Historians/History

Definitions and Double Standards - A Rebuttal

by Roger Griffin

"If you’re catching flak, you must be over the target."  That Jonah Goldberg spontaneously uses a metaphor drawn from the Anglo-American bombing campaigns on Nazi Germany is, if nothing else,

An Academic Book — Not!

by Roger Griffin

[All page references are to the Penguin paperback edition of 2007]Even if it purports to be (i.e.  masquerades as) a thoroughly researched ‘alternative’ or ‘secret’ analysis an

Hans Trefousse: A Scholar and a Gentleman

by Paul A. Thomsen and Joshua Spivak

On January 8, 2010, the academic community lost a leading scholar of American history, Hans L. Trefousse. When we first met him in the early 1990s, Hans Trefousse was already an accomplished Civil War and Reconstruction scholar and a Distinguished Professor of History at City University of New York (CUNY).  He had a reputation among the students as a formidable scholar, a keen intellect, and a riveting lecturer.  Even after having written or contributed to over twenty books,

The Scholarly Flaws of "Liberal Fascism"

by Robert Paxton

Jonah Goldberg tells us he wrote this book to get even.  The liberals started it by “insist[ing] that conservatism has connections with fascism” (p.  22).  Conservatives “sit dumbfounded by the nastiness of the slander” (p.  1).   “The left wields the term fascism like a cudgel” (p.  3).   So Jonah Goldberg has decided it is time to turn the tables and show that “the liberal closet has its own skeletons” (p.  22).   After years of being “called a fascist and a Nazi by smug, liberal know-nothings” he decides that “responding to this slander is a point of personal privilege” (p.  392). 

The Roots of Liberal Fascism: The Book

by Chip Berlet

The Tea Party Patriots and Town Hall Criers are alerting us to the coming totalitarian apocalypse provoked by liberal misfeasance, nonfeasance, malfea

Poor Scholarship, Wrong Conclusions

by Matthew Feldman

"Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and the economic sphere," proclaimed Mussolini in his co-written The Doctrine of Fascism from 1932, for

Introduction

by David Neiwert

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Michael Ledeen Responds to Liberal Fascism

by Michael Ledeen

Liberal Fascism is a careful book, maybe even too careful.  Jonah keeps on telling us that he's not trying to make any sweeping generalizations. Despite the provocative title, he's not saying that liberalism i

Definitions and Double Standards

by Jonah Goldberg

First, I'd like to thank HNN for paying me the compliment of all this attention.  Not many authors draw this much firepower at all, much less two years after publication.  I’m not

An Open Letter to Mr. Jonah Goldberg

by Matthew Feldman

27 Jan. 2010 An Open Letter to Mr Jonah Goldberg,         I shall see the “o

Goldberg’s Response Fits His History of Evasion

by David Neiwert

When we first published that series of historians' critiques

Black Loyalists in the American Revolution

by John J. McLaughlin

In 1775 when armed conflict appeared inevitable between England and the American Colonists, there were approximately 500,000 slaves in the Southern Colonies, roughly twenty percent of the total population of the entire 13 colonies.  This presented a frightening situation for the slave owners, but fascinating opportunities for the British forces.  The British were chronically short of troops, and a number of theories were advanced to take advantage of the slave situation, such as

Inspired by John Gunther: An Interview with Mark Weisenmiller

by Aaron Leonard

What inspired you to write this?   Since boyhood, the “Inside” books by John Gunther have been a source of inspiration for me and I always wanted to attempt a similar nonfiction literary project. Traveling and reporting from almost 40 different countries in my reporting career has served as a base, if you will, for this project.  I plan to make this book the first of a series of nonfiction tomes, profiling different areas and countries of the world.

Highlights of the 2009 Annual Convention of the American Historical Association

by Rick Shenkman

News

Interview with AHA President-elect Anthony Grafton

by Jill O'Neill

Anthony Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University.  The majority of his research lies within the fields of the Renaissance and Reformation and Historiography.  He

What in the World is Oliver Stone Talking About?

by Eric Kurlander

Last week the director Oliver Stone caused quite a stir when, in describing his new Showtime mini-series, "A Secret History of America," he declared that Adolf Hitler was an "easy scapegoat throughout h

Demystifying the Clinton Presidency: An Interview with Historian Taylor Branch

by Robin Lindley

In his unprecedented account The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, historian Taylor Branch offers a vivid and candid portray

New Video from the 1945 Yalta Summit

by Steven Lomazow

As seen on a recently rediscovered 1988 video, Col. Joseph Gregory Mayton, head of the Soviet division of the OSS during WW2, attended the conference between t

Texas Social Studies Reform: What Texans Aren’t Talking About—But Should Be

by Keith A. Erekson

This week the year-long process of revising the Texas social studies standards will become dramatically public as the State Board of Education (SBOE) hears testimony in Austin. Two preliminary revisions of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) have been circulated and the hearings will lead to a final draft to be passed into law in March.1 Unfortunately, the process has been constrained by a “laundry list” approac

What Would You Include in a Children's Book About the Ancient World?

by Cathy Diez-Luckie

Can a child of the 21st century imagine the way people lived 2,000 or 3,000 years ago? This was one of the questions I pondered as I started writing Famous Figures of Ancient Times. The ancient world had no car