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: http://www.international.ucla.edu
6-4-07
Fred G. Notehelfer directed the UCLA Center for Japanese Studies for 16 years and co-directed an East Asian Studies consortium in Southern California for 20 years. He will continue teaching at UCLA for another year before retiring.
***
As a graduate student in history, Gordon Berger came across a publication in the Yale library that he says was "kept under lock and key." It was called the Harvard East Asian Research Center Papers on Japan. After receiving perm
Source: Huffington Post (Blog) Click on SOURCE for embedded links.
6-3-07
Ok, here's what happened.
I came to New Hampshire with the Creative Coalition for a panel tomorrow morning and was supposed to be in the auditorium for the debate but because I am a journalist, they were told I would have to wait in the spin room. When I got to the spin room, which was an empty gymnasium, I noticed that there were chairs located on a balcony above us. So I went up there -- no one asked me for my ID or anything -- and went over to the bar and asked if it was a cash b
Source: Middle East Forum website
6-5-07
The Middle East Forum has established a Legal Project to protect researchers and analysts who work on the topics of terrorism, terrorist funding, and radical Islam.
Researchers and analysts have been repeatedly targeted in legal actions ...
Such lawsuits are often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, but undertaken as a means to bankrupt, distract, intimidate, and demoralize defendants. Plaintiffs seek less to prevail in the courtroom than to wear
Source: Jonathan Zimmerman in the New York Daily News
6-5-07
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York
University. He is the author of “Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in
the American Century” (Harvard University Press).]
In 1936, historian Howard Beale published a book entitled, “Are
American Teachers Free?” In 855 not-so-succinct pages, Beale gave a
simple answer: no. Across the United States, schools placed strict
limits upon teachers’ speech, manners, and conduct. Some schools barred
teachers from dancing, smo
Source: Gil Troy in the course of a review of Segev's 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East
6-2-07
As Israelis celebrate the 40th anniversary of their speedy triumph over hostile neighbours, both internal and external critics are questioning the Six Day War's justification, let alone its results. The pivotal moral question regards Israel's decision to launch its pre-emptive air raid, which destroyed Egypt's air force on June 5, 1967. Did Israel act rashly? Did the attack reflect a delusional anxiety rather than a realistic threat assessment?
In 2002, historian Michael Oren's maje
Source: Tim Harford in the Financial Times (London)
6-2-07
... Paul David, an economic historian at Stanford, presented a brief, prescient research paper to the American Economic Association back in 1990, titled "The Dynamo and the Computer". Professor David's aim was to persuade economists that the history of the electric dynamo would tell them something about the ongoing information revolution.
Electric light bulbs were available by 1879, and there were generating stations in New York and London by 1881. Yet a thoughtful observe
Source: Alan Wolfe in the WaPo
6-3-07
[Alan Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and is writing a book about why liberalism matters.]
It has become a cliché to point out that while academic historians write dense, imponderable tomes to get tenure, popular historians satisfy the public hunger with powerfully written and engaging narratives. This cliché could be disproved in two ways: Academics could write terrific histories, and popular historians could write dread
Source: Eboo Patel in the WaPo
6-4-07
[ Eboo Patel is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core and the author of Acts of Faith.]
The first assignment I give the graduate students in my class at Chicago Theological Seminary is Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations. I figure it is only fair for them to do a thorough reading of perhaps the most prevalent theory of our times.
And then I spend the rest of the semester trying to dig out of that hole.
It’s not that my s
Source: Robert Sibley, The Ottawa Citizen
6-3-07
Toward the end of the 19th century, Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck remarked that the most important thing to know about the 20th century was that Americans spoke English.
His point was obvious: an alliance between the British Empire and the United States, the world's largest English-speaking states, would create the most powerful political entity on the planet.
Bismarck's remarks proved prescient, for which we can be thankful. If not for the willingness of the Englis
Source: http://www.nysut.org
6-4-07
Kate Mullany is more than a 19th-century labor pioneer for Celine Casey's students. She's a neighbor. "I teach at School 14 in Troy and my kids could walk to the Kate Mullany historic site," said Casey, a K-1 remediation teacher and Troy Teachers Association member. "I'd love to incorporate information about her into my curriculum."
Casey attended the Teaching Labor History Symposium at NYSUT headquarters in May. The day-long forum helped teachers better incorpor
Source: Jon Wiener in the Nation
6-4-07
Israel went to war 40 years ago this week more because of "psychological weakness" than because of a genuine strategic threat--that's the conclusion of Tom Segev, one of Israel's leading historians, and author of the new book 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East. June 5 is the 40th anniversary of the beginning of Israel's Six-Day war, when the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began. I spoke with Tom Segev on the phone in Jerusalem on Monday.
Source: BBC
6-4-07
The origins of intricate carvings which line the walled garden of a Scottish castle have finally been discovered, solving centuries of mystery.
The 400-year-old Edzell Castle near Brechin attracts thousands of visitors.
It was not known where the 14 carvings, depicting the Liberal arts on the south wall and Cardinal Virtues on the west wall, had come from.
But their origins have now been revealed as those of Flemish Renaissance master - Maarten de Vos.
Source: http://media.www.thedailyaztec.com
6-4-07
When one thinks about history professors, the stereotype of ancient-looking men in tweed jackets who drone on about past events that seem to have little significance today usually comes to mind. San Diego State history professor Edward Blum challenges this perception.
"History is a profession that's being written by youngish folks with energy, new ideas, approaches and insights," Blum said. "They're dedicated to seeing the past connected to the present."
Source: Maureen Ogle at the website of Historically Speaking (March/April)
3-1-07
The historian reads an email, and then leaps out of her chair, whooping and hollering. According to the message, her new book has:
(A) won the Bancroft prize
(B) been chosen as book-of-the-month by Hustler magazine
(C) been shortlisted for the Pulitzer.
Correct answer: B. In October 2006 I learned that Hustler magazine had selected my new book, Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer, as its book-of-the-month for April 2007.
At this point,
Source: CNN
6-3-07
[HNN Editor: Click here to read Eric Alterman's account of what happened.]
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN ) – Columnist and author Eric Alterman has been released after being arrested Sunday night inside the debate spin room. He was charged with criminal trespass after police say he refused repeated orders to leave.
Goffstown, N.H. police said Alterman was in the spin room as a guest of the Creative Coalition and went t
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education summary of article in The Hedgehog Review
6-4-07
There has been a "basic transformation of the nature and function of intellectuals," writes Richard Wolin, a professor of history, comparative literature, and political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "The visionary and utopian intellectuals of the old stamp," he argues, "have been replaced by a more modest and humble breed."
Mr. Wolin, whose essay is part of a special issue about "intellectuals and public respons
Source: Steve Paulson at Salon
5-30-07
Karen Armstrong is a one-woman publishing industry, the
author of nearly 20 books on religion. When her breakthrough book"A
History of God" appeared in 1993, this British writer quickly became known
as one of the world's leading historians of spiritual matters. Her work
displays a wide-ranging knowledge of religious traditions -- from the
monotheistic religions to Buddhism. What's most remarkable is how she
carved out this career for herself after rejecting a life in the church.
At 1
Source: WSJ
6-2-07
1. "An Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania" by Peter Markoe (1787)....
2. "Sufferings in Africa" by James Riley (1817)....
3. "The Valley of Vision" by George Bush (1847).
The Puritans viewed themselves as the New Israel and America as the New Promised Land. Accordingly they felt a sense of kinship with the Old Israel--the Jews--and the old Promised Land, then known as Palestine, a part of the Ottoman Empire. Many of the Puritan
Source: http://www.abc.net.au
6-3-07
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Two hundred and thirty years ago, a hardy American called John Ledyard became the first from his country to travel to the Middle East.
He went with the aim of making a difference. He was the first American to do so, but certainly not the last.
American born academic, Michael Oren, has written a book about the history of US entanglements in the Middle East.
Called Power, Faith and Fantasy it traces the various motives and the many misund
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
6-1-07
Canada's baby boomers have been waiting to hear this: Flower-power worked. The hippies' giddy make-love-not-war-movement of four decades ago actually resulted in a more loving country.
University of Victoria historian Dominique Clément says today's plethora of human-rights legislation and institutions can be traced directly back to the demands by young people in the 1960s and 1970s for a Canada that would be more caring and sensitive toward their marginalized fellow citizens: the po
