Historians/History

Conservative Revisionists and Hiroshima

by Leo Maley III and Uday Mohan

When Paul Tibbets, pilot of the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 62 years ago, died earlier this month, conservative commentators responded true to form.They declared Tibbets to be a hero. They stridently defended the use of the atomic bomb. And they took the opportunity to denounce any and all critics of the atomic bombing of Japanese cities as “left-wingers,” “self-haters,&rdqu

It's Time to Acknowledge that Hiroshima Followed Imperial Japan’s Decision to Launch a Terrible War on Its Neighbors

by Werner Gruhl

The fate of Hiroshima cannot be judged without first understanding and acknowledging the full dimensions of the war Imperial Japan unleashed from 1931-1945 throughout Asia and then the Pacific. Single-minded attention to the atomic bomb casu

I never expected to write a memoir. But age puts one in a contemplative mood, and the onset of the millenium induces reconsiderations of a traumatic century. I have lived through interesting times and had the luck of knowing some interesting people. And I concluded that if I were ever to do a memoir, I had better do it while I can still rememb

Response to David Horowitz

by Robert Shaffer

It is difficult to respond to a critique of one's work when it is being used as Exhibit A for the thesis that "academic radicals have lost their minds," as David Horowitz titles his response to my review, published in the November 2007 OAH Newsletter, of his book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. Nevertheless, I will r

Have Academic Radicals Lost Their Minds?

by David Horowitz

Click here to read Robert Shaffer's response. On the evidence it would seem so. At the very least they have lost their collective ability to conduct an intellectual argument. In my most ideological days on the left I never lost sight of what it meant to assemble evidence and answer an opponent. But the recent attack on my work (or what is alleged t

Whig History Is Back

by Michael Knox Beran

In 1931, a Cambridge don, Herbert Butterfield, published The Whig Interpretation of History.  The Whig historian, Butterfield said, is a bad historian because in embracing the British Whigs’ faith in freedom he studies the past, not for its own sake, but “with reference to the present.”  In concentrating on the consequences, for liberty, of the acts of revolutionary statesmen, the Whig historian distorts history, and makes it into a narrative of the triump

Hero or Victim? The 25th Anniversary of Barney Clark's Artificial Heart

by Barron H. Lerner

Barney Clark was a retired dentist who, by late 1982, had developed end-stage heart failure and could barely walk to the bathroom. On the evening of December 1, 1982, Dr. William C. DeVries and his team at the University of U

World War I: When the Unthinkable Became Thinkable

by Alan Kramer

As we commemorate eighty-nine years since the end of the First World War, the long-term consequences of that catastrophe as well as its causes shift into a new perspective. The war opened with deliberate acts of cultural vandalism by Ger

How Much Confidence Should We Have in the Doctor's Account of FDR's Death?

by Barron H. Lerner

The standard historical account of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s final illness and death was written in April 1970 on the 25th anniversary of the former president’s death by one of his physicians, Howard G. Bruenn.  Although Bruenn’s account overthrew earlier versions that had concealed the seriousness of Roosevelt’s condition, it has never been adequately scrutinized.  Why did Bruenn decide to go public?  Did others assist in the writing of the article?&n

1963: 11 Seconds in Dallas

by Max Holland and Johann Rush

Within hours of John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, the Kodak film exposed by Abraham Zapruder became the most important home movie ever made.

How the Discovery Channel Duped the American Public About the RFK Assassination Acoustics Debate

by Mel Ayton

In June 2007 the Discovery Times Channel broadcast a documentary, Conspiracy Test – The RFK Assassination, which relied on unscientific practices to sensationalize their story of how a second gunman acted with Sirhan Sirhan to murder Senator Robert F. Kennedy.   The documentary challenged the  Pruszynski Tape acoustics research carried out by two teams of experts --  Philip Harrison and Professor Peter Fre

Why New Laws Are Needed to Stop the Bullying of the National Archives

by Maarja Krusten

A federal judge recently overturned part of an order by President George W. Bush that had strengthened the ability of former Presidents to block disclosures from their files. She said the National Archives has the final say on what is opened from Presidential records. But the Archives' difficulties in releasing Richard Nixon's records suggest that the ruling may have little impact on what the public learns about Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush.

Was Nadia Abu El Haj Treated Fairly?

by Ralph Harrington

Last week it was announced that Nadia Abu El Haj, a professor in the anthropology departments of Barnard College, New York, and its parent institution, Columbia University, had been awarded tenure. Such news from the world of academe would rarely make much of a public splash, but this had been no ordinary tenure process.In 2001 Abu El Haj had her first and, so far, only book published by Chicago University Press. Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashio

Making a Picture Book: How TIME Does It

by Kelly Knauer

This is a giant of a book—about half as big as your common Casement window. How many people did it take? And how long did it take? Incredible as it may seem, this book was created by a staff of only five people, one of whom worked part time. The entire process took about nine months—three months for preliminary picture research, then six months of more picture research, while the process of design and writing moved forward. The names and titles of the staff are

Did David Brooks Tell the Full Story About Reagan's Neshoba County Fair Visit?

by Joseph Crespino

In his November 9, 2007, column in the New York Times, David Brooks discussed Ronald Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980 and his use of the term “states’ rights.”  Brooks absolved Reagan of racism, but he ignored the broader significance of Reagan’s Neshoba County appearance. 

If You Could Ask the Author of One of Those Big Oxford Histories What He Learned He'd Say ...

by Daniel Walker Howe

I have just finished writing a thick book about a comparatively thin slice of history:  What Hath God Wrought:  The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.  Am I any the wiser for having done so?  I’m sure that I am—for my book did not simply confirm in detail a set of preconceived hypotheses.  I wrote the book to tell a story, not to demonstrate the truth of an argument.  Now that it is done, I am starting to comprehend the implications of its s

What Did LBJ Know About the Cuban Missile Crisis? And When Did He Know It?

by Max Holland and Tara Marie Egan

Writing in August 2007 about the major candidates’ credentials, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum concluded that it’s questionable whether foreign policy experience is essential for anyone aspiring to the presidency. Exhibit A in her argument was Harry Truman, and Exhibit B was Lyndon Johnson.. . . it’s far from obvious that any specific kind of experience has ever helped a president make good calls. . . . Lyndon B. Johnson had held national office for years before becoming president, but he still couldn’t cope with Vietnam.Applebaum’s implication was that Johnson did not absorb the right lessons while serving as John F. Kennedy’s vice president, even though one of the greatest teaching tools of the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, occurred during President Kennedy’s watch.But what if Johnson was not permitted to learn the right lessons, which would have had to begin with an accurate understanding of what had happened? What if Johnson was purposely denied important knowledge? What if Johnson thought he had drawn the right lessons, but actually was trying to replicate a manufactured illusion?

Not Everyone Wanted to Bomb Hiroshima

by Leo Maley III and Uday Mohan

Paul W. Tibbets Jr., retired brigadier general and former businessman, died on Nov. 1. He'll forever be remembered for what he unleashed the morning of August 6, 1945. That day Tibbets's B-29 -- christened the "Enola Gay" after his mother -- dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The blast, fire and radiation killed 140,000 people. Many others were scarred and injured for life. Most of the bomb's victims were women, children, the elderly and other civilia

Is Paul Krugman a Good Historian?

by Michael Kazin

    Paul Krugman is a brilliant economist, and his scathing columns in the New York Times have made him an intellectual hero to left-wing Democrats everywhere. But is he a good historian?     His new book, The Conscience of a Liberal, is a sweeping manifesto grounded in a provocative interpretation of the American past. For Krugman, US history since Reconstruction can be understood as one grand cycle from darkness into light and back aro

How Museums and Libraries Lose Stuff

by Samuel J. Redman

On Wednesday, October 24th, the Washington Post published a story with the headline, “Materials Missing at Library of Congress.”  Like many readers, I dashed to my computer mouse, thinking that an Oceans 11 style heist had taken place in our nation’s capital.  Perhaps a robotic device remotely operated by terrorists had stolen Thomas Jefferson’