Historians/History

Has the History Profession Awarded a Prize to Another Flawed Book?

by Robert P. Newman

Editor's Note Last week at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) announced that Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has won the Robert Ferrell Book Prize for Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. The award attracted the notice of Professor Hasegawa's critics, including Robert P. Newman. We asked Mr. N

US Congressional Resolution Calls on Japan to Accept Responsibility for Wartime Comfort Women

by Alexis Dudden

Two members of the United States Congress, Representative Lane Evans (D-Illinois) and Representative Chris Smith (R-New Jersey), have introduced a non-binding resolution (H.Res. 759) in the current congressional session which calls on the government of Japan to "formally acknowledge and accept responsibility for its sexual enslavement of young women" during the 1930s and 40s. In the 1930s, as it expanded into China, the Japanese military colluded with

Ben Franklin, Scientist

by Joyce E. Chaplin

Science, too, has a history, and Franklin was born at a critical moment in that his­tory. People have always struggled to understand the natural world. But only at the end of the seventeenth century did some Europeans begin to thin

History Doyen: Bernard A. Weisberger

by Bonnie Goodman

Bernard A. Weisberger is a distinguished teacher and author of American history.

How Will the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History Redesign Public History in America?

by S.J. Redman

On April 13 th, the Washington Post, reported that, “The National Museum of American History will close for almost two years to reconfigure the core of its often-mystifying layout and build a new gallery for the Star-Spangled Banner.” Serious dialogue, gossip, and conjecture surrounding the redesign of the National Museum of

The Luck of the Historian

by Tony Platt

Sometimes as a historian you need to get lucky. Serendipity played an important role in how Cecilia O’Leary, my co-researcher, and I came to write Bloodlines: Recovering Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, From Patton’s Trophy to Public Memorial (Paradigm

HNN Survey: What Kind of History Does the History Channel Show?

by Debbie Kahn

Its pejorative nickname is the Hitler Channel. Is it deserved? The results of an HNN survey of three weeks of programming on the History Channel show that the channel mainly focuses on three areas: military history, technology, and religion. The survey covered the period between March 26 and April 15, 2006. Of the programs analyzed during this period, an average of 20 percent were devoted to military history. Of the military history shows, 70 percent covered World War II, with off

The White Ethnic Revival

by Matthew Frye Jacobson

Just who's American?

Do Historians Have a Responsibility to Warn the Public About Misleading Websites?

by Randall Bytwerk

For the last several years, anyone doing a Google search for "Hitler" gets, as the first result, the "Hitler Historical Museum." This claims to be an unbiased site devoted to historical truth. It is instead a neo-Nazi site. It is anonymous (the registered owner is "united. thought"). Its mailing address is a strip mall in Herndon, VA. Many of its links are to other neo-Nazi sites, and its information is not entirely reliable. Despite that fact, it is linked to

No Borders: Beyond the Nation-State

by Thomas Bender

I want to propose the end of American history as we have known it."End" can mean both"purpose" and"termination," and I have in mind both those meanings. I want to draw attention to the end to which national histories, including Americ

Lee Harvey Oswald’s Motives

by Mel Ayton

After nearly 40 years the question remains: Why? What kind of rage, pain or pathology could have provoked Lee Harvey Oswald to such a dark deed? The explanation of Oswald's motive for killing President Kennedy was buried with him. As JFK assassination expert Dr. Martin Kelly has stated, “Oswald’s mental state does not have crisp, sharp-edged concepts, so it is problematic for (anyone) to write a causally structured account easily”. But I believe the mystery about Os

The Paranoid View of History Infects Harvard

by Richard L. Cravatts

"Anti-Semitism," wrote Stephen Eric Bronner, author of the engaging book A Rumor About The Jews, "is the stupid answer to a serious question: How does history operate behind our backs?" For a wide range of ideological extremists, anti-Semitism is still the stupid answer for why what goes wrong with the world does go wrong. It is a philosophical world view and interpretation of history that creates conspiracies as a way of explaining the unfolding of historical eve

Political Correctness Is Alive and Well on College Campuses

by Alan Levy

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alan Levy. I have been a professor in the Pa. State System of Higher Education (SSHE) at Slippery Rock University for 21 years. I have a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. I have also taught at the University of Louisville and at the Phillips Exeter Academy. I teach in the history department at Slippery Rock. I have served, as well, as the Director of the University’s Honors’ Program. I have also written books and articles in

Why the Civil War Still Matters

by Kevin M. Levin

Much has changed within the historical profession and in race relations, but as we approach the Civil War sesquicentennial celebrations beginning in 2011 there is reason to be concerned. While academic and National Park Service historians have worked tirelessly over the past four decades to revise our understanding of the Civil War by emphasizing the importance of slavery, race, and emancipation as central themes of the war, the general public continues to hold onto a sanitized, white-only inter

HNN Doyen: Gordon S. Wood

by Bonnie Goodman

What he is famous for.

It's Not Just the Japanese Government that's Turning a Blind Eye to History ... So Are Japanese Corporations

by William Underwood

Editor's Note: This article was updated on March 30, 2006 on the website of Japan Focus to reflect recent events. Click here to read this updated article. Just as Nazi Germany did in Europe during World War II, Imperial Japan made extensive use of forced labor across the vast area of the Asia Pacific it once occupied. Today, however, Japan’s government and corporations are dealing with the legacy of wartime forced l

Whose Art History is it Anyway?

by S.J. Redman

Some time ago, I was having a conversation with an art historian about the development of cannons. I was interested in talking to him because I had studied how certain archaeological and anthropological objects became rather expected in museums across the western world. Why does every museum need an ancient Egyptian mummy, or a totem pole from the Pacific Northwest, I asked. I had sought out the art historian for a fresh perspective. The clear difference between museums that cover general his

Horowitz, Genovese, and the Varieties of Culture War: Comments on the Continuing Unpleasantness in Idaho

by William L. Ramsey

Perhaps the institution of slavery as it existed in the antebellum South was permitted by the Bible, as my Fundamentalist and Neo-Confederate opponents insist. I rather hope not, but I have never challenged them on that point. It strikes me as a nineteenth-century coffin they are welcome to continue nesting in if they like. But it never ends there. They must always go on to recast the South’s “peculiar institution” as a positively “pleasant” and worthwhile experi

Conspiracy Thinking and the John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Assassinations: Part II

by Mel Ayton

Click here to read Part I. JFK, RFK and MLK conspiracy advocates began with the premise that conspirators would organise the assassinations in a certain way. Yet the most basic examination of their ‘assassination scenarios’ can only leave the reader with the conclusion that the purported ‘conspiracy plans’ were altogether ridiculous. For example, why would sophisticated conspirators have allowed a ‘hypnotised Sirhan’ to

About the Historians Who Write History Columns

by Andrew Bernstein

Historical columnists bridge the gap between academic history and journalism. By writing columns professionals in each of those fields aim to influence the course of world events by putting current events in historical perspective while educating lay-people about the past. The individuals who write these columns are driven and very committed to both their scholarship and the mission of historical columns. “I have always seen journalism and history as kindred fields – a lot of the