Roundup: Historians' Take

Daniel Pipes: Give Gaza to Egypt

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] Startling developments in Gaza highlight the need for a change in Western policy toward this troubled territory of 1.3 million persons.Gaza's contemporary history began in 1948, when Egyptian forces overran the British-controlled area and Cairo sponsored the nominal"

Niall Ferguson: Has the democratic wave broken?

... Is the tide of political freedom now ebbing after the spectacular flow that began in 1989? Recent events on nearly every continent certainly give real cause for concern to those who dream of a world governed by the ballot box rather than the bullet. But they may also provide an overdue opportunity to think more realistically about the way the process of democratisation works. The picture is, as usual, especially bleak in Africa, where two erstwhile democratic role-models find th

Juan Cole: One last Argument with Bush

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] When Bush first came in, the comedian Will Ferrell did a skit on the television show"Saturday Night Live" that depicted the president cowering under his desk as bombs went off in Washington and the country went down the tubes. Coming after the prosperity and relative peace of the Clinton years, it seemed a

Sean Wilentz: Obama's misuse of history

[Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton University, is the author of "The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln," among other books.] 'God alone knows the future," Ambrose Bierce reputedly wrote, "but only an historian can alter the past." Although Bierce was undoubtedly right about historians, he should perhaps have added politicians and their ardent supporters as well. In recent weeks, some of the presidential candidates

Joseph Lane: Race and the Risky Game of Claiming Icons

[Joseph Lane is the Hawthorne Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Emory & Henry.] At the January 21 South Carolina Debate (the one that was co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, where Barack Obama is not just a guest, but also a member), Hillary Clinton was asked to weigh in on wh

Alice Kessler-Harris: Why I'm not necessarily for Hillary

[Alice Kessler-Harris is a professor of American history at Columbia University.] This seems to be the moment for which feminists have waited. Those of us who came out of the women's movement of the late '60s and '70s have longed for a greater presence of women in the political and public spheres. So why are we not ringing doorbells for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton? In my case, I would say it is ambivalence. I am certainly not against her. I just can't bring mys

Eric Foner: Debating who is more oppressed, blacks or women, is a fool's game

[Eric Foner, a member of The Nation's editorial board, is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and author, most recently, of Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction.] The controversy inspired by Hillary Clinton's remark crediting Lyndon Johnson with the civil rights movement's successes seems to have subsided. Contrary to much recent punditry, this contretemps does not prove that the Democratic primary has been reduced to a zero-sum game of i

Garry Wills: Two Presidents Are Worse Than One

[arry Wills, a professor emeritus of history at Northwestern, is the author, most recently, of “Head and Heart: American Christianities.”] SENATOR Hillary Clinton has based her campaign on experience — 35 years of it by her count. That must include her eight years in the White House. Some may debate whether those years count as executive experience. But there can be no doubt that her husband had the presidential experience, fully. He has shown during his wife’s campaign

Philip Carl Salzman: Why did the Muslim Middle East become so violent?

[Philip Carl Salzman is professor of anthropology at McGill University. This article is drawn from his forthcoming book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (Humanity Books).] Today's religious map of the Middle East traces to the unification of the Arabian tribes under the banner of Islam in the 7th century, and their subsequent conquest of much of the known world. Muhammad's genius was in finding a way to unite the myriad of fissiparous, feuding Bedouin tribes of northern Arab

Stephanie Coontz: The Future of Marriage

[Stephanie Coontz teaches history at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and is Director of Research and Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families: http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org. Her most recent book is Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage.] Any serious discussion of the future of marriage requires a clear understanding of how marriage evolved over the ages, along with the causes of it

Susan Brownell: Beijing Olympics FAQ #1: Politics and the Olympics

[Susan Brownell is the author of Training the Body for China, which is widely recognized as the single best work by a scholar on Chinese sports.] Last year the International Olympic Committee (IOC) invited me to write an essay on the Beijing Olympics, and “The Beijing Effect” was published in the July-September 2006 issue of The Olympic Review

Joel Beinin: The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process

[Joel Beinin is Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University. Beinin's article was posted to the mailing list of Jewish Voice for Peace.] About 3:00 am on Wednesday morning Jan. 23, well-coordinated explosions demolished the iron wall built by Israel to seal the southern border between

Jonathan Zimmerman: A Super Bowl lesson from Ghana

[Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, is teaching this semester at the university's study-abroad program in Ghana.] Accra, Ghana | Last Sunday evening, in the final minutes of play, Ghana's Sulley Muntari scored a dramatic goal to defeat visiting Guinea. Seven hours later, at 3 a.m., we could still hear the horns and revelers on the street outside of our house. And believe it or not, the party has just begun. Mr.

Chalmers Johnson: Why the Debt Crisis Is Now the Greatest Threat to the American Republic

[Chalmers Johnson is the author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, just published in paperback. It is the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy, which also includes Blowback (2000) and The Sorrows of Empire (2004).] The military

Andrew Roberts: We Shouldn't Be Alarmed by "Batman's" Invasion of the Palace

Andrew Roberts, in the Guardian (Sept. 17, 2004): ... How predictable and absurd has been the knee-jerk outrage expressed over Ferry's schoolboyish prank. Once linked to the rather less stylish Fathers4Justice stunt at Buckingham Palace, the media, police and politicians have vied with one another to shed any sense of proportion in their analysis of what is really going on. "The most serious attack on the Houses of Parliament in living memory," intoned Sky TV, overl

Tracy Dove: Egypt's Troubled History With Gaza

[Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and the Department Chair of International Relations at the University of New York in Prague.] Hamas militants used explosives first, then Palestinian bulldozers cleaned the path for walkers, bike riders and donkeys. After 7 months of standoff between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza and 7 days of sealed border crossings, residents took their fate into their own hands and

Joseph Ellis: 'The better angels' side with Obama

[Historian Joseph J. Ellis' latest book is "American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic."] A lively debate has developed in these pages and in the blogosphere about the viability of Barack Obama's politics of hope. Critics of Obama's promise to bring us together -- blue states and red, young and old, women and men, blacks and whites -- have described his vision as a naive pipe dream that would be dead on arrival if he were elected president.

Michael K. Honey: King's politics of Hope

[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).] As a backdrop to this year's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observance, Sen. Barack Obama has unleashed the mobilizing power of hope and raised expectations that America's dreadful years of racial apartheid may be coming to a close. On his 39th birthday, a

Daniel Pipes: The Middle East's Tribal Affliction

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] Why is the Middle East so at odds with modern life, laggard in everything from literacy to standard of living, from military prowess to political development? A profound new book by Philip Carl Salzman, professor at McGill University, with the deceptively plain title

Martin Kramer: Memo from Gulfistan

[Martin Kramer made these remarks at the 8th Herzliya Conference on January 21. ] Lately it has been said that the Arabs are in a panic over the growing power of Iran. We are told that Arab rulers so fear the rise of Iran that this fear has eclipsed all others—it’s the sum of all fears. And it’s making a new Middle EastThat is what David Brooks, Ne