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: Anat Bereshkovsky at ynetnews.com
10-19-06
Many history and sociology professors and researchers with the common goal of showing “the other” less popular side of Zionism, earned the handle “post-Zionists” for their participation in Palestinian propaganda against government policies and efforts against Israel’s definition as a Jewish state.
These “post-Zionist” professors don’t hesitate to weave comments about Israel’s injustices against the Palestinians, the lack of equality for Israel’s Arab citizens, and democracy’s limita
Source: Juan Cole at Informed Comment (Blog)
10-19-06
This letter went out from the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association over my signature as president of the Middle East Studies Association. Many thanks to all the colleagues who worked so hard on it:
October 19, 2006
His Excellency Christopher Kastryzk
Consul-General
Republic of Poland
233 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Fax: 646 237 2105
Your Excellency,
I am writing to you on behalf
Source: Inside Higher Ed
10-19-06
Trustees all over the country have been receiving a book critical of Islam, with no cover note, leading some to worry about why they were receiving the packages.
The address on the packages referred to their trustee status.
The book is Islamic Imperialism: A History, published by Yale University Press. The author is Efraim Karsh, a professor at the University of London who is highly regarded in neoconservative circles, but who has been harshly criticized by many in Midd
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
10-17-06
He's co-authored a book with Robert McNamara and was the first Western scholar to be given access to the archives in Hanoi, so it isn't surprising to learn that Vassar historian Robert K. Brigham sees parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. But he fairly shocked a small audience in Seattle today when he claimed that Condoleezza Rice is following in
Source: Bruce Craig in AHA Perspectives
10-1-06
Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein has faced a number of challenges since taking the helm of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). None are so daunting, and I'm sure, as frustrating to him as is the proposed fiscal 2007 budget for his agency. According to Hill insiders, unless Congress acts when it reconciles the budget proposals of the House and Senate in conference—and unless the committees throw tradition to the wind and provide an infusion of new money for the
Source: Robert Townsend in AHA Perspectives
10-1-06
A new study from the Department of Education suggests that students at the poorest schools were less likely to have a fully qualified history teacher at the head of their class.
This study analyzes how many history teachers held one of two qualifications—a degree in the field (or at least a minor in history) and a certification to teach social studies. The report draws on a large survey of more than 51,000 school teachers in the 1999–2000 academic year, using the proportion of stud
Source: Robert Townsend in AHA Perspectives
10-1-06
After lagging behind other disciplines for almost a decade, history departments finally seem to be gaining ground in the number of undergraduate students earning degrees, even as the number of students earning graduate degrees in the field continues to decline.
The Department of Education reports 29,808 baccalaureate degrees conferred in history during the 2003–04 academic year—a 7.5 percent increase over the year before. This was almost double the growth reported for bachelor’s deg
Source: AHA Perspectives
10-1-06
If you care about the American Historical Association, and indeed, if you care about the state of the historical profession, we need your help in assessing the health and future direction of the AHA.
On the surface the Association seems quite healthy, with a large membership, superb publications, and almost a decade of balanced budgets. Beneath that surface, however, there is real cause for concern. Over the past decade, membership remained essentially flat and subscriptions to the Ameri
Source: Independent (UK)
10-15-06
Thanks to a press officer's slip of the pen, The Independent on Sunday is sent to interview Simon Schama not at his literary agent's offices in London's Russell Street but to a rather grander building in Russell Square. It is a side entrance to the British Museum. When, 20 embarrassing minutes later, I relate this to Schama, he roars with laughter. "That's the introduction to your piece," he giggles: "We know Simon's pretentious - but regarding himself as an antiquity!"
Source: New Republic
10-17-06
[Richard Landes , medieval history professor at Boston University, established www.seconddraft.org and blogs at www.theaugeanstables.com. He is the author of Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (forthcoming). ]
On September 30, 2000, images of 12-year-old Mohammed Al Durah and his father--cowering behind a barrel at Netzarim Junction, in the Gaza Strip--circulated globally
Source: Jesse Lemisch post on Historians of American Communism list
10-16-06
After extended delay and embarrassing criticisms by many, Portside has
finally decided to take notice of former Communist Bettina Aptheker's
new book, Intimate Politics (see below). But the way they have backed
into this notice is reminiscent of the worst of Soviet journalism.
(Portside is the "discussion and debate service" of the Committees of
Correspondence, a descendant of the US Communist Party.) They have
presented a short piece by Aptheker with a rigged rebutt
Source: LAT
10-15-06
[BETTINA APTHEKER is a professor of feminist studies and history at UC Santa Cruz. She is the author, most recently, of Intimate Politics: How I Grew up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel (Seal Press, Emeryville California, 2006).]
IT IS A LITTLE disconcerting and somewhat chilling to read reviews of my recently published memoir and see my own words quoted back to me. It is not because I don't like what I wrote, or feel shame about it. It is because I was the holder o
Source: Emma Jacobs in the Financial Times (UK)
10-13-06
Professor Peter Hennessy leads me past the stacks of books in the library at his home in Walthamstow, east London, to show me something special: a tea towel. It’s no ordinary tea towel, however. If Britain had been blown up by a nuclear bomb in the 1950s, this cream-and-green waffled cotton sheet would have dried Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s dishes.
Emblazoned on the tea towel are the letters TETW. “It’s an elaborate joke,” Hennessy cries. “They stand for The End of The World!”
12-31-69
Eric Foner, James McPherson, Nell Painter and more than a score of other historians have filed briefs in a Supreme Court case involving the racial balance of public schools. The historians argue that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution are not "color-blind," as the plaintiffs in two districts claim.
Ralph Luker explains the issues at stake in an article published on HNN's homepage:
Source: AHA Blog
9-28-06
Welcome to AHA Today, a blog focused on the latest happenings in the broad discipline of history and the professional practice of the craft that draws on the staff, research, and activities of the AHA.
The staff and officers of the Association work constantly to support and represent history in meetings, conferences, and a host of other activities. Too often, however, these activities are so immediate or time sensitive that they never make it into Perspectives. We hope this blog will bridg
Source: Boston Globe
7-3-06
Wiry and energetic, the Hugo K. Foster Associate Professor of African Studies at Harvard University coils in her chair and speaks with rapid force about her book that recently won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize.
"I was strongly urged by colleagues not to undertake this project, for two reasons," Caroline Elkins said in an interview at her home, not far from the campus. "One, they felt it was too politically sensitive. Two, they said there wouldn't be enough information. So,
Source: Juan Cole at his blog, Informed Comment
10-12-06
An encyclopedia article should be an objective accounting of a person's life and work. The wikipedia entry on me is constantly being distorted by a small group of far rightwing activists who put the comments of my ideological critics up into the body in an attempt to discredit me.
I never replied to the smear of me gotten up by Marty Peretz of the New Republic and carried out by a far rightwing Israeli historian named Ephraim Karsh, some time ago. It was beneath contempt.
Source: Eric Alterman in the Guardian
10-12-06
The British historian Tony Judt, transplanted to New York told a reporter this week:
"I'm struck when I observe the Jewish community in the United States, especially in New York ...that it's a community which is the most successful, the wealthiest, the most well-integrated, the most influential, the most safe Jewish community in the history of Judaism, period - anywhere, anytime - since the Roman empire. And yet it's driven by an enormous self-induced insecurity."
Source: Andrew Ferguson in the Weekly Standard
10-16-06
I don't think anyone knows who the first person was to earn a living as a guide to Civil War battlefields, but no member of that charmed profession has achieved the fame or longevity of Edwin C. Bearss (pronounced Barsssss), who captained his first lucky group of tourists around Vicksburg in 1955 and can still be found, from one weekend to the next, at one battlefield or another, leading a fanny-packed and be-visored platoon of customers into the pleasures of vicarious combat.
Over
Source: Wa Po
10-13-06
Michael Ignatieff, a former Harvard professor running for the leadership of Canada's Liberal Party, is facing a political uproar over remarks in which he labeled as a "war crime" Israel's deadly bombing of the southern Lebanon town of Qana.
Ignatieff, a noted human rights scholar and the front-runner in the race to lead the party, said in a French-language radio interview Sunday that the July 30 Qana bombing, which killed 28 civilians, "was a war crime, and I should h
