Roundup

Roundup Top 10!

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

Donald Trump’s Brains

by Jacob Heilbrunn

Among the many anomalies of Donald Trump’s presidency has been the near invisibility of institutions that for many years served as a bulwark of Republican policymaking.

Daniel Ellsberg Is Still Thinking About the Papers He Didn’t Get to Leak

by Andrew Rice

It turns out that Ellsberg also took many thousands of pages of documents pertaining to another subject: nuclear war.

Another way Trump will get us Killed: to move US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

by Juan Cole

Israel conquered most of Jerusalem and its hinterlands in 1967. It then annexed these regions in a quite illegal move.

The chairman of everything: why Chinese president Xi Jinping will change history

by Graham Allison

One of the world’s leading foreign policy experts explores the rise of an all-powerful leader.

Why abortion — not sexual misconduct — is likely to decide the Alabama Senate race

by Stacie Taranto

Roy Moore is trying to save himself with a tried and true conservative move: resorting to the politics of abortion.

The Last Time We Fought A Preemptive War In The Middle East

by Jane Dailey

A history lesson for the Trump administration.

Discriminating in the name of religion? Segregationists and slaveholders did it, too.

by Tisa Wenger

The Supreme Court must reject these claims.

What Historians Keep Getting Wrong about Robert E. Lee

by Colin Woodward

To start with, he wasn't an aristocrat.

Would Trump Consider a Court-Packing Scheme?

by Jeff Shesol

McConnell’s strategy of shutting down the judicial-appointments process during Barack Obama’s last two years in office gave Trump, at the time of his Inauguration, a hundred and three vacancies to fill—more than twice as many as Obama had in 2009.

Video of the Week: The Unluckiest Person in History

by Adam Westbrook

Is it perhaps the person who was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped and then went to Nagasaki and was there when it, too, was bombed?  

Atomic age began 75 years ago with the first controlled nuclear chain reaction

by Artemis Spyrou and Wolfgang Mittig

A uranium nucleus could split in half releasing huge amounts of energy.  This finding at the dawn of World War II was the start of a scientific and military race to understand and use this new atomic source of power.

Big Rocket Man

by Garry Wills

Even a soldier in the field must disobey a truly disastrous order from a manifestly disabled officer. The commander in chief has to be held to the same standard as his subordinate commanders, for the preservation of the people.

Did America Commit War Crimes in Vietnam?

by Cody J. Foster

Bertrand Russell helped start a movement to hold governments responsible when they violate human rights. 

Roundup Top 10!

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

The Damage Trump Has Done

by Sean Wilentz

He has conquered the party of Reagan and is fulfilling a dream of the hard right – the demolition of government.

I’m a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929.

by Robert S. McElvaine

Republicans are again sprinting toward an economic cliff.

Rethinking ‘McNamara’s War’

by Fredrik Logevall

How much blame does the defense secretary deserve for Vietnam?

Tiny homes are all the rage. So why do so few communities welcome them?

by Nancy C. Unger

The political power of home buyers trumps that of housing innovators.

Why the 1947 UN Partition Resolution Must Be Celebrated

by Martin Kramer

As compared with the festivities surrounding the Balfour Declaration centenary, little attention has been paid to the 70th anniversary of the UN vote. This is a missed opportunity.