Roundup

Source: Informed Comment

Dec 6, 2017

Another way Trump will get us Killed: to move US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

by Juan Cole

Israel conquered most of Jerusalem and its hinterlands in 1967. It then annexed these regions in a quite illegal move.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

Dec 5, 2017

The evangelical slippery slope, from Ronald Reagan to Roy Moore

by Randall Balmer

After Reagan (who was divorced) evangelicals stopped talking about divorce. After Trump and Roy Moore they can’t talk about sexual assault.

Source: The Washington Post

Dec 5, 2017

Discriminating in the name of religion? Segregationists and slaveholders did it, too.

by Tisa Wenger

The Supreme Court must reject these claims.

Source: The New Yorker

Dec 5, 2017

Would Trump Consider a Court-Packing Scheme?

by Jeff Shesol

McConnell’s strategy of shutting down the judicial-appointments process during Barack Obama’s last two years in office gave Trump, at the time of his Inauguration, a hundred and three vacancies to fill—more than twice as many as Obama had in 2009.

Source: Mosaic

Dec 4, 2017

The Many Lives of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

by Walter Laqueur

Born obscurely in turbulent times, the notorious text describing a Jewish conspiracy to enslave humanity lives on even today. Why?

Source: New Statesman

Dec 4, 2017

The chairman of everything: why Chinese president Xi Jinping will change history

by Graham Allison

One of the world’s leading foreign policy experts explores the rise of an all-powerful leader.

Source: adamwestbrook.co.uk

Dec 4, 2017

Video of the Week: The Unluckiest Person in History

by Adam Westbrook

Is it perhaps the person who was in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped and then went to Nagasaki and was there when it, too, was bombed?

Source: NY Review of Books

Dec 4, 2017

Big Rocket Man

by Garry Wills

Even a soldier in the field must disobey a truly disastrous order from a manifestly disabled officer. The commander in chief has to be held to the same standard as his subordinate commanders, for the preservation of the people.

Source: NYT

Dec 1, 2017

The Treasures of Chaco Canyon Are Threatened by Drilling

by Richard Moe

Oil and gas drilling nearby could damage these fragile sites.

Source: The Atlantic

Dec 1, 2017

Video of the Week: The Painful History of a Confederate Monument Tells Itself

by Emily Buder

The history of a single monument is writ large in Pettengill's new short film, Graven Image, produced by Field of Vision.

Source: Huffington Post

Dec 1, 2017

The Last Time We Fought A Preemptive War In The Middle East

by Jane Dailey

A history lesson for the Trump administration.

Source: The Lee Family Digital Archive

Dec 1, 2017

What Historians Keep Getting Wrong about Robert E. Lee

by Colin Woodward

To start with, he wasn't an aristocrat.

Source: NYT

Dec 1, 2017

Did America Commit War Crimes in Vietnam?

by Cody J. Foster

Bertrand Russell helped start a movement to hold governments responsible when they violate human rights.

Source: The Washington Post

Nov 30, 2017

Why abortion — not sexual misconduct — is likely to decide the Alabama Senate race

by Stacie Taranto

Roy Moore is trying to save himself with a tried and true conservative move: resorting to the politics of abortion.

Source: The Conversation

Nov 30, 2017

Atomic age began 75 years ago with the first controlled nuclear chain reaction

by Artemis Spyrou and Wolfgang Mittig

A uranium nucleus could split in half releasing huge amounts of energy. This finding at the dawn of World War II was the start of a scientific and military race to understand and use this new atomic source of power.