Roundup

What Australia’s Fires Should Teach the USA: Be Alarmist!

by Walter G. Moss

Most importantly in this 2020 election year, the Australian tragedy tells us we should vote out all the human-caused climate-change deniers and minimizers. 

The 1619 Project and Bringing History to the People

by Anne C. Bailey

From my time as an undergraduate till my present position as a Professor of History at SUNY Binghamton, I have been frustrated that history seemed to belong to the few – the few who had made it their life’s work in the halls of academia, some of whom, as I was to learn, spoke more to each other than to the general public. 

Nigeria Is Haunted by Its Civil War

by Max Siollun

The conflict’s legacy continues to hold the country captive, half a century later.

Another Disability Disaster in the Making

by Jonathan M. Stein

The Trump administration’s Social Security proposal would repeat one of Ronald Reagan’s most damaging mistakes.

Prohibition Was a Failed Experiment in Moral Governance

by Annika Neklason

A repealed amendment and generations of Supreme Court rulings have left the constitutional regulation of private behavior in the past. Will it stay there?

History and the Opioid Crisis

by Jeremy Milloy

In the 1970s, just as now, people living with and recovering from substance use disorders faced prejudice and mistreatment at the hiring stage and in the workplace itself.

The problem with a year of celebrating the 19th Amendment

by Andrew Joseph Pegoda

Our entire understanding of the history of feminism is skewed.

Boris Johnson Might Break Up the U.K. That’s a Good Thing.

by David Edgerton

It’s time to let the fantasy of the “British nation” die.

1619?

by Sasha Turner

What to the historian is 1619?

The Job of the Academic Market

by Rebecca S. Wingo

Over three years, I dedicated 106.5 workdays to getting a job—while working another job. 

Assassination as Cure: Disease Metaphors and Foreign Policy

by Sarah Swedberg

Kinzinger’s words fit within a long historical tradition of badly used disease metaphors that often accompany bad outcomes.

Video of the Week: Ken Burns on the ERA

by Ken Burns

Ken Burns Argues One Vote Can Change History

How the President Became a Drone Operator

by Allegra Harpootlian

From Obama to Trump, the Escalation of Drone Warfare

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.

Why policymakers must act to preserve information freedom at home and abroad

by Diana Lemberg

A Cold War dichotomy pitting capitalism and democracy versus state control misreads history.

War with Iran is not inevitable — but the U.S. must change course

by Kelly J. Shannon

The relationship between the countries, once friends and allies, has soured — because of U.S. aggression.

Evangelicals using religion for political gain is nothing new. It is a US tradition

by Reverend William Barber

No one who has read US history can be surprised by the hypocrisy of Evangelicals for Trump but it also tells us how their undoing will inevitably come.

Why Did the U.S. Kill Suleimani?

by Elizabeth Cobbs and Kimberly C. Field

The attack illustrates America’s lack of a clear grand strategy — and why we need one immediately.

It’s 1856 All Over Again

by Steve Inskeep

Immigration. Race. Demographic change. Political demagogy. That year’s presidential race had it all. What can it tell us about 2020?

Putin’s Big Historical Lie

by Anne Applebaum

In a series of comments in late December, the Russian president appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the Second World War.