Historians/History

History on the Radio (or at Least on Your Lap Top)

by Nate DiMeo

I’m a collector of moments.  There’s the one when Truman is handed the letter that tells him he has The Bomb.There’s the one when Stephen Kearny tells the people of Las Vegas, New Mexico that they now live in the United States.When the women realize the other door on the ninth floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is locked.  When Lewis and Clark reach the source of the Missouri, realize there’s no Northwest Passage, but call an audibl

Presidential Ratings ... A Parlor Game?

by Rick Shenkman

You often hear that rating presidents is a parlor game.  I want to take issue with that.  In a parlor game there are rules.  In cards you can count the joker or you can't.  In Charades you cannot speak a word without incurring a penalty.  In checkers and chess you must move the pieces in certain ways and not in others.Rating presidents is an altogether different type of game.  There are no rules.  Should we count what a president does in his priva

The C-SPAN Poll: An Empirical Challenge to the Participants

by Leo P. Ribuffo

I have never liked the practice of rating presidents as if they were rock records on the old American Bandstand TV show. I declined to participate when last asked—for a previous CSPAN poll in 2000. So did several other historians, most notably Alonzo Hamby, whose well reasoned critique of these surveys deserves to be read if he still has it on file and wants to make it available. Such rankings might have some merit if they were less value-laden. To its credit, CSPAN gives a list rather

Reflections on Rude Behavior at Memorial Museums

by Bonnie J. Morris

     The first time I visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., I was excited to see a series of guest-book journals set out for visitors’ comments. A journal-keeper myself since age twelve, I applaud every opportunity of contributing to the public record. Most tourist sites, restaurants and inns keep a guestbook well-displayed to solicit favorable reviews about food and service. But within the pages of the Holoc

The Relevance of Benjamin Harrison's Presidency

by Charles W. Calhoun

The launching of a new administration inevitably invites attention to past presidents, not only for their impact on the country but also for

Darwin’s Great Work Was ...

by Larry DeWitt

History is often made through inadvertence—or at least not quite in the linear way historians imply when they recreate that history in their narratives. The stuff of history in real time is sometimes less grand than it seems in our historical reflections—or at least, than was appreciated at the time. On the day of the occasion of Darwin’s joint bicentenary with Abraham Lincoln, I found myself reflecting not so much on Darwin’s contribution to the theory of evolution, as t

Lincoln's Mistaken Neglect of General George H. Thomas

by Benson Bobrick

Lincoln's deep humanity, innate wisdom, and determined leadership during our nation's most trying time, ensure his marmoreal greatness against all detractors, wh

The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln: An interview with John Stauffer

by David Liebers

John Stauffer is Chair of the History of American Civilization at Harvard University.  He is a leading scholar of slavery, protest and interracial relations.  Among his seven books (authored and edited)

The “Nixon Tapes,” an Author, and the American Historical Review

by Robert A. Schneider

Normally, an editor does not expect to learn about the submission of an article to his journal from the front page of the nation’s leading newspaper. Normally, an editor would reasonably expect that a journalist reporting for this paper would ask for the editor’s comments on the nature of the submission. Normally, he would not expect the contents of his letter of rejection to the author of the submission to be broadcast both by the newspaper in question and the major web outlet o

Black History Month in the Obama Era

by Jacqueline Bacon

After watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama with my sons in the auditorium of their elementary school, I was informed triumphantly by one of my older son’s classmates, “The history books are outdated!” The literal truth that history is made before it is committed to the volumes in our

A Bicentennial for Two Great Emancipators

by Steven Conn

Abraham Lincoln, The Great Emancipator, has been much on our minds recently as Barack Obama moved into the White House. Exactly 200 years after Lincoln's birth, Obama's presidency is one fulfillment of the work Lincoln started. Lincoln shares his birthday with Charles Darwin, the other Great Emancipator of the 19th century. Though in different ways, each liberated us from the traditions of the past. Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were exact contemporaries. Both were born o

My Response to the New York Times

by Stanley I. Kutler

The New York Times recently decided that a yet un-referred article, submit

The Watergate Transcript Controversy: The Story Behind the Story

by Rick Shenkman

Related Links HNN Hot Topics: The Watergate Transcript Controversy Since the publication of Sunday's New York Timesstory accusing esteemed historian Stanley I. Kutler of making serious mistakes in the Watergate transcripts he published in a book in 1997, bloggers have been

The Watergate Transcript Controversy: Clearing Up One Mess

by Rick Shenkman

The Disputed Nixon-Dean Watergate Transcript: March 16, 1973

HNN Editor: The New York Times reported in a frontpage story on Sunday February 1 that questions had been raised about Watergate transcripts published by Stanley I. Kutler in Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (1997). The story included an allegation that Kutler had conflated two conversations: A face-to-face meeting between Richard Nixon and John Dean on

How a Historian Turned Novelist and Wrote a Book about World War II: An Interview with Ivan Doig

by Robin Lindley

In his epic new novel, The Eleventh Man, celebrated Seattle writer-historian Ivan Doig tackles the huge maelstrom of World War II.  The book follows the

If Obama Wants to Demonstrate Transparency, He Can Start with the State Department's Historian's Office

by Douglas Selvage

Henry Kissinger once famously quipped, “academic politics are so bitter because the stakes are so low.”  Ironically, a struggle in academic politics is taking place at Kissinger’s old watch, the Department of State, that could affect U.S. government openness and transparency for decades to come. The stakes could not be higher. It will serve as a test case for the commitment of the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to transparency and open gover

Howard Zinn: The Historian as Don Quixote

by Larry DeWitt

Howard Zinn has a new book out, which I accidentally stumbled across recently in my local Barnes and Noble. Zinn’s latest book is a cartoon version of history—literally this time. The new book is a graphic adaptation of a chapter from his well-known classic, A People’s History of the United States.  The title of the newest effort is A People’s History of American Empire, as that is the aspect of American history of which Zinn most passionately disapp

At Last Bush's Restrictions on Presidential Records Are Lifted

by Anna K. Nelson

For more than seven years, the research community has worked to defeat Executive Order (E.O.) 13233 which President George W. Bush imposed a year after he took office. Then, with the stroke of a pen, President Obama nullified that E.O. on the first day of his presidency. The Bush E.O. basically over turned some of the