Not Yet Noted Things

Timothy Burke, Alan Dershowitz, Franklin Foer, Kieran Healy, Stanley Kurtz, and Margaret Soltan reflect on the resignation of Lawrence Summers as President of Harvard University. Scott Jaschik's"The Summers Postmortem Beyond Cambridge," Inside Higher Ed, 22 February, surveys a broader range of opinion.

Thomas Madden of St. Louis University and Carole Hillenbrand of the University of Edinburgh discuss"Why the Crusades Still Matter," National Catholic Reporter, 24 February. Thanks to Dave Merkowitz at Merkowitz Mumblings for the tip.

Peter Carlson,"When the Signs Said ‘Get Out'," Washington Post, 21 February, focuses on James Loewen's book about American communities that excluded racial minorities in the 20th century. I'm inclined to agree with Thomas Sugrue and Andrew Wiese that Loewen's work is careless. His earlier book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong sold 800,000 copies, but it also misled a lot of its readers. Thanks to Hiram Hover for the tip.

Peter Stothard of the London Times wants to identify early anti-apartheid novels. Alan Patton's Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) is an obvious possibility. But there's also Sydney Atwell's Drifting to Destruction (1927). If you have other nominees, he'd appreciate your suggesting them at his blog.

Matthew M. Aid,"Declassification in Reverse," National Security Archive, 21 February, is the intelligence historian's account of federal security agencies' "reclassification" program that has withdrawn public access to many thousands of documents. Aid also reproduces copies of a number of reclassified documents that are already in private hands. Thanks to Kevin C. Murphy at Ghost in the Machine for the tip.

Finally, Scott McLemee's"D Ho!" Inside Higher Ed, 22 February, is not to be missed.