Roundup

Why MLK Was in Memphis

by Peter Drier

Most Americans today know that Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was killed 46 years ago -- on April 4, 1968 -- in Memphis, Tennessee. But fewer know why he was there.

Bush: "Why Didn't I Know This?"

by Mark Danner

"What did the third member of the triumvirate, Vice President Cheney—who had known about the conflict for weeks—say at this moment?"

Chris Christie and the "Occupied Territories" Incident

by Daniel Pipes

"I took a helicopter ride from the occupied territories across, … and just felt, personally, how extraordinary that was, to understand the military risk that Israel faces every day."

The Walter Benjamin Brigade

by Walter Laqueur

How an obscure and maddeningly opaque German Jewish intellectual became a thriving academic industry.

Hijacking the American Plane of State

by Tom Engelhardt

Old scripts and empty stories signal a new age.

The Nativist Origins of Philippines Independence

by Rick Baldoz

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which established conditions for the United States to grant the Philippines its independence after nearly five decades of American rule. 

The World Is Much Safer Than 20th-Century Historians Would Have You Believe

by Ali Wyne

We should heed historians' warnings, but we should also appreciate the progress that global security has made in the intervening century.

Why science is better than history

by Tom Chivers

You're probably going to get through about 1,000 books in your 4,000 weeks on earth--and you want to read history?

Japan's shocking embrace of textbook "reforms"

by Koide Reiko

Abe Shinzo's long campaign against textbooks that tell the truth about Japan's history.

What Really Killed William Henry Harrison?

by JANE McHUGH and PHILIP A. MACKOWIAK

A new look at the evidence through the lens of modern epidemiology makes it far more likely that the real killer lurked elsewhere — in a fetid marsh not far from the White House.

These are the 6 books about the Middle East everybody should read

by Martin Kramer

Events have propelled a few books into the limelight, and these six, for better or worse, had an impact, influenced perceptions, and may have changed history.

US History Books that Won in Vietnam

by Wonkette

With typical clarity of purpose, our 8th-grade textbook, America: Land I Love, explains exactly why America had to fight in Vietnam.

What is academic history for?

by Paula A. Michaels

Not only are academic historians clearly far more engaged with the public than they appear at a first, blinkered glance, but there seems to be ample room for and value in a wide range of intellectual activity.

Dignity Is a Constitutional Principle

by Bruce Ackerman

As we search for guidance on the great constitutional issues of our own time, the place to begin is with the words of Humphrey as he explained why Americans could no longer “justify what we have done to debase humanity.”

An Errol Morris film engages Rumsfeld through his memos

by FRED KAPLAN

“The Unknown Known,” which opens on Friday, is structured much like “The Fog of War.” For 96 minutes Mr. Rumsfeld looks into the camera, answering, or finessing, questions about Iraq, his work for several presidents, the nature of truth and more.

War Across the Borders

by Jonathan Spyer

It has become a commonplace to claim that the unrest in the Arab world is challenging the state borders laid down in the Arab world following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.

Paul Ryan Debate Needs Context, Not Self-Help Bromides

by Peniel E. Joseph

Our ongoing dialogue about race in America—most recently sparked by Rep. Paul Ryan’s comments—requires us to better understand African-American history.

Iran-contra prosecutor left a major legacy despite claims he'd been outmaneuvered

Lawrence Walsh's final defeat came at the hands of Reagan's successor in the White House, George H. W. Bush, who granted surprise pardons to six prior and would-be Iran-Contra defendants on Christmas eve 1992.

Auden's secret revealed

by Edward Mendelson

"I learned about it mostly by chance."

Where David Brion Davis fits in the historiography of slavery

by Drew Gilpin Faust

Since the middle of the twentieth century, our understanding of the American past has been revolutionized, in no small part because of our altered conceptions of the place of race in the nation’s history.