Roundup

Remote Reflections: Learning in the Time of Corona

by Sarah Shurts

Sometimes it is not a matter of making the past more engaging for students, it is a matter of engaging ourselves in the present lives of our students.

George Floyd’s Death Is a Failure of Generations of Leadership

by Elizabeth Hinton

To begin to dismantle the socioeconomic conditions that led to Mr. Floyd’s premature death, we can look to the principles of community representation and grass-roots empowerment that steered the early development of Johnson’s domestic program.

The Search for the Truth About the Nazi Plot to Assassinate FDR

by Howard Blum

The events surrounding Operation Long Jump, as the Nazi assassination mission that targeted the Tehran Conference was known, remained a deeply buried official secret.

How History Will Judge the Complicit

by Anne Appelbaum

Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?

A 'Hamilton'-esque Scandal Helped Give Trump His Cudgel

by Gautham Rao

The real impediment to Trump's use of the Insurrection Act is historical precedent and norms; If Trump doesn't have any regard for them, there is little to stop him from following through on his pledge to deploy the military in American cities. 

Insurrection in the Eye of the Beholder

by Hawa Allan

The 1807 Insurrection Act was inescapably a product of early nineteenth century fears of slave revolt. 

Law And Order Won’t Help Trump Win Reelection

by Kevin M. Kruse

The call for “law and order” is a complaint that those tasked with upholding the law and maintaining order have failed at the job and need to be replaced.

What Would Martin Luther King Jr. Say About The Current Civil Unrest?

by Peniel Joseph

Many commentators who now invoke Martin Luther King Jr. to condemn angry protesters fail to grasp that King insisted peace and order could not be achieved without addressing deep racial and economic inequality in American society.

George Washington Would Have So Worn a Mask

by Maurizio Valsana

The genre “What would X do?” – where X stands for a noted figure in history, say Jesus or Dolly Parton – is silly. And yet, as a scholar writing a new biography of George Washington, I can’t help making a bold declaration: The Father of His Country would wear his mask in public.

Confederate Monuments Haunt American Democracy

by Karen L. Cox

Confederate monuments, most put in place as white supremacy regained control of the South, testify to continued injustice.

Five Reasons ‘Law and Order’ Rhetoric Might not Work as Well in 2020 as in 1968

by Max Boot

The “Southern strategy” could work again this year, but there are at least five reasons to believe it might not be as potent as in the past.

The Double Standard of the American Riot

by Kellie Carter Jackson

Many people are asking if violence is a valid means of producing social change. The hard and historical answer is yes. Riots have a way of magnifying not merely the flaws in the system, but also the strength of those in power. 

The American Nightmare

by Ibram X. Kendi

Racism is not the province of the uneducated or ignorant; the denial of black life and humanity has historically been supported from the loftiest precincts of scholarship and government.

The Police Chief Who Inspired Trump’s Tweet Glorifying Violence

by Julio Capó, Jr.

Trump echoed a former Miami police chief’s anti-black words and animus.  

Donald Trump May Not Be Herbert Hoover

by Tom Engelhardt

Trump, unlike President Herbert Hoover, may usher us into a true Great Depression and possibly not suffer a staggering defeat at the polls in November, as that president did in 1932.

Secretary Lonnie Bunch: It Is Time for America to Confront Its Tortured Racial Past

by Lonnie G. Bunch III

This moment, says the Smithsonian secretary, should be the ‘impetus for our nation to address racism and social inequities in earnest.’

Pandemic Historian: Don't Rush Reopening. In 1918, Some States Ran Straight Into More Death.

by Dr. Howard Markel

Over a decade ago, I looked at state lockdown measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic. My takeaway: Longer is better than shorter.

We Are Living in a Red Spring

by Robert Greene II

In the Red Summer of 1919, racist violence hit America as the Spanish flu ravaged the country. With mass protests against police murders sweeping the pandemic-plagued United States, it appears we might be now living in a Red Spring.

Jared Kushner Is a Know Nothing – Not Just Because He has Failed on so Many Fronts

by Sidney Blumenthal

Trump’s son-in-law wants a miniature Republican platform. It is a move with strong parallels – but not to the party of Lincoln

It's Been Five Decades Since 1968, and Things are Somehow Worse

by Julian Zelizer

For those of us who study the 1960s or lived through those troubled times, it's hard to imagine things could be worse. But they are.