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: Michael Oren, the Middle East historian, in the WSJ
8-23-05
"Nothing in my 25-year army experience had prepared me for the horror of Jews fighting Jews, nor had any of the knowledge I'd gained researching Israel's wars. The threat which the disengagement posed to the contemporary Jewish State weighed on me as I sat mourning the loss of its ancient predecessors. I retain many of my forebodings about disengagement--the precedent it sets of returning to the 1967 borders, the inducement to terror. About the army's role, though, I have no ambivalence. Th
Source: Independent
8-19-05
W.H.C. Frend, a historian of the early Christian church who used archaeology to reconstruct the past, died on August 1, 2005. The death of W.H.C. Frend marks the end of a career of service to the history of the early Christian church, especially its social and archaeological aspects, which was notable for breadth of learning, creative interpretation and some pugnacious controversy.
Source: Independent (UK)
8-16-05
A Moscow- educated historian and socialist, Sergei Stanishev, 39, will be Prime Minister of Bulgaria, replacing the former king Simeon Saxe-Coburg in the post after seven weeks of post-election bickering. Mr Stanishev will lead a grand coalition of their parties and an ethnic Turkish grouping. He has the job of putting the Balkan country back on track for EU entry in 2007.
Source: Washington Times
8-16-05
African-American historian, film writer, publicist and journalist Emma E. Pullen has died in Raleigh, N.C., of breast cancer at age 52. Pullen died July 20 at Duke Health Raleigh Hospital, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. She began her career as a reporter for The Washington Post and wrote for The Los Angeles Times in Washington and Los Angeles before becoming an independent film writer, producer and publicist.
Her 1997 documentary "Colors Strai
Source: OAH Newsletter
8-11-05
The OAH profiles Betty Unterberger.Born in Scotland in 1922 and raised in the U.S., Betty Miller Unterberger began her college career at Syracuse University on a forensics scholarship. Bored to death with the speech curriculum, she took a citizenship course from Marguerite J. Fisher, the only woman professor she ever had. From Fisher, Betty developed an interest in political science and history. At Syracuse and later at Radcliffe College (now Harvard) where she went for her
8-15-05
Joel Schwartz, Professor of History at Montclair State University and long active in urban history groups, passed away on Wednesday, August 10, 2005, from complications of leukemia. He was 62. Joel received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Chicago, and wrote his dissertation with Professor Richard C. Wade. He taught at Roosevelt University and the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, as well as Brooklyn College, before teaching for over 30 years at Montclair
Source: The Washington Post
8-7-05
The field in Maryland's 2006 U.S. Senate race may soon grow wider, more curious and less predictable.
On the Democratic side, the number of candidates could easily double to six by next month. Three Montgomery County residents -- a historian, a psychiatrist and a wealthy businessman -- all say they are on the verge of making decisions about whether to join the fray.
The latest possible entrant is Allan J. Lichtman, an American University historian. Lichtman, who has m
Alex Joffe, Campus Watch (6-2-05)Normally the dim but loquacious Juan Cole is not worth the time of day. But
this time, it's personal. Commenting on a TV series made by the Israeli journalist
Haim Yavin, Cole
states: The Guardian summarizes some of his findings: ' Some settlers tell Yavin that
the Palestinians mu
Robin Lane Fox, in the Australian
(July 14, 2004):BIG movies are notorious for trampling on history; I have recently given the
year's biggest movie the chance of trampling on a historian. In November, Oliver
Stone's film about Alexander the Great will burst on the world.I have been the film's historical adviser and in September last year I galloped
on my
John W. Dean, former counsel to the president, in findlaw.com (April 23,
2004):On April 8, the U. S. Senate received the President's nomination for a new
Archivist of the United States -- historian Allen Weinstein. For most Americans,
this is an obscure post. But the Weinstein nomination has rightly been gathering
increasing attention. Indeed, within the archival and historical communities, the nomination has
sent sirens screaming and bells clanging.
John M. Glionna, in the LAT (March 30, 2004):The boxes of confidential FBI documents lie scattered about author Gerald Nicosia's
kitchen like so many unopened prizes. Twelve feet high when stacked, they are
a monument, he says, to democracy gone wrong. They are also his cross to bear.
For weeks now, the documents have created havoc in the historian's staid suburban
life. Instead of shepherding the kids between school and baseball games while
he works on his
Benny Morris, reviewing A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples by Ilan Pappe; in the New Republic (subscribers only) (March 22, 2004): lan Pappe and I walked a stretch together in uneasy companionship, but we have now parted ways. In the late 1980s and early 1990s we belonged to a group dubbed the "New Historians" of Israel, which also included Avi Shlaim and Tom Se
Kerry Howe, Professor of History at Massey University and author of The
Quest for Origins: Who First Discovered New Zealand and the Pacific Islands?,
in the New
Zealand Herald (April 3, 2004):Michael King's death this week led to an amazing outpouring of sympathy and
accolade. It is indicative of fundamental changes in national sensitivit
Bruce Craig, in the newsletter for the Coalition for History (April 8, 2004):HISTORIAN ALLEN WEINSTEIN SLOTTED BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO BE NEXT ARCHIVIST
OF THE UNITED STATES On 8 April 2004, the White
House announced that President George W. Bush intends to nominate historian
Allen Weinstein to become the ninth Archivist of the United States. Weinstein
currently works at the Int
Ben Johnson, in frontpagemag.com
(April 22, 2004):Sleepy Muhlenberg College leapt to national prominence when the Allentown,
Pennsylvania, university became only the fourth college in the nation to pass
a resolution condemning the Patriot Act. On January 23, 2004, the faculty senate
passed the measure without dissent, by a vote of 100-0. The two-page resolution
paints an Orwellian pictu
Benny Morris, in the course of an interview with Elizabeth Wasserman in
the Atlantic
(March 25, 2004):You have said that as a historian and as a realist, you don't concern yourself
with the moral implications of the facts that you reveal. But as an Israeli
citizen, can you separate those two things? Have you ever felt concerned about
the effects that your revelations wou
Rachel Donadio, in the
NY Observer (March 17, 2004):"I’m very moderate by nature," Sam Tanenhaus said by telephone
from his home in Westchester, two days after The New York Times announced
that he would be the next editor of its Book Review. "People with extreme
views interest me, dramatically and narratively." The author of a very well-received 1997 biograp
Invisible Adjunct, on his blog (March 23, 2004): A few months ago, I made a vow to myself that this would be my last semester as an invisible adjunct. Since I've failed to secure a full-time position in my final attempt at the academic job market, what this means, of course, is that I made a vow to leave the academy. Six more weeks of teaching, and I head for the nearest exit. Though I must inevitably feel a sense of loss and
Douglas Brinkley, in the NYT
(Feb. 17, 2004):While most Americans were celebrating Presidents' Day yesterday, a very different
holiday was being honored in Princeton, N.J. George F. Kennan, who formulated
the policy of "containment" of the Soviet Union during the early
cold war, turned 100. Surrounded by his wife and four children the frail Mr.
Kennan — diplomat, h
John Freeman, in the Austraian (7-30-05):
DAVID McCullough loves good stories. And you can see one coming by the look on his face. When he is about to unload a particularly juicy yarn on you, America's most popular historian puckers his lips, squints his eyes and sometimes even gives a grunt of appreciation. It's as if he has popped a sweet into his mouth and has begun sucking on it. Sitting at a large oak table in a library at the Yale Club in midtown Manhattan, the avuncular 71-ye
