Roundup: Historians' Take

Kiron Skinner: Bush Has Been Sounding the Same Themes for Years (Just Like Reagan Did)

Kiron E. Skinner, in the WSJ (2-2-05):[Ms. Skinner, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon and research fellow at the Hoover Institution, is currently working on a book on Reagan and U.S.-Soviet relations.]The element of surprise is often associated with George W. Bush. For many, his re-election was the biggest surprise of all. More recently, some were

Martin Kramer: Columbia University Compounds Its Errors

Martin Kramer, at his blog (1-31-05):Fiascos at Columbia University follow one another in a dizzying succession. This week's episode opens tonight at the Law School, where four academics will solemnly consider a burning question. No, it's not how to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is the present mission

Daniel Pipes: The Unhealthy Influence of Saudi Money

Daniel Pipes, at his website (2-1-05):Those of us following the development of Islam in America have for years worried about the unhealthy influence of Saudi money and ideas on American Muslims.We watched apprehensively as the Saudi government boasted of funding mosques and research centers; as it announced its

Murray Polner: The Struggle for 0il and Power: Is Iran Next?

Murray Polner (1-29-05):[Murray Polner, who served in the military, wrote No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran and appears frequently in electronic and print magazines. He is HNN.org's trade book review editor.]I started wearing a "Don't Bomb Iran" pin in my lapel when the number of American dead in the Iraq War passed the 1400 mark with some 10,000 others wounded, plus tens of thousands of uncounted Iraqi civilians. A

Nick Turse: The Pentagon Is Watching

Nick Turse, at www.tomdispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute (1-28-05): [Nick Turse is a doctoral candidate at the Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He writes for the Village Voice and regularly for Tomdispatch on the military-corporate complex.] If you're reading this on the Internet, the FBI may be spying on you at this very moment.

Interview with Thomas Barnett

Thomas Barnett, interviewed by Jamie Glazov at FrontPageMag.com (1-26-05):Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. Thomas Barnett, senior strategic researcher and professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He served as assistant for strategic futures in the Defense Department's Office of Force Transformation (Oct. 2001-June 2003). He is the author of the new book The Pentagon’s

Michael Kessler: The Controversy Over Prayers at the Inauguration

Michael Kessler, in Sightings, the newsletter of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School (1-27-05):[Michael Kessler is assistant dean for strategic planning and faculty development and teaches religion and political theory in the College at Georgetown University.]At the 2001 Presidential Inauguration, Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell's benediction concluded on a controversial note: "We respectfully submit this humble prayer i

Jonathan Spence: Why China Is Having Trouble Giving Zhao Ziyang a Decent Funeral

Jonathan Spence, in the NYT (1-25-05): Jonathan Spence, a professor of modern Chinese history at Yale, is the author, most recently, of "Treason by the Book."WHY has the Chinese government been so intent on showing that the former Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang was a man of no significance, a man whose life should not be celebrated and whose death should pass unsung? The answer that

Daniel Pipes: The Future of Judaism

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (1-25-05):Until the 18th century, there was basically only one kind of Judaism, that which is now called Orthodox. It meant living by the religion's 613 laws, and doing so suffused Jews' lives with their faith. Then, starting with the thinker Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) and moving briskly during the Haskala, or"enlightenment," from the late 18th century, Jews developed a w

When Should the U.S. Start Pulling Troops Out of Iraq?

From the Guardian (1-22-05):Edward Luttwak, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington As long as we realise we are doing no bloody good by being there . . . withdrawal should take place as soon as there is diplomatic alignment. How soon you finish washing after dinner depends on when you start. How soon you can do it depends on how soon you start working to create the conditions to do it. It needs negotiation (with neighbouring cou

Susan Jacoby: Once Upon a Time Darwin Was Accepted by Religious Conservatives

Susan Jacoby, in the NYT (1-19-05):[Susan Jacoby, director of the Center for Inquiry-Metro New York, is the author of "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism."]Shortly after the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," the usually astute historian Frederick Lewis Allen concluded that fundamentalism had been permanently discredited by the prosecution in Dayton, Tenn., of John T. Scopes, who had taught his biology students about Darwin's the

Joshua Brown: Inaugural Procession (Illustration)

Taylor Branch On Michael Schwerner, Civil Rights Activist

Gregory Kane, The Baltimore Sun, 1/12/05 If Michael Schwerner had never come to Baltimore in 1963, would he have died in Mississippi in 1964? In the summer of 1963, Schwerner was among the hundreds of demonstrators who sought to desegregate the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park."It was the first demonstration he ever participated in," said Taylor Branch, who has written two books in a trilogy he's doing on the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and was fi

Donna Schuele On Shirley Chisholm

Donna C. Schuele, Los Angeles Times, 1/7/05 Nearly 30 years ago I embarked on my college career by choosing a major in history, taking an experimental freshman course in the biographies of 20th century world political leaders. Women were not ignored: We studied Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Madame Chiang Kai-shek. If nothing else I learned that, at least outside the United States, women could hold and exercise vast political power. But there was little about these l

Daniel Pipes: Hooray for Fox for Running a Prime Time Show that Deals with Islamist Terrorism

Daniel Pipes, at FrontPageMag.com (1-6-05):The war on terror has not been the subject of a single American feature film nor, so far as I know, is there one in the works. But television is proving a bit braver and things should get interesting on Sunday, Jan. 9, when Fox begins a new season of its action show, called 24.Why the absence of movies on the current war? Jack Valenti, then-head of the Motion Picture Association of America, once

Interview with Edwin Black

The following interview with Edwin Black was conducted by Jamie Glazov, managing editor of FrontPageMag.[Edwin Black is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust, The Transfer Agreement, and War Against the Weak. His latest book is Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict.]FP: Welcome to F

John Lewis Gaddis: Bush's Midcourse Corrections

John Lewis Gaddis, in Foreign Affairs (Jan.-Feb. 2005): Second terms in the White House open the way for second thoughts. They provide the least awkward moment at which to replace or reshuffle key advisers. They lessen, although nothing can remove, the influence of domestic political considerations, since re-elected presidents have no next election to worry about. They enhance authority, as allies and adversaries learn--whether with hope or despair--with whom they will have to

Daniel Pipes: Palestinians Are Winning the War of Semantics

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (1-4-05):We read that"Prime Minister" Mahmoud Abbas is running in the elections on Sunday to succeed Yasser Arafat as"president" of"Palestine."Excuse me, but prime minister, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica,

Martin E. Marty: Maybe We Should Take Andrew Greeley's Advice on the War in Iraq and Just Get Out

Martin E. Marty, in Sightings, the newsletter of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School (1-3-05):Andrew Greeley, sociologist, novelist, columnist, and priest, asked in the Christmas Eve edition of the

Joshua Brown: Doing All We Can to Help the Victims of the Tsunami? (Illustration)