Roundup: Historians' Take

Lawrence S. Wittner: Protest against the reliable replacement warhead

[Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book, co-edited with Glen H. Stassen, is Peace Action: Past, Present, and Future (Paradigm Publishers).] Although Congress has been dealing with the Bush administration’s proposal to develop the reliable replacement warhead (RRW) for much of 2007, it’s remarkable that the new weapon, a hydrogen bomb, has attracted little public protest or even public attention. After all, for year

Steven Aftergood: When faced with a bad order by Grant, Lincoln rescinded it (Re: Jews)

In a remarkable episode from the Civil War that is not as widely known as it might be, General Ulysses S. Grant issued Order No. 11 on December 17, 1862 expelling all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, where his forces had taken the field. Equally remarkable, President Lincoln did not say he would"stand by" his generals or that"we must give the military the tools it needs" to accomplish its mission. Instead, he rescinded the Order. A century-old account of General

Dr. Earl Tilford: Leave Iraq ... We Can't

[Dr. Earl Tilford is Professor of History at Grove City College and enjoyed an extensive military career in the U.S. Air Force. He is former director of research at the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute, where he worked on a project that looked at future terrorist threats. He also authored three books on the Vietnam War and co-edited one book on Operation Desert Storm.] In April 1972, with North Vietnamese forces advancing as part of their Nguyen Hue Offensive, Seventh Air For

Juan Cole: Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton think a tough line on Tehran will sell politically. They could be right.

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] Future historians may conclude that the key issue in the 2008 presidential campaign was not Iraq, but whether the United States should go to war with Iran. Sparring over Iran dominated the Republican debate in Dearborn, Mich., last week, while a Senate resolution condemning Iran's Revolutionary Guards as

Juan Cole: Oil peak or peak oil?

[[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.]The tensions between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan contributed to jitteriness in the oil markets that drove the prices to as high as $88.20 at one point on Tuesday before falling back to over $87. The oil price spike in turn

John J. Pitney, Jr.: Electoral College Reform ... Lessons From California

[John J. Pitney, Jr., is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, California. He received his B.A. from Union College and his Ph.D. from Yale. He has been a New York State Senate Legislative Fellow, a Congressional Fellow, and deputy director of research at the Republican National Committee. He has written articles for National Review Online, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, among others. His scholarly works include The Art o

David J. Garrow: You know whom Justice Clarence Thomas really chastises in his new book? Himself.

[David J. Garrow, a senior fellow at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, is the author of Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (1998) and Bearing the Cross (1986), a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr.] Clarence Thomas’ brutally self-critical autobiography, My Grandfather’s Son, bears little resemblance to most early accounts of the book’s contents. For instance, only at Page 241 — well past the 80 perc

Gary Leupp: David Horowitz's misguided campaign against so-called "Islamo-Fascism"

[Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.] With much fanfare,

Charles W. Hayford: Don't toy with China

[Mr. Hayford is Visiting Scholar, Department of History, Northwestern University.] The toy company Mattel has apologized for blaming China for the recall of millions of toys. It turns out that most of the recalls were caused by design flaws. Can we add this sorry affair to the list of flaps, scares, and panics that have marked relations between our two countries since 1949? The "who lost China?" flap and Chinese anti-American scare campaigns of the 1950s kicke

Eric Alterman: Ann Coulter lowers public debate (again and again and again)

Here is it, 11 or so years, hundreds of network television appearances, millions of books sold, countless New York Observer suck-up interviews and one loving Time magazine cover later, after I first sat down next to her skinny ass on an MSNBC set - when she was then an anonymous aide to then-senator Spencer Abraham - and I am still writing about the ridiculous phenomenon of Ann Coulter. I actually don't begrudge Coulter. The woman is a genius. She understands just how vapid, brainle

Daniel Pipes: Giuliani's Fresh Start

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] "Would You Buy a Used Hawk From This Man?" runs the title of a Oct. 15 Newsweek smear of presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, suggesting that the mayor's advisors, "some of the Bush era's most assertive neoconservatives," represent George W. Bush retread

Allan Lichtman: And the Republican Presidential Nominee is … General Petraeus?

[Mr. Lichtman is a professor of history at American University and the author of The 13 Keys to the White House.] Why is new Republican candidate Fred Thompson doing so well in the polls despite a remarkably sub par performance on the campaign trail? The simple reason is that he is a vote for “none of the above.” Republicans usually have had an anointed candidate to nominate for president. In recent years, the two Bush’s, Bob Dole, and Ronald Reagan were the clear favor

Jonathan Zimmerman: The Cleveland Indians' mascot must go

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of "Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century."] "We'll have the Indians on the warpath all the time, eager for scalps to dangle at their belts." That's what a Cleveland sportswriter wrote in 1915, celebrating the new name of the city's baseball team. Previously called the "Naps," in honor of Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, the team had re

Drew Gilpin Faust: Inaugural address as president of Harvard

[Ms. Faust, the new president of Harvard, is a Civil War historian by training.] ... A number of inaugural veterans – both orators and auditors – have proffered advice, including unanimous agreement that my talk must be shorter than Charles William Eliot’s – which ran to about an hour and a half. Often inaugural addresses contain lists – of a new president’s specific goals or programs. But lists seem too constraining when I think of what today should mean; they seem a way of limiti

Deborah Lipstadt: How come it's Jewish opposition to the Armenian resolution from one group that got all the attention?

The Washington Post has severely condemned the Armenian Genocide resolution, as has Jimmy Carter [this a.m. on CNN], Senator Lindsey Graham, Juan Cole, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. This represents people from the far left, the blatantly anti-Israel, the Republican right, and the left of center. Why then all the attention to Abe Foxman's position??? I have been inundated with emails critical of Abe Foxman and the ADL. So many of them are so overtly antisemitic that I have not post

Gil Troy: Why Al Gore Shouldn't Think of Running for President Even Now

[Gil Troy is a history professor at McGill University. His most recent book is Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady.] Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize disproves one of the more depressing observations about the United States. The glittering Great Gatsby novelist of the 1920s, F. Scott Fitzgerald, once said, bitterly, "There are no second acts in American lives." However, after bottoming out in frustration when the presidency eluded him

Frederick Kagan: Spend whatever it takes on the war on terror

[Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military."] Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan is vital to U.S. national security, and we must spend whatever it takes to win in both places. The $190 billion requested for this year is still less than 1.5% of our gross domestic product, a small burden given the enormity of the stakes. We are in a desperate war against terror

Juan Cole: Who Lost Turkey?

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com/.] Turkey has been the strongest ally that the United States has had in the Middle East since the end of WW II. The Marshall Plan started with Northern tier states like Turkey and Greece. Turkey joined NATO and was a key player in the American victory in the Cold War. As a secular government, Turkey stood ag

Nick Turse: The Pentagon Plans for a New Hundred Years' War

[Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, the Village Voice, and regularly for Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, i

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom: Getting Real About China

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, the author of China's Brave New World--And Other Tales for Global Times, is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine.] The People's Republic of China is an unusual place; as someone who teaches about China and regularly travels there, I wouldn't want it any other way. It would be boring to lecture about a country lacking distinctive elements, and spending time in China would be far less interesting if I weren't continually struck by ways that