Historians/History

Historians May Never Rule the World, but Their Models will Rule the Data-Driven Future

by Jo Guldi and David Armitage

The arbitration of data is a task in which the history departments of major research universities will almost certainly take a lead since it requires talents and training which no other discipline possesses.

This Is What Happens When We Try to Reduce the Evil of Slavery to a Simple Formula

by Jim Downs

The Economist's withdrawal of a controversial book review should be considered a "teachable moment." Here's how to teach it. 

It's Mainly Skipped Over in the History Books because MLK Failed There. But It Shouldn't Be.

by Lee W. Formwalt

For many people with a knowledge of the civil rights movement the term “Albany Movement” connotes failure. But a full account tells a different story.

The Power of Story in Moments of Crisis

by Paul A. Cohen

Why do human beings from diverse cultures around the world prefer memory to history?

A Forgotten Stage of the Atlantic Slave Trade

by Gregory E. O’Malley

Port records, merchant papers, and imperial correspondence all suggest that a thriving intercolonial slave trade dispersed as many as a quarter of the African people who arrived in the New World, extending their dangerous journeys to American plantations.

Why Don't More People Know About Harry Hopkins

by James MacManus

Britain’s wartime survival in the face of the Nazi onslaught owed a great deal to a man whom Winston Churchill had called “a lighthouse from which there shone the beams that led great fleets to harbour.”

What You Didn't Know About Francis Scott Key

by Steve Vogel

The man who wrote the Star Spangled Banner opposed the war his song celebrates.

These Historians on Twitter Don't Have a Large Following -- But They Should!

by Erik Moshe

Back in July HNN published an article about the historians who have the most followers on Twitter. Here we draw attention to the historians who lack larger numbers of followers, but are worth a try.

Liberal Education in America Is Under Threat: An interview with Historian Michael S. Roth

by Rich Heffron

Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. His most recent book explores the centuries long debate over the value of liberal education.

92 Years Old and Still Doing History? It's the Story of Bernard Weisberger

by HNN Staff

In honor of his many contributions to the understanding of history HNN asked several of his former students and colleagues to provide their reminiscences in a kind of informal electronic festschrift.

Six Things You Didn't Know About the Vikings

by Anders Winroth

There was more to the Vikings then their reputation suggests.

A World Without Jews? It's What the Nazis Wanted.

by Alon Confino

Before the Nazis exterminated Jews, they had to imagine what a world without Jews would be like. 

Advanced Placement United States History: A Fifty-Year Classroom Perspective

by Luther Spoehr

A historian puts the AP course in history in historical perspective.

These Stories Were too Good to Be True. Then I Found Out They Were True.

by D.W. Duke

What a descendant of the Dukes in North Carolina discovered when he decided to write a novel about his illustrious family's history.

The Left’s Attempt to Institutionalize the Rewriting of US History

by Ronald Radosh

"The newly proposed AP placement test curriculum is part of the New Left’s goal of making 'a long march through the existing institutions' that would end with a new radicalized United States, on the road to socialism."

A Rejoinder to Critics of the New AP Course in History

by Fred Anderson

"Dr. Peter Wood’s tortured reading of the Framework and his blanket denunciation of academic historians suggests that he, too, might pause to reflect on the values of rigor, impartiality, thoroughness, and intellectual honesty that were, in the end, all we hoped to foster."

What We Don't Remember About Nuremberg, but Should

by Diana West

The fascinating and unfamiliar story of the disclosure of the Soviet pact with Hitler. 

10 Facts Everybody Should Know About Alice Paul

by J. D. Zahniser

Alice Paul was a pivotal and controversial figure in the last years of the American battle to win the vote for women.

What I'm Reading Now: Mary Larson

by Tiffany April Griffin

"I really believe that history and libraries are that important to what we do as a species."

What I'm Reading Now: Lynn Hunt

by Tiffany April Griffin

Lynn Hunt, one of America's greatest historians, tells what she likes to read, why she became a historian, and the historian she'd most like to talk to over dinner.