Historians/History

Remembrance of General Education Past

by Sheldon M. Stern

Normally, I don’t pay much attention to the new year.  Rather, I often chuckle when recalling Jackie Gleason wishing his viewers “a happy changing of the calendar.”  However this year is different:  2011 marks the fiftieth anniversary of my graduation from college.  In and of itself that fact may not seem so extraordinary, but for me it has a very special resonance.I grew up in tough, working-class district of Brooklyn. My father did piecework in a factory that made men’s caps.  M

Channelling George Washington: Benjamin Franklin

by Thomas Fleming

“There’s another fellow from my time who I don’t think is properly appreciated by a lot of Americans:  Ben Franklin.”“How well did you know him?”“We were never close friends.  He was famous

Highlights from the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Boston

by David Austin Walsh

Index Day 1 Day 2 Day 3Day 4 News Bloggers VideosRelated Links HNN Coverage: Past AHA & OAH Conferences News<

Live Q&A with Deepak Tripathi

You've worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a BBC correspondent. How does the Afghanistan of today compare to the pre-civil war Afghanistan of 1978?Before the 1978 communist coup which

The Constitution, Ritual, and History

by Jonathan Dresner

I'm fascinated by constitutions. Founding documents are historical gold: they express the dynamic discourses of a moment and they shape the political and cultural progress of peoples for years, decades, sometimes even centuries to follow. They are sometimes brilliantly constructed systemic compromises, and sometimes they are simply descriptions of the way things work, and sometimes they are failed attempts to stabilize desperate situations. Some of them are inspirational and influential; some are simply technical and obscure; most are a mix. I use constitutions in my teaching and fourteen years ago I may have been the first person to digitize the Meiji and 1947 Constitutions of Japan with my hand-held optical scanner.

My Love Affair with Political Cartoons

by Stephen Hess

I fell in love by accident.  It was 1959 and I was writing a book with my mentor from Johns Hopkins, Malcolm Moos.  It would be called Hats in the Ring: The Making of Presidential Candidates.  The problem was t

Why the Civil War Happened

by Thomas Fleming

As we approach the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Civil War, various people are rushing into print to declare that the real cause of the war was slavery.  Th

Native American Repatriation at 20

by Michelle A. Hamilton

The end of 2010 marks the twentieth anniversary of the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) which requires federally funded museums to inventory their collec

Trashing the Tea Party Movement by Trashing the American Revolution

by Thomas Fleming

In the December 20 issue of the New Yorker, Caleb Crain offers a new angle in the political wars ignited by the advocates who claim

Haley Barbour's Yazoo City and Mine

by James W. Loewen

The first time I saw Yazoo City was in the summer of 1965.  I spent that summer at Tougaloo College near Jackson, and Yazoo is only 40 miles away, up Highway 49 northwest toward the Mississippi Delta.  The drive was picturesque.  After leaving the Jackson suburbs, Highway 49 was a two-lane road that went up and down the dramatic Loess Hills, covered with kudzu vines, intensely green in early summer.  Right at Yazoo City the Delta begins.  The highway went down a l

Libertarian Fantasies and the Tea Party Movement

by Leslie Rogne Schumacher

“One doesn’t mind things in Albania,” Rose Wilder Lane wrote in 1926 while traveling through Durrës, the country’s largest port.  “There isn’t any time here, only eternity, and in eternity there can’t be any haste or fretting.”  Such she announced the final stage of a journey that began in Paris three weeks earlier, made via a Ford Model T which Lane named “Zenobia,” after the third-century Syrian queen who led a romantically unsuccessful revolt against Rome.  Lane’s object was a long

Remembering James T. Lynn: Budget Cutter and Survivor

by Yanek Mieczkowski

I remember answering the phone and hearing a crisp, clear voice at the other end.  “This is Jim Lynn,” he said, responding to my letter asking to interview him about his work as President Gerald R. Ford’s budget director from 1975 to 1977.  I was researching what later became Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s (University Press of Kentucky, 2005), and as the book focused on Ford’s economic policy, Lynn became a central figure in the narrative.  Subsequently, I met Lynn

China and Japan at War: A Primer

by Diana Lary

The Resistance War of 1937-45 was one of the greatest upheavals in Chinese history. It was a time of courage and sacrifice and a time of suffering and loss. Virtually the entire country was engulfed by war. All of C

Galileo and the Church

by John Heilbron

What Galileo believed about providence, miracles, and salvation, is hard to say.  It may not matter.  Throughout his life he functioned as the good Catholic he claimed to be, and he received many benefits from the church before and after the

Still Fighting the Civil War in South Carolina

by Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts

Monday evening is shaping up to be quite a night in Charleston.  Confederate enthusiasts are throwing a grand ball there to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the state's secession from the Union.  Hundreds of people, many decked out in hoop skirts and militia uniforms, will drink mint juleps and dance the night away.  Jeff Antley, who has organized the Secession Gala, states that the event "has nothing to do with slavery."  He proposes that it is a comme

W. H. Auden, Humor, and the Politics of Today

by Walter G. Moss

Earlier this month New York Times columnist Paul Krugman posted a blog entry entitled “Soft Drinks, Sandwiches, and Kleptocrats.”  Almost all of it featured quotations from W.H. Auden’s long poem “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio” (1941-42), which Krugman thought were relevant to an earlier column he had written.  His quoting of Auden reminded me that the works of great writers seem to have lives as timeless as the figures on John

Remembering the Jewish Massacres in Mandate Palestine

by Edwin Black

As Israelis and Palestinians struggle with a twenty-first century peace process, the world must face the forgotten history that was so pivotal in determining the present crisis.  In many ways, a turning point was the

What Did the Tories Want in the American Revolution?

by Thomas B. Allen

The grand story of the American Revolution forms the backdrop of today’s Tea Party, whose members tell us to look to our nation’s origin, when p

Death, Taxes, and the American Founders

by Andrew M. Schocket

The proposed tax deal between President Obama and Congressional Republican leaders includes a revision of the federal estate (inheritance) tax.  At stake are issues as old as the nation:  individual property rights versus the democratic ethos, and the need for savings versus the need for resources for the common good.  For many of today's issues—such as Internet neutrality or nuclear disarmament—appealing to the founders seems clearly inappropriate.  But in t

The American Revolution Does Not Loom Large in the British Imagination

by Robert J. Allison

In the great sweep of British history, the rebellion of the American colonies did not cause severe damage. After the thirteen American colonies became independent, the British Empire experienced its greatest triumphs—defeating Napoleon, absorbing