The Problem with Ken Burn's Country Music
By Peter LaChapelle
The Latest 
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Cynicism May be the Real Threat to Impeachment
Donald J. Fraser
We need to acknowledge that corruption has been allowed to seep into our system by reviewing some examples of recent corruption. We should see what the founders intended, and how far we have strayed from their views of corruption.
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How the Nutcracker Ballet Went from a Flop to a Christmas Classic
Bruce Chadwick
Today, about 40% of annual ticket revenue for all Americana ballet companies comes from productions of The Nutcracker.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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The Capital City and the Civil War
S.C. Gwynne
In the winter of 1863–64, Washington was the most heavily defended city on earth.
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30 years after Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, have we come full circle?
Gideon Remez
History is repeating itself as Havelian satire rather than farce. Again, an autocratic Moscow is working to expand its sphere, weaken its adversaries and break up their alliances.
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A Boss is a Boss: Nurses Battle for Their First Union Contract at Albany Medical Center
Lawrence Wittner
A nonprofit employer is not necessarily a better boss than a profit-making one. That sad truth is reinforced by the experience of some 2,200 nurses at Albany Medical Center, who have been fighting for a contract since April 2018, when they voted for union representation.
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A Concise History of Diets through Life and a Lot of Show Biz Spice
Bruce Chadwick
The play is warm and loving. It is a memoir of sorts with her as the center. It is not a drama or high comedy or sprawling spectacle, either, but it is good.
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Jack Miles' God in the Qur’an brings the three Abrahamic traditions to the table
Zaman Stanizai
We cannot force someone to hear a message they are not ready to receive, but we must never underestimate the power of planting a seed.
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What the Trump Impeachment Inquiry Means for the Rest of the World
Kevin M. Shanley
America’s political crisis comes at a time of rising global instability.
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The Power of the 2017 Congressional Recess
Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin
Leaders got involved because the country had fallen into the hands of a vile, dangerous bully. They were not going to put up with harassment in their own communities.
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A President Ready to Pardon
Harlow Giles Unger
President Trump was far from first to issue controversial military pardons.
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NATO's First Post-Wall Summit 30 Years Later
Stephan Kieninger
Debates over NATO’s purpose are not new. The alliance has always managed to adapt in times of challenges.
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An Extinct Species: The Liberal Republican
Donne Levy
As both parties have unified, those whose views are not considered mainstream enough have been sidelined or eliminated. This shift has meant the extinction of the liberal or moderate Republican.
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Blog
The Massive Influence of Northern California Democratic Leaders in American Politics
Ronald L. Feinman
It is rare for one city and one area of any state to have as great of an impact on American life as San Francisco and Northern California have had.
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Remembering Altamont, the Day the Sixties Died
James Thornton Harris
On a sunny Saturday in the dusty hills east of San Francisco, the Altamont Rock Concert dissolved into chaos, leaving four dead and dozens injured. James Thorton Harris reflects on his experience at Altamont on its 50th anniversary.
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After the Bleeding Stopped
D. M. Giangreco
While many features on Altamont’s 50th anniversary will focus on the violence, I’ll always remember what happened after the bleeding stopped: the chaos of broken promises and what the willing volunteers--- unsupported and unknown --- ultimately accomplished there.
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A Wealth Tax? Two Framers Weigh In
Ray Raphael
Wealth taxes are on the current political table and hotly debated. All taxation was on the framers’ table as they considered a new constitution. What would they make of the measures we are considering now?
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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How did November become the Mizrahi Heritage Month? And what’s Mizrahi anyhow?
Lior Sternfeld and Arie M. Dubnov
The Mizrahi heritage month is not a local, grassroots initiative that emerged in response to experiences of discrimination or marginalization. Instead, it is a transatlantic importation of recent attempts by the Israeli government to commemorate the forced expulsion of Jews from the Arab and Muslim world in the wake of the establishment of Israel.
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William Barr’s Upside-Down Constitution
Robert J. Spitzer
The Trump administration’s many questionable actions have raised both new and old concerns about the extent and reach of executive power.
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Impeachment Has Always Been a Purely Political Process
Waller R. Newell
One of the Constitution’s fundamental aims, according to Alexander Hamilton, was to forestall the emergence an American tyrant — a “Catiline or Caesar.”
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Neville Chamberlain, Sir Horace Wilson, & Britain's Plight of Appeasement
Adrian Phillips
The history of appeasement is intertwined with the history of Churchill.
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How Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day Can Help Us Understand Our Political Moment
Frank Palmeri
Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day is a rare bird—a revival (with a substantial re-write) that proves to be more timely and incisive than the original was.
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A Review of Amazon Prime’s Series Dostoevsky
Walter G. Moss
Americans unfamiliar with Dostoevsky's life, and perhaps even with some of his greatest works like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, can now get to know him via Amazon Prime’s 8-part subtitled series Dostoevsky, directed by the Russian Vladimir Khotinenko.
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Losing Sight of Jefferson and Falling into Plato
M. Andrew Holowchak
Socratic Styled Teaching in Twenty-First Century American Classrooms
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The Myth of the First Thanksgiving is a Buttress of White Nationalism and Needs to Go
David J. Silverman
Americans tend to view the Thanksgiving myth as harmless, but it is loaded with fraught ideological meaning.
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Bodhisattvas and Saints
Ed Simon
St. Josaphat is a particularly remarkable Roman Catholic saint, for he’s normally known by a rather different title – the Buddha.
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Blog
Curing Ourselves with Fred Rogers
Steve Hochstadt
Instead of stressing about Trump’s latest idiocy or the decline of American politics, about which we can do very little, we could try to emulate Mr. Rogers. We could see the world as an oppor...
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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The History Behind the Rocket Used in the Latest Attack Against Israel
Gideon Remez
Israel wielded a similar "mega-rocket" against Egypt 50 years ago. How Soviet advisers dealt with it.
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Legalize Torture? It’s Tortured Logic
Sam Ben-Meir
The Report is largely about another single-minded individual, Daniel J. Jones (Adam Driver), lead investigator of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who spent five arduous years doggedly uncovering the CIA’s suspect detention and interrogation program following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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Cinderella, Whose History Goes Back to the First Century, Is Still a Delight, Glass Slippers and All
Bruce Chadwick
The tale seemed to have first appeared in Egypt around 100 A.D. That story featured a lost Greek girl who stumbled into a party hosted by the Pharaoh.
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We Cannot Forget About Acid Rain
Sam Mastrianni
Acid rain was a major problem in the late twentieth century. Through years of regulation and reform, the threat from this acid was neutralized. If we don’t learn from history though, we could face the same terrible threat yet again.
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Trump's Official Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement Mirrors George W. Bush's Exit from Kyoto Protocol
Mark Detlor
The United States has a long history of being hesitent to match other western nation's commitment to the climate.
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Historians criticize Trump after he calls impeachment inquiry a ‘lynching’
Laura Gonzalez
President Trump's tweet drew backlash from historians against the use of a racially charged word.
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The History Briefing on "Quid Pro Quo:" The Evolution and History of Quid Pro Quo
Samantha Benthien
How can the history of the term quid pro quo inform our understanding of its current use in the impeachment inquiry against the President?
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Democrats Should Welcome Michael Bloomberg Into the Primary Race
Robert Brent Toplin
He could be a promising alternative if Trump looks competitive in 2020.
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Investigating Technology and the Remaking of America
Robin Lindley
A conversation with Acclaimed History Professor Margaret O’Mara on Her Career and Her Groundbreaking New Book on Silicon Valley
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The History of Black Incarceration Is Longer Than You May Think
Jeff Forret
The incarceration of African Americans did not begin suddenly with the end of the Civil War. Confinement functioned as a punishment during bondage as well.
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A Marvelous Christmas Carol
Bruce Chadwick
This new A Christmas Carol, based on Charles Dickens’ novel, has a different look to it, a different musical score, a different Scrooge and different ghosts. But it is the same heart-warming story.
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Fake News and the Founders: Get Used to It!
Harlow Giles Unger
Fake news did not diminish as the nation matured. Indeed, it became entwined in the nation’s literary fabric.
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Russian Victories in the Post-Cold War Era
Albert M. Camarillo
Putin’s Russia is winning battles to destabilize the U.S. that former USSR leaders such as Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev had tried but failed.
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Overcoming Cold War Narratives: Remembering the Progressive Politics of Louis Adamic
John P. Enyeart
The reemergence of progressive politics today, and its links to antifascism, has a long history.
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Trump Skips ASEAN Summit, Continuing a Presidential Tradition
Ang Cheng Guan
President Trump’s decision to skip the ASEAN meetings in Southeast Asia this month must feel like déjà vu to the leaders in the region.
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Lincoln – not Pilgrims – responsible for Thanksgiving holiday
William C. Kashatus
Since 1863, Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States.
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American Exceptionalism and Why We Must Impeach Trump
Greg Bailey
The weight of our heritage and the promise of our future demand that we act in the present to restore our exceptional place in the world and in our hearts.
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“You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war”
Ken Lawrence
Did William Randolph Hearst actually send a 1897 telegram to Frederic Remington with this directive?
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The Mysterious Assassination That Unleashed Jihadism
Thomas Hegghammer
The story of Abdallah Azzam suggests that a root cause of modern jihadism was the collapse in respect for religious authority among young Islamists in the late 1980s.
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The Best Work in History Illuminates Life Now: An Interview with Angela Woollacott
Erik Moshe
Historians must actively participate in the arenas of public discourse, to promote the vital role of our discipline in civic society.
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Going blue in the Bluegrass State? History echoes in Kentucky’s gubernatorial results
Billy J. Stratton
Not all that long ago, Eastern Kentucky was a Democratic stronghold.
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Coexistence and Sectarianism in the Modern Arab World
Ussama Makdisi
In the case of the Middle East, the need to demythologize communities and their ideological underpinnings needs to go hand in hand with evoking a dynamic history of coexistence that transcends communalism.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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Sondland Sings: Here's How Historians Are Responding
What historians are saying, tweeting and retweeting.
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Too Important or Too Irrelevant? Why Beijing Hesitates on Hong Kong
Kevin M. Shanley
Two competing narratives possibly explain why Beijing’s authoritarian communist rulers have not so far interfered in the increasingly violent protests in Hong Kong, now six months old and heading into a deadly new phase.
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England’s Richard III as Murderous, Royal Thug
Bruce Chadwick
William Shakespeare’s bone-chilling play Richard III portrays England’s deformed monarch as a murderous thug, one of the great villains of world history.
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Blog
What Have the Latest Impeachment Hearings Revealed?
Steve Hochstadt
Steve Hochstadt recaps the last week of hearings.
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