Roundup: Historians' Take

Victor Davis Hanson: Let Obama Be Obama

[Victor Davis Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University , a professor emeritus at California University , Fresno , and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.] Liberal Democrats from the North haven't had much success in recent presidential election — not Hubert Humphrey, not George McGovern, not Walter Mondale, not Mike Dukakis and not John Kerry. Democratic Southerners — Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton — have done

Michael K. Honey: The legacy of MLK ... Defending the right to organize

[Michael K. Honey is Haley Professor of the Humanities at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and author of"Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign" (W.W. Norton).] The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. casts a shadow over events in our country, and never more appropriately so than in this electoral season of 2008. In a real sense, King paved the way for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign of hope. Using the Bible and the Constituti

Daniel Martin Varisco: So if it’s not about religion …

[Daniel Martin Varisco is Chair and Professor of Anthropology, Hofstra University.] The War on Terror, upon which the GOP presidential candidates (minus libertarian Ron Paul) have been feasting, is promoted as a clash of civilizations masquerading as religions. In this pop culture scenario there is the secular West, which promises freedom of religion and only tole

Andreas Umland: Dmitri Medvedev may prove a surprisingly liberal president of Russia

[Andreas Umland teaches at the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, edits the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” and compiles the biweekly “Russian Nationalism Bulletin” (groups.yahoo.com/group/russian_nationalism).] Most Russian and western observers see the man who has just been elected Russia's new president as at best a relatively liberal figure, if not a faceless opportunist. Some think Dmitri Medvedev will be merely a second Putin, whose electio

Stanley I. Kutler: The Folly of Experience

[Stanley Kutler is the author of "Privilege Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case" and "Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes." He is the E. Gordon Fox Emeritus Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin, and also professor of law.] Experience is the word du jour in this political season. The debate over experience cuts two ways—it is, of course, a politician’s, not a historian’s, argument. John McCain and Hillary C

Michael Knox Beran: Obama’s Messianic Politics ... Why his healer-redeemer rhetoric has a limited appeal

[Michael Knox Beran’s most recent book is Forge of Empires 1861-1871: Three Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They Made.] It is too soon to tell whether Senator Obama’s magic is beginning to fail him. But his recent defeats in Ohio and Texas point to difficulties he confronts when trying to sell his brand of healer-redeemer politics to large swaths of the electorate. Why the catchwords of his redemption rhetoric — “journey,” “real change,” “that’s what hope is, imag

Greg Grandin: Fidel Castro, the First Superdelegate

[Greg Grandin teaches history at New York University. He is the author of Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism.] "Long ere the second centennial arrives," Walt Whitman predicted in 1871,"there will be some forty to fifty great States," among them Cuba. It was a common enough belief. From Thomas Jefferson onward, many Americans thought that, as Secretary o

Robert Perkinson: It's time to revise the conventional wisdom about the Duke Lacrosse Case

[Robert Perkinson is the author of Texas Tough: The Rise of a Prison Empire, forthcoming from Metropolitan Books. He teaches American studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.] ... No one knows how often prosecutors strike foul blows. Their power to bring or dismiss charges, to offer plea bargains or leniency to cooperating witnesses, to marshal police investigators and lab techs, and to present or suppress state evidence is unmatched by defense counsel and is "essentially unr

Paul Kramer: The Water Cure. An American Debate on torture and counterinsurgency in the Philippines—a century ago

[Paul A. Kramer is an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa. He is the author of The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), which won the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians and the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize from

Neve Gordon: On Israel's use of collaborators

[Neve Gordon teaches human rights at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He is the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Prespectives on Human Rights (2004) and can be reached at nevegordon@gmail.com .] As dawn broke on March 22, 2004, an Israeli helicopter gunship hovered over the al-Mujama al-Islami mosque in Gaza City. Suddenly, the whoosh of missile rockets was heard, and then explosions. Shouts and screams filled the streets,

Jim Sleeper: Has History Canceled Farrakhan’s Endorsement?

[Mr. Sleeper, a lecturer in political science at Yale, is the author of The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York and Liberal Racism.] The gravely ill Louis Farrakhan's endorsement of Barack "Hussein" Obama was so rightly buried in the avalanche of commentary anticipating the vote in Texas and Ohio that I'm speaking almost out of turn in educing one more reason why it was stupid to try to tie part of the Jewish community in knots over this s

Stanley I. Kutler: Where's FDR When You Need Him?

[Stanley Kutler is the author of "Privilege Creative Destruction: The Charles River Bridge Case" and "Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes." He is the E. Gordon Fox Emeritus Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin, and also professor of law.] Seventy-five years ago, Mar. 4, 1933, with the Great Depression deepening, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration heralded the most productive, dynamic domestic reform program since the Civil War. It w

Julian E. Zelizer: Democrats Need to Hear From Florida and Michigan

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s," which will be published this spring by Harvard University Press.] Democrats have a big problem on their hands. As a result, they need to redo the Florida and Michigan primaries. Today, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said that party leaders in both states need to design proposals for

Omer M. Mozaffar: Caliphate is the New Jihad

[Omer M. Mozaffar is a PhD student in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of Chicago, and teaches in the Asian Classics Curriculum at the University of Chicago's Graham School of General Studies. ] The reader is surely familiar with the phrase "Islam means peace", a response to the linkages of Islam with violence. Similarly, perhaps the most common statement from Muslims since September 11, 2001 is "jihad does not mean holy war, but struggle."

David Porter: Why the way we judge China is misguided

[David Porter is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. ] An NPR report yesterday on the opening of a new session of the National People's Congress in Beijing began with a disparaging comment to the effect that China is still a long way from democracy. As a statement of fact, this is no doubt both true and lamentable. As an attempt to convey useful knowledge to American listeners about China's current situation, however, it seems to

Ruth Rosen: The Politics of Fear---Again

[Ms. Rosen is Professor Emerita of History, U.C. Davis and Visiting Professor of History, U.C. Berkeley.] Although I have supported Barack Obama in the primaries, I would not be devastated if Hillary Clinton should turn out to be the Democratic nominee. What does upset me, however, is how Clinton is employing the politics of fear and how much she emphasizes national security in order to mobilize support for her campaign. The politics of fear worked wonders for Bush and

David Greenberg: It's too early to talk about Hillary's withdrawal

[David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers, has two new books out: Presidential Doodles and Calvin Coolidge.] Despite Hillary Clinton's victories in Ohio and Texas yesterday, she still trails Barack Obama in delegates. The Obama camp, claiming she won't be able to close the gap, is spinning the case for her to withdraw. Though self-serving, their argument is framed as a concern for the Democratic Party. At this late date, the reasoning goes, the Democrats

Michael Kazin: Speaking Well And Doing Great

[Michael Kazin, a professor of history at Georgetown University, is the author of "A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan."] Must a president be eloquent to be successful? That question has sparked a heated quarrel between the campaigns of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The senator from New York stresses "results, not rhetoric," while her rival contends that a leader has to inspire Americans in order to produce "a new majorit

Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom: Is race out of the race?

[Abigail Thernstrom is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Stephan Thernstrom is a professor of history at Harvard University. They are the coauthors of "America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible," published in 1997.] One of the most notable -- yet unremarked-on -- lessons of this year's Democratic presidential nominating contest is the demolition of the long-held belief that whites simply won't vote for black candidates for higher office. Before the Iowa

Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan: The Patton of Counterinsurgency

[Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805. Kimberly Kagan, the president of the Institute for the Study of War, is the author of The Eye of Command. Her reports and analysis of the Iraq war are available at www.understandingwar.org.] Great commanders often come in pairs: Eisenhower and Patton, Grant and Sherman, Napoleon and Davo