This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
February 17, 2004
Cinnamon Stillwell, in frontpagemag.com (Feb. 16, 2004): If reaction to Daniel Pipes' lecture on Tuesday (2/10) was any indication, fascism is alive and well at UC Berkeley. Pipes was invited by the Israel Action Committee and Berkeley Hillel to speak at the college campus known for its leftist politics. But ironically, the home of ''free speech'' and ''tolerance'' has shown itself to
February 17, 2004
Piper Fogg, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscribers only) (Feb. 16, 2004):
Alfred Runte came up for tenure three times at the University of Washington at Seattle. Three times he was denied. In the early 1980s, Mr. Runte, an assistant professor of history, went up early for tenure on two occasions. He considered his publishing record and his teaching exemplary. Both times his departm
February 12, 2004
Jennie Rothenberg interviews Robert Gildea, in the Atlantic
(Nov. 2003):In the immense canon of books about Europe during World War II, numerous
works center on France, immortalizing the glory of la Résistance or
revealing dark scandals of Nazi collaboration. Marianne in Chains is a different
kind of story. In its pages, author Robert Gildea tells the tales o
February 12, 2004
An interview with Howard Zinn, conducted by Kirk Johnson, editor of American
Amnesia (Feb. 2004):Howard Zinn, the historian most known for "A People's History of the
United States," recently talked with American Amnesia about foreign policy,
Iraq, historical amnesia, and democracy. His book, which has sold millions
of copies, is unique in its advocacy for a different type of history - one
February 12, 2004
Steve Neal, in the
Chicago Sun-Times (Feb. 11. 2004):As the nation celebrates the 195th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth
on Thursday, Richard Norton Smith is making long-term plans to extend the
Lincoln legacy. Smith, 50, director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum,
who works out of an office in the Old State Capitol in Springfield, is looking
a
February 10, 2004
Peter Waldman, in the WSJ (Feb. 3, 2004): Bernard Lewis often tells audiences about an encounter he once had in Jordan. The Princeton University historian, author of more than 20 books on Islam and the Middle East, says he was chatting with Arab friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument fami
February 7, 2004
David Gritten, writing in the LAT (Feb. 3, 2004):For the last 20 years on British television, Michael Wood has done for history
what David Attenborough has done for natural history. Like Attenborough, Wood
is erudite and authoritative, but with an infectious on-camera enthusiasm
that prevents his subject matter from becoming dry. In such series as "Legacy," "Conquistadors," "In
the Footsteps of Alexander the Great&q
February 6, 2004
Kimberly
Strassel, senior editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal
(Feb. 6, 2004):
History has its fair share of persecuted geniuses, men who were ahead of their time and made to pay for it. There's the hemlocked Socrates, the house-arrested Galileo, the exiled Rousseau. And to this list of giants it seems that we are now expected to add the name of Michael Bellesiles.
Mr. Bellesiles is the former Emory professor who shook the scholarly w
February 3, 2004
Bill Graham, writing in the Kansas City Star (Feb. 1, 2004): In January 1804, William Clark felt ill as he waited near St. Louis for a trek with Meriwether Lewis to the Pacific. He had broken through ice the day before while trying to cross a pond on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. After the dunking, Clark wrote, “I returned before Sun Set, and found that my feet
February 3, 2004
Darryl Owens, writing in the Ft. Wayne News Sentinel (Jan. 30, 2004): Sometimes, history needs a nudge. And other times, only a good arm-twisting will do. John Hope Franklin ought to know. Twice he nearly missed his waltz with history, flirting with sexier prospects. When he was an undergraduate at Fisk University, it took a dynamic professor to nudge him into his quest. The second ti
January 31, 2004
Anthony Trythall, writing in the London Independent (Jan. 23, 2004):JOHN TERRAINE was one of the outstanding military historians of the 20th
century. His intellect, scholarship and breadth and sharpness of vision marked
him out amongst his peers as one to be listened to with great care and attention,
and challenged with circumspection, although challenged he was. The fundamental reason for the controversy he aroused, and the challenges
January 31, 2004
John Burgess, writing in the Wash Post (Jan. 28, 2004):Sallyann Sack recalls the rainy day in 2000 that she spent on the Hamburg
waterfront, hoping to find clues to the voyage her grandmother had begun there
a century earlier. The rooming houses where the 16-year-old Jewish girl might
have stayed before traveling alone to America had disappeared; so had most
of the administrative buildings of the time. But then her guide said, "S
January 30, 2004
CNN interview with Douglas Brinkley on January 26, 2004, the night John Kerry
won the Iowa caucus:WOLF BLITZER: Joining us now to discuss electability and other issues, the
presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley. He's joining us here in New Hampshire.
Let me see that book. You've got a new book that's out. DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Sure.BLITZER: A well-timed book, Douglas Brinkley is the author of this book.
It's
January 23, 2004
Tina Brown, writing in the Washington Post (Dec. 4, 2003):It's odd how fast grandeur becomes gloomy when the miasma of misfortune sets
in. No one could have predicted that the book party for Conrad Black's monumental
study of Franklin D. Roosevelt at New York's Four Seasons restaurant would
coincide with his stepping down as CEO of the publishing company Hollinger
International -- owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post and, in
January 23, 2004
Lara Marlowe, writing in the Irish Times (Dec. 3, 2003):The theme is as old as the Romans and crops up through history with persistent
regularity. A decade ago a book about "the fall of the American empire"
was a huge success in the US. This autumn France was seized by its own bout
of declinisme, thanks to the economist and historian Nicolas Baverez. Mr Baverez's book, La France Qui Tombe (France is Falling), has remained
on t
January 23, 2004
James Sobotka, writing in frontpagemag.com (Dec. 5, 2003):When I first saw the flyer announcing Daniel Pipes' upcoming visit to the
University of Illinois campus this week, my first thought was, "How long
until The Daily Illini decides to smear him?" Predictably, Wednesday's DI editorial (which, interestingly enough does not
appear online) and recent published letters have spared no rhetoric to discredit
him."Pipes is an
January 23, 2004
Lucy Ward, writing in the Guardian (Dec. 9, 2003):Students take heart. Lord Skidelsky, the internationally renowned historian
and professor of political economy at Warwick University, has revealed how
he failed an A-level paper this summer because of his "inability to develop
a coherent argument". Robert Skidelsky, 64, author of an award-winning biography of John Maynard
Keynes, makes his disclosure in today's Guardian educati
January 23, 2004
John Crace, writing in the Guardian
(Dec. 9, 2003):It's a Monday morning in Cambridge and Richard Evans shuffles out of the
porter's lodge at Gonville & Caius College trailing a large suitcase behind
him. "Been somewhere nice for the weekend?" I ask. Evans looks confused
for a moment. "I haven't been anywhere," he eventually replies.
January 23, 2004
Carol Schmidt, writing in the Bozeman
Daily Chronicle (Dec. 24, 2003):Joan Hoff has a great sense of history. That's why the accomplished writer,
noted historian and former president and CEO for the Center for the Study
of the Presidency is often called upon to serve as a commentator for such
national programs as "The NewsHour." hosted by Jim
January 23, 2004
Thomas Spencer, writing in the Birmingham
News (Dec. 22, 2003):It's been a good year for University of Alabama history professor George
Rable. His book, "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!," won the triple crown
of Civil War book awards, the Douglas Southall Freeman Book Award and both
the Jefferson Davis Award, presented bythe Museum of th
