Historians/History

The Jewish Prostitutes of South America (Series: The Writing Life)

by Isabel Vincent

In the summer of 2002 just as I felt I was beginning to make progress on the research for my book Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced Into Prostitution in the Americas, the Brazilian national soccer team won the World Cup, becomi

Did Stephen Ambrose Sanitize Meriwether Lewis’s Death?

by Reimert Thorolf Ravenholt, MD MPH

Upon publishing my finding of neurosyphilis as the probable underlying cause of the death of Meriwether Lewis in 1809, I sent a copy to Stephen Ambrose and soon received this reply:Helena, MT, June 22, 1994. Dear Dr Ravenholt, Thanks for the article. I had heard about it and intended to get it - I've just returned from a month in Europe. I have questions. What was the standard treatment for syphilis? Did the liberal use of mercury for men with vd have any effect upon syphilis? Wha

The Certainties of Evil and the Politics of Not-Forgetting

by Dagmar Barnouw

“The Holocaust” as a construct of memory stories about the historical events of Nazi rule began its spectacular rise in Western culture with the Eichmann trial that located Jewish identity in the experience of extreme suffering and victimization. Presented on the stage of the world, before hundreds of journalists of the print and electronic media, this trial changed the earlier universalist perspective on Nazi crimes by focusing on individual Holocaust witnesses. The chi

A Time to Choose for the AHA in Philadelphia: Speech Codes and the Academic Bill of Rights

by David Beito, Robert "KC" Johnson, and Ralph E. Luker

At the meeting of the AHA Business Meeting on January 7 in Philadelphia, the members will have a rare opportunity to stand up for academic freedom. They can vote on one of two resolutions. The weakest of the two condemns the so-called Academic and Student Bill of Rights but is completely silent on other threats to academic freedom, most notably speech codes. For this reason, it will be easy for critics to dismiss the resolution as selective and opportunistic.

In Memory of the Christmas Truce

by George Beres

For those who accept the Biblical tale, Christmas comes to put to rest life's deepest contradictions. Nowhere is the contrast greater than in wartime, when the December soldier is torn between killing and sharing blessings of Christmas. That became vivid in the war of the trenches a century ago. The muddy dugouts were filled with men claiming Christian belief in parallel traditions of England and Germany. They knew each other in a personal way not possible today with silent kill

Deny the Armenian Genocide?

by Keith David Watenpaugh

A lawsuit brought by the political activist lawyers Harvey A. Silverglate and Norman S. Zalkind, primarily on behalf of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, which demands that the denial of the Armenian Genocide be taught alongside the history of that genocide in Massachusetts’s public schools, is not about freedom of thought or expression, as they argue in their suit, but is just the latest in a series of clumsy attempts by the government of the Republic of Turkey and its surrog

Print the Legend

by Thomas Fleming

In his memoirs of Washington, a bestseller in the 19th Century, the general's step grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, described a touching scene on the December 19, 1777 march to Valley Forge. When Washington and his mounted escort rode to the head of the

Congressional Research Service (CRS): Studies Helpful to Historians

by Stephen Bowden

Congress Secret Sessions of Congress: A Brief Historical Overview Women in the United States Congress, 1917-2005 Evolution of the Senate’s Nomination and Confirmation Role in the Nomination Process: A Brief History

Should Presidents of the AHA and OAH Be Elected? What the Data Show

by Allison Nash

Every year the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians elect new leaders. 

Other AHA Elections 1994-2004

by Allison Nash

  AHA Election 1994   Votes Cast   Candidate 1   Candidate 2 Vice-President

AHA Presidential Races 1994-2004

by Allison Nash

AHA Election 1994   Votes Cast   Candidate 1   Candidate 2 President 2,843

OAH Presidential Races 2000 to 2005

by Allison Nash

NB: Results for 2002 are unavailable.   OAH Election 2000   Votes Cast   Candidate 1   Candidate 2

Other OAH Elections 2000-2001, 2003-2005

by Allison Nash

    OAH Election 2000   Votes Cast   Candidate 1

Interview with Laurent Dubois, Winner of the $25,000 Frederick Douglass Book Prize

by Nhu Vien Thi Nguyen

In November 2005 Yale University's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition awarded the Seventh Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize to Laurent Dubois. Dubois, associate professor at Michigan State University, won the prize, orth $25,000, for the book, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. According to the chair of the jury, historian John

40 Ways to Look at JFK

by Gretchen Rubin

The fundamental challenge facing biographers, of course, is to present an accurate portrait of their subjects.When I plunged into the research on John F. Kennedy’s life, an uncomfortable truth confronted me: Kennedy’s portrait could be drawn in inn

Where History is Making News Around the World

by Bonnie Goodman

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How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why

by Gerald D. McKnight

“No, don’t dig up the past! Dwell on the past and you’ll eye.” But the proverb goes on to say, “Forget the past lose both eyes.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Popular History, Academic History, and Bunkum (Gavin Menzies 1421 on H-Asia)

by Charles Hayford

A discussion thread, “Popular vs. Academic History,” was innocently (presumably) started by Prof. Kristen Stapleton (University of Kentucky) March 14, 2005. In Timothy May's review (H-Asia March 4) of Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Crown, 2004), the following passage attracted her attention: Despite all of [the book’s] acclaim, it is very clear that Weatherford is not a historian.

The Civil War Hero Who Started the Conservation Movement

by Rocky Barker

A chance meeting in a Montana stage stop led General Phil Sheridan to become a central figure in the 19th Century’s conservation movement--which, in turn, that led to the environmental movement a century later. Sheridan, the feisty former cavalry command

Stranger in a Strange Land: A Historian among Political Scientists

by Timothy R. Furnish

I like political scientists. Much of what I do as a historian overlaps with what they do (particularly in terms of creating patterns that allow for transnational and transcontinental analysis). In fact, some of my best friends are political scientists. Nonetheless, it will be a cold day in Baghdad before I ever chair another Middle East panel at a political science conference. The only place I’ve ever encountered more Bush-bashing was among American academics at the American Re