Historians/History

Why the Vatican's Latest Attempt to Absolve Galileo Is Bound to Fail

by Thomas Mayer

The Vatican is out to monkey with Galileo again. Many might think it had subjected him to enough tender ministrations already, from his two trials in the seventeenth century through John Paul II’s botched rehabilitation to the recent poster show, “Galileo Uomo di Fede,” in Santa Maria degli Angeli which as good as ignores those trials. It appears that Benedict XVI, former head of the Roman Inquisition’s successor, intends to reopen the case, probably with an eye to ann

Some Tips for Celebrating the Fourth

by Ray Raphael

First off, get a jump on your neighbors. Don’t wait till Saturday, when “independence” will be so day-before-yesterday. Today, rush down to your neighborhood fireworks stand, grab a small family pac

Nixonland: An Interview with Rick Perlstein

by Rick Shenkman

Rick Perlstein's books have helped redefine the history of American conservatism in the modern era. His first book in a projected trilogy was Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. The next book was Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (paperback, April 2009). This interview was conducted by email.

A Holocaust Survivor's Reflections on a Grandson's Graduation

by Gustav Schonfeld

Except for the year from May of 1944 to May of 1945, my life has been very satisfactory. However, that one year left an indelible mark upon my life, a mark which affects me still. It was the year my relatives and I spent i

President Reagan Approves the Bombing of Iran

by Jason Saltoun-Ebin

President Reagan ordered strikes against Iran if any of the American hostages held by the terrorist group Hezbollah were killed. The order, made during a January 18th, 1985 meeting of the National Security Planning Group, came on the heels of a threat by the terrorists to “try the American hostages as spies and then give them the punishment they deserve.” The document is posted online for the first time at the newly created website, www.

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

by Anne Pastore

In America today, both black and white citizens gather to celebrate the Fourth of July, but that has not always been the case. Blacks in the antebellum north were sometimes pressured to stay away from celebrations of the Fourth, while in the south no one even thought to include them. Len Travers says in the book Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic, that in the overwhelmingly black south, “the issue simply did not arise; no

The Age of Reagan: An Interview with Sean Wilentz (Part I)

by Rick Shenkman

Sean Wilentz, professor of history at Princeton University, is the author most recently of The Age of Reagan (2008). He was interviewed by email. Part II will appear in a subsequent edition of HNN.

John Dean Slams "Revisionists" and Nixon Foundation in Talk at Library

by Luke A. Nichter

In a speech at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum on June 17, 2009--the 37th anniversary of the Watergate break-in that ultimately led to the resignation of the 37th president--Dean struck back at the"revisionists","apologists", and Nixon Foundation members who were critical of his appearance during which he promoted the re-release of his 1970s memoir, Blind Ambition.nixontapes.org has obtained a copy of Dean's address and excerpts of it ap

Why I Cannot Stand the Redesigned Smithsonian National Museum of American History

by Larry DeWitt

America’s Shopping MallImagine my surprise—upon my first visit to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) since it reopened last December after being closed for two years for an $85 million remodeling—when I discovered that the NMAH has been replaced by a shopping mall! The building is still there, to be sure, but inside mighty forces have been at work. I suppose my first clue should have been the name change. The old name i

Keeping Prostitution History Under Wraps

by Jan MacKell

It has never been easier to view hypocrisy in government than when dealing with the delicate and shameful subject of prostitution. The long and short of it is this: men migrating to America came here mostly sans their women. Soiled doves coming from Europe, and later eastern America as the Wild West w

The Pioneer in Women's Rights Who Was on the Wrong Side of History

by Sheila L. Skemp

Everyone is familiar with the expression, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  It is a maxim that historians&mda

Anthropologists as the Good Guys

by Elizabeth Weiss

In a recent article posted on HNN (May 14, 2009), Tony Platt (a Professor emeritus, California State University, Sacramento) stated that:Between 1788, when Thomas Jefferson dug up an Indian burial

The Lost Letter of Charles Asgill--Will We Ever Know the Truth?

by Anne Ammundsen

On 20th December, 1786, my great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Asgill, wrote to the New Haven Gazette and Chronicle in response to some correspondence that newspaper had published the month before, at George Washington’s request.   The editor at that time, Josiah Meigs, must have decided that Asgill’s letter was too controversial for publication, so he did not publish what Asgill had written.  This decision wa

Mobilizing World Opinion Against the Government: How the Irish Did It and Won

by Maurice Walsh

The Anglo-Irish war of 1919-1921 was an international historical landmark: the first successful revolution against British rule and the beginning of the end of the Empire. But the Irish revolutionaries did no

What's Wrong with the Popular Impression of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and The Mongols?

by Christopher I. Beckwith

The popular Western idea of Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and other famous Central Eurasians should be obvious to anyone familiar with the portrayal of Arno

The Myth of the GI Bill

by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin

This month Americans celebrate the sixty-fifth anniversary of the signing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—the GI Bill—the mother of

Why It's Time to Get Past Teddy White's Naive Account of the 1960 Election

by W. J. Rorabaugh

In 1960, forty-three-year-old John Kennedy won the presidency.  A year earlier, Kennedy had been a youthful senator barely into his second term

What Was the Civil War About? A Dissenting Point of View

by Marc Egnal

A recent article in The Washington Post found th

Separate but Equal Wreaths are Not a Permanent Solution to the Memorial Day Conundrum

by James W. Loewen

Although I had signed petitions to the President going back to the '60s, before Memorial Day 2009 I had never helped to start one.  This year, the fact that neo-Confederates misconstrue the Confederate monument in Arlington National Cemetery to misconstrue the Civil War to misconstrue the Confederate cause got to me ... especially since every Memorial Day, the President of the United States lends his prestige to that monument by sending it a wreath.

The Phone Call that Kept the Castro Brothers in Power for Decades

by Don Bohning

A single 9:30 p.m. telephone call on April 16, 1961, forty-eight years ago this month, could well have assured what was to become a half-century ru