Roundup: Historians' Take

Edward Tenner: Do Baby Boomers Exist?

[Edward Tenner is a historian of technology and culture. He was a founding advisor of Smithsonian's Lemelson Center and holds a Ph.D in European history.] Can you have more in common with a person almost twenty years younger than with somebody one year older? That's the logical conclusion of conventional journalism about the "Baby Boomers," which has been a staple of journalists and editors ever since my friend Landon Jones' Great Expectations (1980). And it has just come

Richard H. Kohn: Obama's Most Important Decision You Haven't Heard About

[Richard H. Kohn, a specialist in civil-military relations and a former Chief of Air Force History for the United States Air Force, teaches military history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.] As he resets his administration in the wake of the midterm election, President Obama faces crucial choices for new leadership at the Pentagon. Five offices will have to be filled next year: secretary of Defense (if Robert Gates insists on leaving), and four of the six Joint Ch

William Astore: The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Poorer

[Professor Astore writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and can be reached at wjastore@gmail.com.]More tax breaks for the rich in exchange for another year's worth of unemployment benefits for the desperate: Now there's a compromise that makes me proud to be an American. My father wouldn't have been surprised. He grew up during the Great Depression and worked in factories before he was drafted and served in the Army during World War II. Dad told me that the harder he worked

Tom Engelhardt: The American War Dead Disappear into the Darkness

[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books).]America’s heroes?  Not so much.  Not anymore.  Not when they’re dead, anyway. Remember as the invasion of Iraq was about to begin, when the Bush administration decided to seriously enforce a Pentagon ban, in existence since the first Gulf War, on me

Paul W. Schroeder: The Secret Lives of Nations

[Paul W. Schroeder, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the author of “The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848.”] WHILE it is too soon to offer any meaningful perspective about the impact of the WikiLeaks disclosures on American foreign policy, it is not too early to reflect on what the leaked diplomatic cables say about the public’s understanding of how diplomacy works. WikiLeaks’s justification for releasing co

Daniel Gavron: Are the Palestinians the Last Zionists?

[Gavron is the author of nine books on Jewish history, Israel, and the Palestinians. His latest is Holy Land Mosaic.] Are the Palestinians the last Zionists? It would seem so. The situation of Israel has become surreal. Just as we Israelis are making a stupendous effort to ensure the dissolution of the Jewish state, envisioned by Theodor Herzl in 1896, by hanging onto the occupied territories, the Palestinians, led by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, are work

Victor Davis Hanson: The Confused Morality of WikiLeaks

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] The latest WikiLeaks trove raises once more the following two issues — the circumstances of the release of classified documents and their contents. We won’t know the full extent of the diplomatic archives for days, but so far the particulars

Julian E. Zelizer: Focusing on Deficit a Lose-Lose Move for Obama

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter," published by Times Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, published by Princeton University Press.] The political pressure on the administration to tackle deficit reduction is mounting. Even before he began negotiations with Republicans last week, President Obama conceded ground by announcing a federal

Harold James: Europe’s Time to Learn

[Harold James is professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University and Marie Curie Professor of History at the European University Institute, Florence. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle.] Crises are a chance to learn. For the past 200 years, with the exception of the Great Depression, major financial crises originated in poor and unstable countries, which then needed major policy adjustments. Today’s crisis st

Alfred W. McCoy: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

[Alfred W. McCoy is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A TomDispatch regular, he is the author, most recently, of Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (2009).]A soft landing for America 40 years from now?  Don’t bet on it.  The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines.  If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050

Timothy Snyder: Will Global Warming Unleash Genocide?

[Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University. He is the author, most recently, of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. This piece ran in the October 28, 2010, issue of the magazine.] The age of mass killing, the 1930s and 1940s, was also a moment of environmental panic. World War I had disrupted free trade, and the new Europe was divided between those who needed food and those who controlled it. By the 1960s, improvements in seeds, fertilizers, and pesticide

Ivan Greenberg: Deep Throat and Government Records

[Ivan Greenberg is the author of The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties since 1965.] The ongoing publication of secret U. S. Department of Defense and State documents by Wikileaks points once again to the important role that government records can play in documenting abuse of power. But there are other ways to obtain important government documents without relying on unauthorized disclosures. Using the Freedom of Information Act, I recently obtained the 3,500-plus page F

Dahlia Lithwick and Jeff Shesol: Repealing Common Sense

[Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor. Jeff Shesol is the author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court, which was just named a New York Times Notable Book of 2010.] ...For a party (whether of the Tea or Grand Old variety) that sees the Constitution as something so perfect as to have been divinely inspired, the idea that it needs to be altered fundamentally is beyond crediting, something like putting the Fifth Commandment up to a popular referendum. But the T

William Astore: WikiLeaks and Our Boorish "In Your Face" Diplomacy

[Professor Astore writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and can be reached at wjastore@gmail.com.] While the mainstream media focuses on whether Julian Assange is a sex criminal in charge of a terrorist organization, I got a rude reminder of my own sense of unease at the latest revelations from WikiLeaks. It came unexpectedly at a local restaurant. Together with a friend and my wife, I went out to dinner, only to be seated next to a well lubri

Victor Davis Hanson: Obama & Co., Growing Up Fast

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] Old laws predicated on human nature cannot so easily be discarded — even by utopians who think they have the power to cool the planet and stop the rising seas. Borrowed money really has to be paid back. Governments cannot operate without co

Andrew J. Bacevich: Israel and the U.S.: A Lopsided Relationship

[Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His most recent book is "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."] The widely reported deal negotiated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — Israel committing itself to a nonrenewable 90-day freeze on settlement activity in return for 20 F-35 fighters and a U.S. promise to block anti-Israel resolutions in the Unit

Stacy Schiff: Cleopatra’s Guide to Good Governance

[Stacy Schiff is the author of “Cleopatra: A Life.”] LET’S say you can’t readily lay your hands on “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun” or those of Winnie the Pooh. And let’s say the political mood around you is bleak; gridlock is the order of the day. Why not turn to a different management guru, a woman who left some 2,000-year-old teachable moments, each of them enduring and essential? At 18, Cleopatra VII inherited the most lucrative enterprise in existence, the en

Moshe Dann: Obama's Middle East Hidden Agenda

[The author is an historian, writer, and journalist living in Jerusalem.] Why would President Obama place American prestige, money, and influence on the line for a three-month restriction on Jewish building in areas conquered by Israel in 1967? Another round of negotiations is doomed to fail, since Palestinian leaders have already refused to resume talks unless the freeze applies to eastern Jerusalem. Why is Obama pushing this snowball, knowing that any substantive agreement is unli

Victor Davis Hanson: Is Illegal Immigration Moral?

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] We know illegal immigration is no longer really unlawful, but is it moral? Usually Americans debate the fiscal costs of illegal immigration. Supporters of open borders rightly remind us that illegal immigrants pay sales taxes. Often their payroll-tax contributions are not later ta

Ira Chernus: Hamas and Israel Trade Hanukkah Gifts

[Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of hs writing on Israel, Palestine, and the U.S. on his blog. He can be contacted at chernus@colorado.edu.] As Israeli Jews were preparing to light their first Hanukkah candle, the Prime Minister of Gaza, Ismael Haniyeh, told a press conference: