Roundup

A Self-Perpetuating Machine for American Insecurity

by Tom Engelhardt

Welcome to the National Security State of 2015

The Genocidal Unconscious of American Sports’ Naming Practices

by Greg Grandin

The Texas Rangers bear the moniker of America’s most celebrated death squad.

Putin Is Responding to the West's Pressure as We Would Respond

by William Polk

Our interests are best served by the establishment and continuation of healthy, independent and progressive nation states -- both Russia and Ukraine; not two states at daggers drawn.

Turkish Pres. Erdogan cites Hitler in case for Presidential System

by Juan Cole

The Hitler remark is important beyond its political context. It suggests there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

Penn Station: A Place That Once Made Travelers Feel Important

by Michael Beschloss

Completed in 1910, the original Penn Station was intended to symbolize not only its powerful corporate owner but also New York’s status as the most vital city in a nation that was becoming a political and economic superpower.

Religious nationalism finds a footing in the Middle East

by Brian A. Catlos

The breakdown of religious tolerance in today’s Middle East is not a manifestation of some particularly Islamic barbarism. It is a symptom of what we call modernization, and its political framework: nationalism.

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

The Tragedy of the American Military

by James Fallows

" [The] reverent but disengaged attitude toward the military—we love the troops, but we’d rather not think about them—has become so familiar that we assume it is the American norm. But it is not."

How ‘Selma’ Diminishes Dr. King

by Josh Zeitz

MLK was a political genius. Why does the film obscure that?

Where de Blasio Is Right

by Amity Shlaes

How Calvin Coolidge handled a 1919 police strike in Boston holds lessons for New York today.

America’s best New Year’s Eve parties happened in 1865

by Christopher Wilson

New Year’s Day 1865—and those in the two years previous—were among the most poignant and pregnant with new beginnings in American history.

The Year Iraq Ceased to Exist: Will it ever Again?

by Juan Cole

In 2014, Iraq was said to lose 42% of its territory to Daesh (the Arabic acronym for what our press calls ISIS or ISIL).

A family survives the Armenian genocide and its long aftermath

by Raffi Khatchadourian

A century after the Armenian genocide, many details of its origins remain obscure. The pervasive state denial has corrupted access to official archives—with some closed, and others open in limited ways—and forced upon the research the distortions of politics.

Did Drought and Climate Change cause Middle Eastern States to Collapse in 2014?

by Juan Cole

Climate change not only makes agricultural problems worse, it has a direct negative affect. When it is hot, people fight more.

Private Mercenaries and the War on Terror in American Foreign Policy

by Jeremy Kuzmarov

A blueprint for American strategy in the War on Terror was the 1959-1975 secret war in Laos, where the CIA worked with hundreds of civilian contractors

Lincoln at Gettysburg

by Diana Schaub

The most obvious problem in approaching Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is that we know it so well.

The myth that police were targets of widespread violence in the 1970s lives again

by Tony Platt

Contrary to popular perceptions, there are very few documented cases of politically motivated assassinations of state officials in the United States.

The Elusive Chinese Dream

by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

The Communist Party should be more confident than ever. So why is it so anxious?

Are liberal politicians responsible for the violence against the police?

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Let’s stop blaming groups for the behavior of individuals.