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: London Review of Books
3/28/2023
by Thomas Laqueur
Questions about how Americans practice genealogy are in some ways less interesting that questions about why they do; all genealogies are ways of constructing pasts that explain and justify the present, and in America they are impossible to disentangle from racism.
Source: Washington Post
3/25/2023
Legislation that would bar discussion of menstruation in Florida schools will likely put girls at risk of emotional distress when their periods begin. Historians stress that women have always sought this information despite stigmas against providing it.
Source: Penguin
3/21/2023
A fashion historian examines the accuracy of costuming and other design elements of historical dramas like "Bridgerton."
Source: Mother Jones
Technology historian John Mohr says that mandates for driver-monitoring tech could make it nearly impossible for an impaired driver to start and operate a car. The question is whether the auto industry will follow a historical pattern of resisting safety mandates or see them as a chance to innovate.
Source: The New Yorker
3/27/2023
Historian Kathryn Gin Lum, among other scholars, helps to shed light on the paradox that those who believe America is a "Christian nation" hold that view with greater militancy even as religious observance declines.
Source: Commonweal
3/28/2023
The eminent political historian reviews books by Timothy Shenk, Michael Kazin, Julian Zelizer, Gary Gerstle, Jefferson Cowie and Sam Rosenfeld that place the current concern with polarization in decades- and centuries-long perspective.
Source: Washington Post
3/27/2023
In Michigan, the Democratic majority is repealing "right to work" laws and protecting abortion rights and LBGTQ antidsicrimination by law. Historians Erik Loomis and Michael Kazin argue that it's not a historical anomaly for the party to push for inclusion on multiple fronts.
Source: The New Republic
3/23/2023
Books by Kidada Williams and Mari Crabtree shift attention away from the motives and mentality of white racist terrorists toward the impact on African American cultural, political, and psychological life in the wake of attacks by the Klan and other vigilantes.
Source: The Guardian
3/23/2023
by Quinn Slobodian
As pressure grew to end Apartheid, South African libertarians experimented with a deregulated zone that would be "Africa's Switzerland." It failed to become a model market utopia, but with sweatshops, environmental hazard, and stunted democracy, it was an eerie predictor of 21st century societies.
Source: The New Yorker
3/21/2023
by Jay Caspian Kang
The decade saw Black players become dominant in the league and assert their rights as skilled workers. Owners pushed back through the media, smearing the players as entitled drug abusers, as historian Theresa Runstedtler's new book explains.
Source: CNN
3/18/2023
Critics have charged that Ibram X. Kendi's writing portrays racism as an all-powerful and unchangeable force in American society. He says that, in fact, understanding racism as "constructed" means it can be deconstructed.
Source: Austin American-Statesman
3/19/2023
“It's a powerful thing to give people access to inspiring histories, and so I think some people would rather those lessons of the past not be available," says the UT-Austin professor, recently recognized as a USA Today Woman of the Year.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
3/17/2023
by Maximillian Alvarez
From teaching assistants to cafeteria workers, labor exploitation and union busting are the shady underside of the modern university, according to three scholars active in the academic labor movement.
Source: Responsible Statecraft
3/20/2023
Historians, journalists, and international relations scholars assess whether lesser-known figures in government, media and intelligence deserve more blame for the Iraq invasion.
Source: Vice
3/21/2023
“Stopping the existence of transgender people and the acceptance of trans people in the public sphere is to them some sort of religious imperative,” according to historian Thomas Lecaque.
Source: Fox 32
3/17/2023
The Northwestern historian's new book will arrive as the Supreme Court potentially decides the fate of affirmative action in college admissions.
Source: CNN
3/18/2023
Carlo Vecce connected documents he discovered in the State Archives in Florence to conclude that Leonardo's mother, Caterina, was a woman brought from the Caucasus as a slave and emancipated by DaVinci's father soon after his birth. His choice to present the findings in fiction has drawn admirers and skeptics.
Source: Washington Post
3/12/2023
Historian of technology and Silicon Valley Margaret O'Mara says that the peril of artificial intelligence chatbots and artificial intellience will lie in how it is marketed; the rush to be first to the market creates conditions for sloppy tech and abusive applications.
Source: The New Republic
3/8/2023
Historian (and HNN Alum) Kyla Sommers connects the recent Senate rejection of DC's local crime legislation to the history of suspicion of Black political power in the District.
Source: WNYC
3/14/2023
Born in Barbados, Shirley Chisholm moved to Brooklyn as a child. Her biographer discusses how her childhood heroes shaped her political worldview.
