Roundup

On Climate, the British Monarchy Mortgaged the Planet's Future

by Priya Satia

The monarchy, as a cultural core of the British empire, papered over the separation and alienation among humans resulting from the conversion of the Earth to a set of exploitable commodities. 

Economism as a Red Scare Legacy

by Landon Storrs

An economic historian traces the rise of neoliberal political economy to the post-WWII Red Scare, when Keynesians were driven out of government service under suspicion of disloyalty. 

Queen Not Innocent of Empire's Sins

by Howard W. French

"I bear no ill will toward her following her death. Her empire—and empires more generally—though is another matter."

The Half-Century Road to the Student Debt Crisis

by John Thelin

A fatal mistake made by Congress in 1972 was to expand aid to students, imagined as consumers, through the Guaranteed Student Loan program, instead of subsidizing institutions to control costs. 

Black Mississippians Have Been Fighting a Water Crisis for Decades

by Thomas J. Ward Jr.

Black residents of the Mississippi Delta began organizing in 1970 for access to water and sewage services; their struggle continues today. 

Historicizing the Legitimacy of LGBTQ History

by Marc Stein

The AHA's newsletters reveal a protracted and frequently bitter debate about the boundaries of the discipline as scholars in the early 1970s worked to establish gay and lesbian people and communities as subjects of study. 

Have the Tories Moved on from the Royals?

by David Edgerton

The Conservative Party has turned toward a right-wing nationalism that has little use for the symbolism of the royals as the head of the wider British Commonwealth. 

The Roundup Top Ten for September 9, 2022

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

"Rings of Power" Speaks to a War-Hungry Audience

by Daniel Bessner

Inspired by Tolkien's experiences in the Great War, his fantasy books have been taken as allegories for the fight against Nazism, the Cold War, and the War on Terror. The new series reflects the anxieties of an American empire with neither a clear enemy nor the imagination to abandon militarism. 

It's Also Frightening When Trump Tells the Truth

by Tom Nichols

Showing his belief that the democratic process is only legitimate when he wins, Trump demonstrates the nihilism at the heart of MAGA, which Joe Biden correctly called out last week in his speech. 

It's Not Trump's GOP, it's Pat Buchanan's

by Nicole Hemmer

Republicans have come around to Pat Buchanan's vision of a hard-right, pessimistic and grievance-driven party. The question now is whether they will soften that vision in pursuit of a majority of voters, or try to keep power as a minority party. 

I was Fired for Asking My Students to Wear Masks

by Michael Phillips

Sometimes academic freedom is about the ability of professors to advocate on behalf of the campus community's health against administrators who prefer silence as a matter of political expediency. 

Ken Burns Got "Prohibition" Wrong

by Mark Lawrence Schrad

Burns largely accepts an individualistic and libertarian narrative of prohibition as a misbegotten campaign of moral scolds, missing the reformist, egalitarian, and humane demands of the movement and the exploitative nature of the "liquor traffic" it sought to disrupt. 

Why Medical Exceptions to Abortion Bans Won't Protect Women

by Evan Hart

Under new restrictive state laws, judges and lawyers, not doctors or patients, will decide who can get a medically necessary abortion. 

Stories of Women's Comeuppance Expose Cruelty at Heart of Modern Society

by Sarah Horowitz

Like Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Holmes today, the 1909 trial of Marguerite Steinheil in Paris focused on an ambitious woman as a villain, but revealed a wider climate of impunity and self-dealing among elite men. 

New Colombian Leadership Means it's Time for the US to End the Disastrous Drug War

by Christy Thornton

The US has taken steps to pull back from the domestic war on drugs. But the violent, repressive and expensive campaign to fund militarized drug interdiction in Latin America has carried on uninterrupted, fueling political violence abroad and fentanyl overdoses at home. 

Democrats Must Counter GOP Hysteria about "Armies" of Tax Collectors

by Joseph J. Thorndike

Emphasizing the idea of "fiscal citizenship," of all Americans paying the fair share of taxes they owe, is the solution to fearmongering about jackbooted tax collectors. 

Colleges Should Quit Trying to Appease the Right

by Silke-Maria Weineck

"When J.D. Vance says that 'professors are the enemy,' he is correct. He is our enemy, and we must be his. I welcome his hatred."

History as Love and The Presentist Trap: Responses to James Sweet

by Malcolm Foley and Priya Satia

Two historians respond to the AHA president's essay by reflecting on the politics of historical research and of speaking publicly about the past. 

All History is Revisionist

by James M. Banner Jr.

"The collective noun for a group of historians is an “argumentation,” and for good reason. At the very dawn of historical inquiry in the West, historians were already wrestling over the past, attacking each other."