university about its role in making the available a book they characterized as “hate speech.” The University of Michigan Press stopped distribution last month, following those complaints, and setting off complaints of censorship by others. Michigan
Source: Telegraph (UK)
9-12-07
The acknowledgements begin with a rare profession of ignorance. Simon Schama was having lunch one day in Columbia University.
Across the table, he says, Britain's consul-general in New York mentioned that "of course" Schama would know all about "the thousands of free blacks in New York at the end of the Revolutionary War and what became of them. In fact, I had no clue what he was talking about."
Schama began reading, and soon he began writing. Being
Source: Chris Bray at HNN blog, Cliopatria
9-10-07
"The Vietnam experience left the military leadership feeling that they should advise against involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely, circumstances obtain -- i.e. domestic public support, the promise of a quick campaign, and freedom to employ whatever force is necessary to achieve rapid victory. In light of such criteria, committing U.S. units to counterinsurgencies appears to be a very problematic proposition, difficult to conclude before domestic support erodes and
Source: Barbara Weinstein in a commentary in Perspectives
9-1-07
[Re: Sam Tanenhaus's meditation on Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in the NYT, "History, Written in the Present Tense." In the article Tanenhaus chastised historians for failing to measure up to Schlesinger's stature.]
... Tanenhaus's critique of the historical profession, however, is substantially different. He readily acknowledges that "we live in what is often called a golden age of history and biography, when David McCullough, to cite the most obvious example, has att
Source: The Age
9-11-07
History teachers claim the Federal Government has shut them out of the development of a national Australian history curriculum for high schools, alleging the politically sensitive document is being "drafted in backrooms".
The History Teachers Association of Australia has written to federal Education Minister Julie Bishop and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith, claiming it was "increasingly concerned" about what was happening with the proposed national c
Source: Newsday
9-9-07
Anthony Giacchino had just started as a producer at the History Channel in 1996 and was looking for a topic for his first documentary film.
During a chance meeting at a church service, his former high school history teacher told him about a group of anti-war activists who, 25 years earlier, were caught red-handed breaking into a draft board office in Camden. Remarkably, they won a rare and momentous legal victory for the anti-war movement.
The teacher brought up the s
Source: CanWest News Service
9-8-07
An Ottawa historian has launched a campaign to place a small, largely overlooked image of a cloaked and bearded man from a 460-year-old map of Canada at the centre of this country's historical iconography.
Alastair Sweeny said the gesturing figure with black boots and a red hat may be the only authentic likeness of Jacques Cartier, the French explorer who first reached inland Canada and set the stage for European settlement.
Insisting the picture has been ignored for centurie
Source: AP
9-8-07
Photographer and historian Duane Zemper is not accustomed to being on the side of the camera. He's also doesn't know what "all the fuss" is about.
Zemper's perspective on World War II aboard B-17 bombers as an Army photo officer will be a part of a seven-part series focusing on the war that will air on public television. The project is sponsored nationally by the Public Broadcasting Service.
"WWII: Through the Lens of Duane Zemper" will be previewed
