Roundup

Smuggled Recordings Revealed the Harshness of British Internment Policies in Northern Ireland

by Jack Sheehan

Tapes secretly recorded in the Long Kesh internment facility, where suspected IRA militants were detained without trial, revealed the degree to which the British government discarded human rights in its crackdown and speak to today's "states of exception."

Fighting Incarceration from the Inside: Prison Litigation as Resistance

by Charlotte Rosen

The Prison Litigation Reform Act has cut incarcerated people off from their rights to access the court system to seek personal relief from abuse and cruel punishment and systemic change to the mass incarceration regime. 

History Exposes the Fraud of Marco Rubio's Populism

by Sean Wilentz

The Florida senator engaged with an ingnominious tradition of disparaging expertise and knowledge as "elitist" when he condemned a meeting between President Biden and a number of historians, including the author. 

Treating Citizens as Consumers Results in One-Sided Fed Decisions

by Suzanne Kahn

A set of political choices over the course of the 20th century placed the concerns of consumers over those of workers. While most Americans fit both roles, this priority leaves a great deal of racial inequality in place. 

Salman Rushdie Changed Everything

by Siva Vaidhyanathan

The novelist's creative brilliance and critical acclaim signaled a moment for south Asian people around the world to see themselves outside the frame of colonialism and to grapple with the subcontinent's ethnic and religious fissures. 

The New Era of Political Violence is Here

by Tom Nichols

Rather than civil war, the emerging threat in America is heavily-armed individuals informed by mass delusion. 

The Inflation Reduction Act is a Legislative Victory and a Vindication of Patient Pragmatism

by Walter G. Moss

While compromise and negotiation are difficult, they have proven necessary for salvaging a large chunk of the Biden domestic agenda, including action on climate change. 

If American History Needs Heroes, Why Aren't We Teaching about the Abolitionists?

by Stephanie Coontz

Those who feel discomfort over studying the history of abolitionism do so because of their refusal to build on the work of an interracial group of American visionaries. 

Monkeypox is a Failure to Learn from HIV-AIDS Activists

by Dan Royles

Attention to messaging – efforts to advise communities of gay men at risk of infection without stigma – has hidden a deeper message of AIDS activism in the 1980s: demands for an equitable and affordable health care system. 

The Disturbing History of Sending Migrants to Other States

by Hidetaka Hirota

In the context of intense anti-Irish nativism, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts expelled and deported poor immigrants without due process. 

The Roundup Top Ten for August 12, 2022

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

"Phantom Catholic Threats" Haunt Ireland's National Maternity Hospital

by Máiréad Enright

Secular Irish health advocates fear that a partnership between the state and religious charities to operate the national maternity hospital will impose limits on care, including abortion access. Is this justified or a case of finding "nuns under the bed"? 

How to Fight Inflation Without Interest Rate Hikes and Recession

by Meg Jacobs and Isabella M. Weber

The history of World War II price controls shows that it is possible to fight inflation without imposing recession, if controls are targeted and backed by concerted effort to win political support. 

You Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Gotta Hand it To America Firsters

by Eric Rauchway

Critics of American aid to Ukraine have misconstrued the history of FDR's "Lend-Lease" aid to Britain and the USSR as a factor that pushed the world into total war. It's worth considering the political affiliations of people who made that argument in 1941. 

The Rediscovery of David McCullough

by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

A presidential historian now at work on her own book on John Adams reflects on how McCullough's blockbuster inspired her own career, and his hits and misses as a chronicler of overlooked or forgotten people and events in American history. 

Counterfeiting for Freedom in Colonial America

by Zachary Dorner

A lively trade in "coining," the creation of false Spanish coins, reflected both the multinational colonization of North America and the hardships created by a constricted money supply in the British colonies. Though illegal, "bad money" made commerce and taxpaying possible for many colonials.

Reasons to Defund the FBI—That Have Nothing to Do with Trump

by Alex S. Vitale

The FBI's history of repression and service to the powerful should override any fleeting satisfaction liberals feel about the search warrant the Bureau served at Mar-a-Lago. 

"Bridgerton" and Its Blind Spot for Colonialist History

by Trishula Patel

In nodding to contemporary British diversity by casting actors of color in roles originally written as "white," the program misses the bigger opportunity to examine the histories of colonialism that brought people of Indian and African descent to Britain during the Regency period. 

Church-State Separation is Alien to Many Americans' Faith

by Caleb Gayle

The "classical" Christian curriculum pushes a historical vision that America was conceived by God as a beacon of righteousness, and that Christian duty is to eliminate secularism and religious pluralism. 

Have Children Changed in Modern America?

by Steven Mintz

A recent argument for the general stability of children over the last century and a half misses the key point that "childhood" has been a fluid concept, and changes in how childhood is understood has necessarily affected the experiences of children.