Historians/History

The Man Who Championed Lobotomies: Separating Man from Monster

by Jack El-Hai

Walter Freeman, the American neurologist and psychiatrist who devoted his career to championing lobotomy as a treatment for psychiatric disorders, died thirty-five years ago. His reputation was then at a low ebb, and it has not since risen appreciably. It is tempting to write off Freeman as a fringe figure in American medicine — an aberrant doctor who somehow managed to get his hands on 3,400 psychiatric patients so that he could treat them with his infamous ice pick and leave them much

Gunnar Myrdal's Insight

by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff

The winter of 1940 was a cruel one for Gunnar Myrdal, and spring was shaping up even worse. He was in the United States, finishing the research on the most comprehensive study yet of race relations and the condition of Negroes in America. But he was having trouble reaching conclusions, and he struggled to outline and conceptualize the writing. "The whole plan is now in danger of breaking down," he wrote the Carnegie Foundation, which was underwriting his project.

The Tendentious Response to the Nanjing Massacre

by Takashi Yoshida

Between December 1937 and January 1938, Japanese invading forces killed tens of thousands Chinese in Nanjing and its surrounding areas,

Rediscovering Jamestown

by Benjamin Woolley

The story of Jamestown, England’s first enduring North American colony, is full of adventure, mystery and even a hint of romance. But in the beauty contest of world historical events, it has never sparkled. Greed, incompetence, brutality, venality, genocide and slavery are all a part of the plot—hardly an inspiring combination for those wanting an uplifting tale of national origins. That is surely why the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, despite some less attractive features of its own,

King’s Last Crusade

by Michael Honey

Sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, had been on strike since February 12, 1968, and negotiations with city officials were at a dead end. When Dr. King announced his intention to march with the strikers as part of his new Poor People’s Campaign, thousands rallied to the cause. But the deepening divide in the civil rights movement between supporters of nonviolence and supporters of direct action was about to be exposed in a city with a long history of troubled race relations.

Did Jefferson Abuse His Authority to Count Himself into the Presidency?

by Bruce Ackerman

As sitting Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson was President of the Senate in 1801, and the Constitution assigned him the job of presiding over the final stages of the bitter presidential election of 1800. When the electoral votes came in from the states, it was up to him to open the envelopes and announce the results. There was only one problem – Jefferson himself was running for president against John Adams, and his rulings from the chair could determine whether he or Adams would be pres

James Loewen's Fight to Get Heard

by Lauren Zanolli

In 1908 a muckracking reporter by the name of Ray Stannard Baker published Following the Color Line, in which he exposed what would later be called “sundown towns”: communities that forcibly kept out African-Americans.  Discussion of the practices of these communities remained virtually non-existent for almost one hundred years, until Sociology Professor James Loewen published Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism in 2005.  

The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: The Acoustics Evidence

by Steve Barber

Some years following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of June 4/5 1968 critics of the official version of the assassination said there were audio recordings of more than 8 shots fired when RFK was shot.

Why Roosevelt Was Right About Stalin

by Geoffrey Roberts

Roosevelt was right about Stalin. The Soviet dictator was a man you could do business with. That is one of the main findings of my new book, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (Yale University Press 2007).  “Had I been born and brought up in America,” Stalin told the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in June 1944, I would probably have been a businessman.” Even as the Cold War broke out Stalin tried to persuade the Republican poli

When is a Farmer not a Farmer? When He’s Chinese: Then He’s A Peasant

by Charles W. Hayford

After Mao Zedong died in 1976, they put his body on display in one of those see-through coffins which Lenin made popular. Shortly after, the NBC evening news commentator, David Brinkley, termed this “peasant under glass” – a racist flippancy which would not have been accepted (or probably even thought of) for the dead leader of a Western state.Now the thing is that Mao wasn’t even a peasant: He never made his living with a hoe (if an

Jacques Pluss Now Says He Is a Nazi--And Proud of It

by Troy Vettese

In March 2005, Fairleigh Dickinson University fired Jacques Pluss, a popular and outwardly tolerant professor who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in medieval history. It was reported that Pluss was a neo-Nazi. But to avoid controversy, FDU cited Pluss’s alleged numerous absences for his dismissal, not his beliefs. HNN has closely followed this story since then and kept in contact with Pluss. Pluss has even posted on HNN forums, and wrote an article to defend himsel

Now It Can Be Told: Why I Pretended to Be a Neo-Nazi

by Jacques Pluss

Editor's Note 3-12-07 Contrary to the statements he makes in this article Jacques Pluss now confirms he is a nazi, as HNN reported here on March 12, 2007. Editor's Note 1/16/06:A year ago, in a controversial decision, Fairleigh Dickinson University fired historian Jacques Pluss after it was revealed that he was a member of the National Socialist Movement. (The school insisted he was fired for missing classes.) The

Oh, No, the Dreaded Question: Is My Book Relevant?

by James Oakes

I should have known better.  My book is a few weeks old and already I’ve been asked to “apply” its lessons here, there and everywhere.  I should have predicted that reporters would inevitably ask me to compare Abraham Lincoln to George Bush.  What I did not expect was the reaction of some good friends in the profession, who find my book helpful in the

Arthur Schlesinger’s Missing Vital Center

by Clare L. Spark

In his Commentary essay, reprinted in HNN, Norman Podhoretz regrets that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. had, in his unrelenting negative depiction of the Republican party, abandoned the liberalism he espoused in his famous book The Vital Center. The obituary in the Guardian also references the “vital centre,” defining this conception as “a vital centre of accepted societal values” that, combined

Michael Bellesiles Is PC

by Ronald Radosh

Historians have been getting in the news quite a bit lately, but not to their liking. Quite a bit of ink has been spilled on the sins of Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin, both of whom have been caught engaging in the great academic no-no---plagiarism. Both are best-selling authors of popular history; they will not suffer in employment and loss of income from their exposure. If anything, the general public probably does not even care whether or not key passages from their books wer

Sexism Charges Challenged at the University of Toledo

by Lauren Zanolli

The history department at the University of Toledo is still reeling this week from accusations of sexism leveled by at least one faculty member in a report by the University’s Office of Institutional Diversity (OID).  In the report, which was leaked to the press in late February, anonymous female faculty members charged that the department is “toxic” to women and that women are “addressed in a condescending manne

The New Enola Gay Controversy: Historians Protest the Latest Smithsonian Exhibit

by Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy

Following is a statement released by the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy. A committee of scholars, veterans, clergy, activists, students, and other interested individuals is now forming to challenge the Smithsonian's plans to exhibit the Enola Gay solely as a "magnificent technological achievement." The planned exhibit is devoid not only of historical context and discussion of the ongoing controversy surroun

James Basker: Interviewed About William Wilberforce

by Sherri Sheu

James Basker, Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, is the president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which recently began featuring an online exhibit, "Wilberforce, Lincoln, and the Abolition of Slavery." In light of the new attention being drawn to Wilberforce, the subject of the new movie Amazing Grace, we thought this would be a good time to interview Mr. Basker, th

The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America

by Elliot Jaspin

The story of how I found America’s racial cleansings begins in an unlikely place: the small town of Berryville in northwest Arkansas. I was visiting there in 1998 and, with time on my hands, I decided to tour a small history museum in the center of town. It was a quirky place - one room was devoted to antique embalming equipment – with all sorts of bric-a-brac piled on tables. As I wandered from room to room, a picture on one wall caught my eye. In the top of the frame was a photogra

Rewriting Someone Else’s History: The Japanese Reaction to “Letters from Iwo Jima”

by Noriko Manabe

Something about the scene with the dog made me first laugh, then shake my head. It wasn’t the Hollywood hokeyness; it was that the dog looked too well-fed. I immediately recalled my mother's childhood memory that she tells over and over. During World War II, the American blockade led to food shortages in Japan, causing severe malnutrition for its citizens. By the end of the war, my mother, who was then twelve, weighed little over forty pounds. Her childhood pet was a rabbit; my gra