Historians/History

When Jefferson Dined Alone

by Jonathan Gross

During the month of December, 2002, I found myself in Roosevelt Cottage at Kenwood, a 78-acre estate on the slopes of Monticello, land once owned by Thomas Jefferson. At night, I was editing an 18th century novel by the Duchess of Devonshire, published three years before Jefferson wrote the “Declaration of Independence.” By day, I was supposed to be working in the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Library where I had keys as a scholar in residence. On the walls of the stone cottage were

Are Museums Guilty of Stealing? Historians Can Help Decide.

by S.J. Redman

In the last few months the number of stories in the media regarding the repatriation of museum objects has exploded. Repatriation, or the return of sacred or culturally significant museum “specimens” (including human remains) to the nation of origin, has been a significant issue in museum politics for some time. The recent explosion in media attention, however, represents a fantastic opportunity for historians, especially those interested in the history of museums, history of sci

Interview with Susan B. Carter and Richard Sutch: The People Behind the New Edition of Historical Statistics of the United States

by Andrew Bernstein

Susan B. Carter and Richard Sutch, general editors of the Historical Statistics of the United States, stand poised to release a new edition of the work. Called The Millennial Edition, the five volumes will be available in both print and online versions. The husband and wife team are both Professor of Economics at the University of California Riverside. They were interviewed by email.First

The JFK Lawyers' Conspiracy

by Max Holland

During forty-two years of controversy over the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the legal profession has played an instrumental role. All seven members of the Warren Commission, which investigated the 1963 assassination, were lawyers. There were twenty-seven people on the commission's staff (including Norman Redlich, a Nation contributor since 1951), twenty-two of whom were aspiring or practicing attorneys. The combined efforts of these lawyers produced an imperfect report i

If We Want to Rein in the Imperial Presidency We Have to Grade Presidents Differently

by Lara M. Brown

It’s partly our fault.1 Presidents want and work to be imperial because of us – scholars. As often as we argue that presidents go beyond the boundaries of the Constitution because of historical precedents, constitutional paradoxes, strategic calculations, and irresistible calls of character, we neglect our own role in urging presidents toward imperial actions. It’s time we take responsibility for our normative judgments and engage in corr

Even Our Critics Have Made Mistakes Transcribing Presidential Recordings

by Timothy Naftali

Dr. Stern critiques 76 separate passages or individual words in 18 of them in the Appendix to his book, Averting ‘The Final Failure:' John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings . Thirty-one of the 76 “errors” he cites, or nearly half, are instances where we felt after team-review that the word or sentence fragment was so muddy that we preferred not to take a guess and left it as “[ unclear ]” in the reference transcript. We did this reluctantly and only after

Historical Truth Vs. Historical Fiction?

by Thomas Fleming

Was Robert E. Lee guilty of treason? I have written The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee to explore that question. But I am already getting letters from readers who are shocked by my temerity. Once more I find myself in an argument about the role of the novel

Teaching History: Why Multiculturalism Is So Important

by Howard Shorr

I started teaching with a multicultural perspective at a small Catholic girl's high school (San Gabriel Mission) in suburban Los Angeles in September, 1973. The principal hired me to teach the US history survey courses and US Government. She also asked me to create two one-semester 12th grade electives classes. Given the demographics of the campus, I chose to teach U.S.Women's History and Chicano History. Women's and Ethnic Studies were just emerging at universities and there existed ver

"War"-Time Thoughts on War-Anniversaries

by Dagmar Barnouw

With the Sixtieth Anniversary of the end of WWII safely behind us we can be sure that all we have believed over all those years has been reaffirmed and the that ceremonies of re-affirmation have become better and better over the years. As the NYTimes reported from Krakow on January 27, 2005, t he commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz was “the largest ever,” bringing together “the presidents of Russia, Poland, Israel and Ukraine, as well as Vice President D

Interview with MacArthur "Genius" Winner Emily Thompson

by Jamie Rodriguez

In September San Diego Associate Professor of History Emily Thompson won the highly coveted MacArthur Foundation "genius" award in connection with her research into aural history. She is the author of The Soundscape of Modernity. She was interviewed by email.What exactly is aural history? Most simply put, aural history considers the sonic dimensions of the past; what kinds of s

In a two part series on the top young historians/professors under 45 years of age HNN examines both the up and coming young historians in the field, and those that are well on their way to success in their field of study. We have polled some of the most prominent universities and historians in North America to create our list. Among the historians that were consulted for this feature include: David Bell of Johns Hopkins University, Jack R. Censer of George Mason University, Frank Couvares

In a two part series on the top young historians/professors under 45 years of age HNN examines both the up and coming young historians in the field, and those that are well on their way to success in their field of study. We have polled some of the most prominent universities and historians in North America to create our list. Among the historians that were consulted for this feature include: David Bell of Johns Hopkins University, Jack R. Censer of George Mason University, Frank

The First Act of Terrorism in English America

by J. Frederick Fausz

That fatal Friday morning, there fell under the bloody and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhumane people, contrary to all the laws of God and men, of Nature and Nations, 347 men, women and children, . . . and not being content with taking away life alone, they fell again upon the dead, . . . defacing, dragging, and mangling the dead carcasses into many pieces, and carrying some parts away in derision, with base and brutish triumph. Ed

Do Any of the New Books and Documentaries Prove Who Killed JFK?

by Mel Ayton

Within the past six months three books, A Farewell To Justice by Joan Mellen, JFK and Sam – The Connection Between the Giancana and Kennedy Assassinations by Antoinette Ginacana, John R. Hughes and Thomas H. Jobe, Ultimate Sacrifice by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann - and a German television documentary produced by Wilfried Huismann - have returned America’s greatest ‘whod

Historians Against the War: At the AHA Convention, 2006

by David Applebaum

HAW celebrated its third birthday at the AHA Convention in Philadelphia. The first order of business was the annual election of a national steering committee. Results will be posted on our web. This was followed by Ben Alper's report on affiliation with the American Historical Association and the unanimous decision to take advantage of the opportunity, possible because we meet the AHA requirement for three years of work. As an affiliated group HAW will no longer be

David Horowitz's $10,000 Challenge to the Historians of the AHA

by Ben Johnson

David Horowitz has called out the Academic Left for its latest smear of his academic freedom proposal. At its business meeting in Philadelphia on Saturday, January 7, the American Historical Association (AHA) passed a resolution claiming the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) he has championed would “impose political criteria in areas of academic policy.” Further, the academic organization chided the ABOR for “giving power

Happy (Late) Birthday William Lloyd Garrison

by Allison Nash

December was a busy month as far anniversaries of important events in American history go. December 6th marked the 140th birthday of the Thirteenth Amendment, the 7th was Pearl Harbor day, the 15th Bill of Rights day, and the 16th the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, to name of few. While all of these events rightly attracted commemoration this year, it’s strange that one anniversary in particular was largely forgotten: the bicentennial of the birth of William Lloyd Garrison.

How Should Textbooks Treat the Clinton Scandals?

by Larry Schweikart

Almost any student who has ever sat through a history class in high school or college will nod with familiarity when I discuss how many teachers cover the last 20 years of history: “well, of course, you kno

Post-Tenure Lavender Blues

by Marc Stein

This article is being delivered as a paper at the annual convention of the American Historical Association on Saturday January 7 at 9:30 am. Mr. Stein is appearing on the roundtable panel,"Out There or In Here? The Chilly Climate Revisited" (Loews Philadephia Hotel, Commonwealth Hall Section B). In 2000-01, I conducted a survey for the Committee on Lesbian and Gay History (CLGH), an affiliated society of the American Historical Association (AHA), on the graduate school and job mar

Reporter's Notebook: Highlights from the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association

by Rick Shenkman

Daily Reports Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Addendums Ronald Spector's Marshall Lecture Existential Thought and Culture in Transnational Perspective Guns, Violence, and Belonging in the Late Twentieth Century