Historians/History

Hotchkiss in the Fifties: Myths and Realities

by Jesse Lemisch

This article was adapted from a presentation at the fiftieth reunion of the Hotchkiss Class of 1954, which was held at the Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, CT, on October 30, 2004. After I left here a half century ago, and went on to Yale, I became a professional historian, as well as a left activist. Although I am known (correctly) as a New Left historian, I am in some ways a historian of the old school, very much at odds with fashionable postmodern ideas. You can't do history wi

The Radical Visions that Shaped Some Leading Historians

by David Horowitz

In his recent book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Regnery), David Horowitz argues that several of the leading historians of the twentieth century embraced an outlook that was hyper critical of America and sympathetic to communism. Several excerpts:Re: Eric HobsbawmThe continuity between the generations

The Lingering Taint of Anti-Semitism of the Frankfurt Book Fair

by Edwin Black

Months after the Frankfurt Book Fair was accused of displaying anti-Semitic Arab literature, organizers of the world’s most glamorous publishing event are still bitter about the allegations. Fair organizers insist they only displayed the Arab literature as a function of their commitment to global literary diversity. However, critics, principally from the Paris office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, remain adamant that the Book Fair’s anti-Semitic offerings revived shades of German

Does the First Amendment Apply to Teachers in the Classroom?

by Jonathan Rees

The United States Supreme Court did not decide a significant case with respect to the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause until 1919. In that unanimous decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it was done. . . . The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” This case,

Professor Garry Wills ... Heal Thyself!

by Sheldon M. Stern

As one of over 57 million Kerry voters, I was deeply disappointed by the outcome of the presidential election. It seemed perfectly clear to me that George W. Bush’s record in foreign and domestic affairs did not merit a second term. However, Professor Garry Wills went much further, warning in an 11/4 New York Times op-ed (abridged version here at HNN) that Bush’s victory (with 51 percent of the popular vote and

Interview with James McPherson

by Don Adams

Mr. McPherson recently retired from Princeton University, where he has been a teacher for forty years. HNN asked him to reflect on his life and career. He kindly agreed to do so. The interview was conducted by email. What first drew you to the study of history? Are you one of those fortunate individuals who just always knew what they wanted to do, or did something specific trigger your interest in becoming a historian?I was attracted to history by an

Why We Are Dissatisfied with the OAH's Report on Repression

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

On 25 March 2004, two and a half years after 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act and a year after American forces led the allied invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the executive committee of the Organization of American Historians authorized appointment of a special committee to investigate"repression" in the American academy.The initiative for the appointment of that committee came from a pe

Are Gilder and Lehrman Tilting American History to the Right? A Case in Point

by Jesse Lemisch

Having had a busy autumn, I've only just seen the New-York Historical Society's Alexander Hamilton exhibit (it runs September 10-February 28; U.S. tour, 2005-2008). As we would expect from Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, the two rich right-wingers who have in effect taken over the N-YHS, the exhibit leads inexorably to the re-election of George Bush, the rejection of the last thirty-five years of social history, and a paean to triumphalist capitalism. Richard Brookhiser, Hamilton biographer an

Lynne Cheney's Attack on the History Standards, 10 Years Later

by Gary B. Nash

Ten years ago–October 20, 1994 to be exact–brought a screaming headline to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Under the title “The End of History,” Lynne Cheney, former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, maligned the National History Standards that she had funded (along with the Department of Education) as a “grim and gloomy” monument to political correctness. She pronounced the standards project a disaster for giving insu

Column: Letters from Korea: Jeju--Shhhhhhh! Don't Ask! (Part 2)

by William Thompson

This is the second of two articles Mr. Thompson has written about Jeju. Click here for the first. The rebellious outbreak on Jeju Island, South Korea is referred to as 4.3 as it started on April 3, 1948. Precipitating events consisted of discontent over the American occupation and that of troops from the central South Korean regime which was in its early stages of forming under Syngman Rhee's leadership. Jeju residents were especi

Did the Bush Administration Consult Academics Before Invading Iraq?

Following is an exchange that has taken place on H-Diplo.Nedra Dyer McCloud, Graduate Student (10/15/04)This week, PBS aired Frontline's "The Choice 2004," a dual biography of John Kerry and George W. Bush. Bush's decision to wage war against Iraq was treated in some detail; there was no mention of his asking advice from any Middle Eastern scholars. There was no mention of any Middle Eastern scholars' having volunteered their advice abo

The Warren Commission Report: 40 Years Later It Still Stands Up

by Mel Ayton

Forty years ago this month President Lyndon B. Johnson’s commission to investigate his predecessor’s assassination published the results of its ten-month inquiry. The Warren Commission, named after its chairman ,Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded that President Kennedy had been killed by a lone assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald and there was no evidence of conspiracy. The findings were accepted by a majority of the American public. However, a significant minority gree

The Reason Lynne Cheney Had 300,000 History Booklets Destroyed

by Jonathan Rees

"Imagine that you wake up one morning to find out you have no memory!" Coming from an administration that wants Americans to forget its original rationale for going to war in Iraq or that President Bush ever met former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, you might think that this is more a wish than a suggestion. In fact, it's the beginning of a newly revised pamphlet from the Department of Education entitled "Helping Your Child Learn History." Like other aspects of rec

Did Harry Truman Use Scare Tactics to Get the Marshall Plan Approved?

by Alex Bosworth

On the campaign trail, Vice President Dick Cheney has ominously alluded to the possibility that America would "get hit again" during a Kerry presidency. In return Democrats have accused the Bush administration of engaging in scare tactics when it comes to the War on Terror. But if scare tactics truly are the Bush strategy, he will not be the first American president to use them in order

Iraq's Jewish Pogrom and World War II

by Edwin Black

At about 3 PM, June 1, 1941 everything changed for Iraq's Jews. No American Holocaust museum pays homage to their tragedy. Holocaust studies have virtually overlooked the incident and its profound consequences. But the Jews of Baghdad foun

Lynne Cheney: Book Burner?

by Steven J. Ross

One of the marks of authoritarian regimes is their effort to stop the spread of knowledge and free speech. In May 1933, Nazi sympathizers in Berlin burned 20,000 "degenerate" books, many of them written by Jews and anti-fascists such as Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka. Here at home, slaveholders were so frightened by the power of the word that throughout the antebellum South legislatures made it a crime to teach slaves to read and write. Now, Lynne Cheney

Column: Letters from Korea: Jeju--Shhhhhhh! Don't Ask! (Part 1)

by William Thompson

This is the first of two essays about Jeju Island, South Korea--a subject about which it appears we do not want to ask questions. The questions we don't want to ask concern war crimes--including mass murders of civilians--perhaps as many as 80,000. The United States was involved. The events started in 1947, but most atrocities occurred in 1948 and 1949. I am raising questions about Jeju. I am not the first to ask the questions. Others have spoken to the topic. Yet whe

Should Respectable Historians Attend and Speak at Conferences Hosted by David Irving?

by Peter N. Kirstein

Note from the Editor: This month, as he has for several years, David Irving sponsored a conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, known as"Real History, USA," which, according to the conference website, featured speakers, seminars, and the showing of some home movies of Hitler from Hermann Göring's private collection. Since Mr. Irving was branded a Holocaust denier by a British court he has become a pariah among historians. Usually, academics d

Paul Buhle Strikes Out Again

by Ralph Luker

Readers at History News Network know of the charges brought against Brown University's Paul Buhle about the accuracy of his scholarship in political history. Over two years ago, Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes accused Buhle of politically motivated dishonesty and obfuscation of the facts in"Radical History" which appeared in the

Now that We Have Remembered What Happened in 2001, What About 1953?

by Renato Redentor Constantino

"Memory says, 'I did that,'" Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote."Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields." Three years ago in America, on September 11, airplanes fell from the sky and thousands died. Countless numbers mourned the mass murder. Countless mourn still. On the same day thirty-one years ago, the sky fell in Chile when the democratically-elected Allende government was overthrown in a bloody coup staged by the American government. Who mourns the Chil