Historians/History

Why Do People Care So Much About Jewelry?

by Wendy Doniger

One clue: We tell a lot of stories about jewelry and the assumptions behind most of them are sexist.

What Happens to Old Military Weapons We No Longer Need?

by Christopher Bright

Some get repurposed as civilian cultural artifacts, like this.

How Our Government Segregated America: An Interview with Richard Rothstein

by Erik Moshe

The reason blacks possess less wealth than whites is almost entirely attributable to unconstitutional federal housing policy.

The Tireless Abolitionist Nobody Ever Heard of

by Gary B. Nash

Meet Warner Mifflin, the dedicated Quaker who fought for black rights, and discover why history forgot him.

Was Robert E. Lee a “Woman Whipper”?

by John Reeves

Lee’s sorry record as a slave owner, whether he was guilty of the charge of “woman whipper” or not.

Removing Monuments Won’t Fix Our Problems

by Amy Werbel

A lesson from the campaign against censorship in the 19th century shows why.

What Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Want Us to Believe Is that Americans Were Innocents in Vietnam

by Ron Briley

We weren’t and our history of imperialism proves it.

Why I Decided to Make Hatred the Subject of a Talk to the General Public

by Jeff Kleiman

It’s because if you want to understand Charlottesville, it helps to understand our history of hatred.

A Golden Age for American History Scholarship? It Was the Mid-1950s.

by Vaughn Davis Bornet

Just consider the names of historians writing then: C. Vann Woodward, Kenneth Stampp, John Hope Franklin, Thomas Bailey, Daniel Boorstin, Edmund Morgan, Robert V. Bruce, Richard Hofstadter, Edward C. Kirkland, and many more.

What’s Missing From the Vietnam War Documentary?

by Jeffrey P. Kimball

Why the US waged war in Vietnam.

When Herbert Hoover Ended the Great Depression. (No, I’m Not Kidding)

by Kenneth Whyte

It’s time to reassess Hoover’s legacy.

Spain Banished Its Franco Monuments, Can We Do the Same for Lee?

by James Thornton Harris

It’s long past time we did so.

Could the Governor’s Race in Virginia Turn on the Question of Confederate Monuments?

by Bruce W. Dearstyne

It might. History shows why history and politics don’t mix well.

Ken Burns’s War Stories

by Bob Buzzanco

He’s more storyteller than historian and that weakens his series considerably.

The Nazi Plan to Kill the Disabled: What the U.S. Government Knew and When It Knew It

by Suzy Evans

The terrible question that remains today amid widespread ethnic cleansing and genocide is why nothing was done.

What I’m Reading: An Interview with Civil War Historian Earl J. Hess

by Erik Moshe

His favorite saying about history? Historians have the last word.

What I’m Reading: An Interview with Historian Matthew Ward

by Erik Moshe

“I’m sure I’m not the only historian who fancies themselves as something of a detective.”

What Historians Are Saying About the New Vietnam War Documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

The 10 part documentary is being broadcast on PBS.

The Libertarian Dream Was Tried Here

by Harry Blutstein

It failed miserably.

This Year’s NYC Mayoral Election: Boring. Not So 100 Years Ago!

by David Pietrusza

When Red Mike crushed the Boy Mayor (who later got a hero’s funeral when he died in a plane accident while serving in World War 1).