Historians/History

Because Americans Know Little History, Washington DC's Building Visitor Centers. Really.

by Steven Knipp

It is a statistical fact that we Americans remain in school longer than any other society in history, entering kindergarten at five and often only get catapulted out of academia a full quarter of a century later. Despite that impressive educational marker, whenever I hear young people open their months when visiting Washington, more often than not, they come across sounding like ignoramuses.

Was the Civil War a Terrible Mistake?

by Jim Powell

During Dr. Ron Paul’s recent appearance on FACE THE NATION, he suggested that the Civil War was a mistake, and he has been criticized for saying that. The topic was a minor part of the interview, and he didn’t have time to present much of a case, but fascinating questions were raised. How else would American slaves have gained their freedom if the Civil War hadn’t forced the issue? How could important social reforms of any kind be achieved against stubborn opposition?

The Surprisingly Democratic Roots of Evangelicalism

by Thomas S. Kidd

In early 1742, during a major revival of religion in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a new convert named Mrs. Whipple found her public voice for the first time. Only days before, she had been wondering whether she could

These articles, taken from HNN's archives, help put Ronald Reagan's life and presidency in proper perspective. Click here for a roundup of articles about Reagan that appeared the week he passed away. If you would like to post a comment on Reagan, please do so below.Legacy "Final Take on Ronald Reagan ?" Edmu

Remembering Roy Rosenzweig

by Gary Gerstle

Roy was a friend for thirty one years. He was a fourth year graduate student at Harvard when I arrived as a rookie in the fall of 1976. We were drawn together initially by our common interest in American labor history. We were both working with Stephan Thernstrom; we both wrote labor and social histories of small New England cities whose names began with the letter W—Worcester, MA, and Woonsocket, RI. Each of us has been asked many times: why those cities? Well the truth can now be told

In Memory of Roy Rosenzweig (1950-2007)

by Bonnie Goodman

IndexReminiscencesSteve BrierJoshua BrownJack Censer Daniel Cohen Marion Deshmukh Gary Gerstle Mack Holt Mills Kelly Meredith Lair Elena Raz

Taylorized Academic Labor

by Jacob Kramer

            By now the process of casualization of the professoriate is well-known.  Larger and larger proportions of courses are being taught by adjuncts rather than full-time faculty.  At the City University of New York, for example, despite recent hiring efforts, the number of full-time faculty has fallen from about 11,300 to about 6,300 since the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the balance being made up by adjuncts, a fourth of

Reporter's Notebook: Highlights from the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association (Wash. DC)

by Rick Shenkman

HNN Daily Reports Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Related LinksAHA Blog: Roundup of journalistic and blogger accounts of the convention Tame Finish

Is Condoleezza Rice Right to Say the Founders Believed Blacks Were Only 3/5ths of a Person?

by Eric Zencey

I’ve got a few pet peeves, and Condoleezza Rice has been giving voice to one of them.   As Glenn Kessler, a diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Postreports, in speeches overseas Rice regularly tells audiences “In the original U.S. Constitution, I was only three-fifths of a person."This is a misreading of history.  The Constitution (which she’s been sworn, s

Why I Wrote a Novel About the Day the KKK Welcomed Nazi Invaders

by Stephen R. Pastore

1942: The Nazis have successfully landed in Mexico and have invaded the United States through Texas. The Japanese have conquered western Canada and have captured and occupied most of the West Coast from Seattle to the outskirts of Los Angeles. The Italians have launched a massive amphibious assault from Cuba and have taken control of Florida and the Southeast as far north as Atlanta. New York City and Washington D.C. are fortifying and preparing for the onslaught. American forces are str

The Bulldozer: One of the Overlooked Wonders of Technology

by Ralph Harrington

The house where I grew up, in an unremarkable town in southern England, was surrounded by large Victorian and Edwardian properties in extensive gardens. At least, it was when we moved into it, in the early 1970s. Over the following years those relics of a more spacious age disappeared one by one, to be replaced by estate housing and flats. As a result I spent much of my childhood in close proximity to what was in effect a large continually active building site, and became a habitual spectator

The Victory for Freedom the Bush Administration Should Be Celebrating but Won't

by William Loren Katz

This Christmas Eve, the freedom-loving Bush administration has a chance to mark the anniversary of a great victory for formerly oppre

Historians Should Embrace Politics

by Jon Lauck

Some historians tend to follow politics closely. Robert Dallek, Leo Ribuffo, and Joyce Appleby, for example, have recently signed on to support Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency, along with some of their fellow colleague

The Founding Fathers: Their Achievement and Failures

by Joseph Ellis

The AchievementWhat, in the end, did the Founding Fathers manage to do? Once we brush aside both the inflated and judgmental rhetoric, what did they achieve?

Japan's Sorry Failure to Own Up to Its History

by Ron Wulkan

"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it," quipped Oscar Wilde, the cynical playwright whose epigrams mocked his nation’s pious-but-phony rationale for empire building.*When facts ha

Is David Brooks a Good Historian?

by Carol V. Hamilton

In his New York Times columns, David Brooks often makes confident, if glancing, references to American and European history and historical figures.  Too often these allusions are problematic, closer to received ideas than informed historical opinions. On May 8, 2007, for example, Brooks wrote, “Adam Smith put his faith in the collective judgment of the market.”  This is a gross simplification of Smith’s work; all the average Republican seems

Solving the Mystery of the Lost Confederate Gold

by Wesley Millett

One Day in History: Dec. 7, 1941

by John Keegan

DECEMBER 7, 1941, a Sunday in the central Pacific: at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, the crews of the battleships were enjoying a longer than usual sleep. Many of the officers were ashore. The Army Air Corps base at Hickham Field was expecting an inward flight of B-17 bombers but very few of its aircraft were aloft or on patrol. There had been so many false alarms of a Japanese attack in the preceding weeks and months that the edge of alertness had

Caught on Tape: The White House Reaction to the Shooting of Alabama Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate George Wallace

by Luke A. Nichter

On May 15, 1972, Arthur H. Bremer shot Alabama Governor and Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace five times at close range with a .38 caliber revolver during a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland. The shooting in the Washington, D.C. suburb ended Wallace’s political career and he was paralyzed from the waist down for the remainder of his life. In November, thirty-five years later and in the middle of another political season, Bremer was released from the Maryland State Peniten

AHA 2008: Which Sessions Concern Events in the News?

by Lori M. Barrett

This page lists the sessions at the upcoming annual convention of the American Historical Association which deal with themes in the news over the course of the last year. No session deals explicitly with Iraq. Thursday, January 3, 3:00–5:00 P.M.1.  Marshall Hodgson’s The Venture of IslamMarriott, Marriott Ballroom Salon 1