Historians/History

When is a Farmer not a Farmer? When He’s Chinese: Then He’s A Peasant

by Charles W. Hayford

After Mao Zedong died in 1976, they put his body on display in one of those see-through coffins which Lenin made popular. Shortly after, the NBC evening news commentator, David Brinkley, termed this “peasant under glass” – a racist flippancy which would not have been accepted (or probably even thought of) for the dead leader of a Western state.Now the thing is that Mao wasn’t even a peasant: He never made his living with a hoe (if an

Jacques Pluss Now Says He Is a Nazi--And Proud of It

by Troy Vettese

In March 2005, Fairleigh Dickinson University fired Jacques Pluss, a popular and outwardly tolerant professor who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in medieval history. It was reported that Pluss was a neo-Nazi. But to avoid controversy, FDU cited Pluss’s alleged numerous absences for his dismissal, not his beliefs. HNN has closely followed this story since then and kept in contact with Pluss. Pluss has even posted on HNN forums, and wrote an article to defend himsel

Arthur Schlesinger’s Missing Vital Center

by Clare L. Spark

In his Commentary essay, reprinted in HNN, Norman Podhoretz regrets that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. had, in his unrelenting negative depiction of the Republican party, abandoned the liberalism he espoused in his famous book The Vital Center. The obituary in the Guardian also references the “vital centre,” defining this conception as “a vital centre of accepted societal values” that, combined

Oh, No, the Dreaded Question: Is My Book Relevant?

by James Oakes

I should have known better.  My book is a few weeks old and already I’ve been asked to “apply” its lessons here, there and everywhere.  I should have predicted that reporters would inevitably ask me to compare Abraham Lincoln to George Bush.  What I did not expect was the reaction of some good friends in the profession, who find my book helpful in the

Now It Can Be Told: Why I Pretended to Be a Neo-Nazi

by Jacques Pluss

Editor's Note 3-12-07 Contrary to the statements he makes in this article Jacques Pluss now confirms he is a nazi, as HNN reported here on March 12, 2007. Editor's Note 1/16/06:A year ago, in a controversial decision, Fairleigh Dickinson University fired historian Jacques Pluss after it was revealed that he was a member of the National Socialist Movement. (The school insisted he was fired for missing classes.) The

Michael Bellesiles Is PC

by Ronald Radosh

Historians have been getting in the news quite a bit lately, but not to their liking. Quite a bit of ink has been spilled on the sins of Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin, both of whom have been caught engaging in the great academic no-no---plagiarism. Both are best-selling authors of popular history; they will not suffer in employment and loss of income from their exposure. If anything, the general public probably does not even care whether or not key passages from their books wer

Sexism Charges Challenged at the University of Toledo

by Lauren Zanolli

The history department at the University of Toledo is still reeling this week from accusations of sexism leveled by at least one faculty member in a report by the University’s Office of Institutional Diversity (OID).  In the report, which was leaked to the press in late February, anonymous female faculty members charged that the department is “toxic” to women and that women are “addressed in a condescending manne

The New Enola Gay Controversy: Historians Protest the Latest Smithsonian Exhibit

by Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy

Following is a statement released by the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy. A committee of scholars, veterans, clergy, activists, students, and other interested individuals is now forming to challenge the Smithsonian's plans to exhibit the Enola Gay solely as a "magnificent technological achievement." The planned exhibit is devoid not only of historical context and discussion of the ongoing controversy surroun

James Basker: Interviewed About William Wilberforce

by Sherri Sheu

James Basker, Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, is the president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, which recently began featuring an online exhibit, "Wilberforce, Lincoln, and the Abolition of Slavery." In light of the new attention being drawn to Wilberforce, the subject of the new movie Amazing Grace, we thought this would be a good time to interview Mr. Basker, th

The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America

by Elliot Jaspin

The story of how I found America’s racial cleansings begins in an unlikely place: the small town of Berryville in northwest Arkansas. I was visiting there in 1998 and, with time on my hands, I decided to tour a small history museum in the center of town. It was a quirky place - one room was devoted to antique embalming equipment – with all sorts of bric-a-brac piled on tables. As I wandered from room to room, a picture on one wall caught my eye. In the top of the frame was a photogra

Rewriting Someone Else’s History: The Japanese Reaction to “Letters from Iwo Jima”

by Noriko Manabe

Something about the scene with the dog made me first laugh, then shake my head. It wasn’t the Hollywood hokeyness; it was that the dog looked too well-fed. I immediately recalled my mother's childhood memory that she tells over and over. During World War II, the American blockade led to food shortages in Japan, causing severe malnutrition for its citizens. By the end of the war, my mother, who was then twelve, weighed little over forty pounds. Her childhood pet was a rabbit; my gra

When Archivists Deal with Power Players

by Maarja Krusten

President George W. Bush reportedly is leaning toward Southern Methodist University (SMU) as the site of his Presidential Library, which will be administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  A handful of people negotiate site selection for a Presidential Library.   A history professor at SMU has posted on his blog articles reflecting v

The English-Speaking Peoples Should Be Proud of Their History

by Andrew Roberts

 ‘We might have been a free and great people together.’ -- Thomas Jefferson, 1776 ‘I am here to tell you that, whatever form your system of world security may take, however the nations are grouped and ranged, whatever derogations are made from national sovereignty for the sake of the larger synthesis, nothing will work soundly or for long without the united effort of the British and American peoples. If we are together nothing is impossible. I

Breaking News in the Story of the May 4, 1970 Kent State Shootings?

by William A. Gordon

Blood Libel: Ariel Toaff's Perplexing Book

by Kenneth Stow

A week after its publication, Ariel Toaff has withdrawn his Pasque di sangue (in English: Bloody Passovers: The Jews of Europe and Ritual Murders) from circulation. Hopefully this will elegantly end an unfortunate episode.  The book’s thesis is unambiguous:  Jews crucified Christian children and used their blood ritually. The author’s disclaimers, like that which appears in a recent article in the Chronicle

Reflections on Thomas Ryan’s Article About Barbara Weinstein

by Margaret Power

I was surprised, in fact appalled, to read the article on AHA president Barbara Weinstein published on the History News Network on January 30, 2007. Thomas Ryan wrote the article, which was originally posted on David Horowitz’s FrontpageMag.com. The article embodies precisely the kind of journalism that we as scholars repudiate. It is slanderous, replete with unsubstantiated aspersions and red herrings, and, most important

Why Have Scholars Underplayed George Washington’s Faith?

by Peter A. Lillback

The faith of our founding father, George Washington, has been the source of debate among scholars throughout the 20th, and now into the 21st century. Prior to that, it was generally the case that very few questioned the strength or validity of the claim that George Washington was a Christian. It was not until around the time of the bicentennial of Washington’s birth, in 1932, that the consensus began to shift to the view that Washington was a Deist, that is, one who is generally non-rel

It’s not Bush, Stupid! Polling “The Worst President”

by Lee P. Ruddin

Well before the ink had dried on Sean Wilentz’s article in Rolling Stone, lefty blogosphere’s were in meltdown sounding off the problem–plagued presidency of George W. Bush. This is compounded by the accompanying mala fideswebsite. Yet, since the Princeton historian’s piece ran last May we have been caught in a torrent of historians (a Nobel Prize laureate, Pu

Bad Arolsen Holocaust Insurance and Corporate Revelations Years Delayed

by Edwin Black

When Jews too weak to work were routinely marched from their concentration camp barracks into oblivion, when shrieking families with arms and fingers outstretched were torn apart during deportations, when the winds of politics and opportunity scattered refugees and survivors throughout the world, many rightfully thought that the story of their persecution and fate would be as indistinguishable as a single ash rising from a chimney. Even though millions did not survive, much of their story

When Lawyers Go Wrong, Historians Set the Record Straight

by Ralph Luker

I spent a good share of early October working with a group of historians on an amicus brief that we filed on Tuesday the 10th in two cases that the Supreme Court is scheduled to begin hearing on 4 December. Known formally as Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 and