Roundup

The Best Classroom is the Struggle: Teaching Imperialism

by Joshua Sooter

Even students who are able to overcome the cognitive dissonance provoked by learning about American imperialism struggle to imagine how knowledge can support work for a more just and democratic world order. 

The Second Destruction of Tulsa's Black Community

by Karlos K. Hill

Photographer Donald Thompson has set out to capture a visual history of Tulsa's Greenwood district, an African American community decimated first by the 1921 race massacre and then by urban renewal in the 1970s. Historian Karlos Hill interviews him about his work. 

Reading History for "Lessons" Misses the Point

by Daniel Immerwahr

"We read past authors as a sanity check. They reassure us that we’re not alone in what we see."

Considering the Full Life of Wilma Mankiller

by Alaina E. Roberts

Wilma Mankiller's career as an activist included a stint as the first female head of the Cherokee Nation, but she must also be remembered for the mass disenrollment of the descendants of Cherokee Freedmen from the tribe's rolls and their exclusion from a share of new income to the tribe. 

Proud Boys Indictment Charges Attempt to Overthrow Government. Does it Matter?

by Heather Cox Richardson

The charge of seditious conspiracy by a paramilitary organization with close ties to the Trumpian Right is incredibly serious, but will it be met with a shrug?

Ongoing US Territorial Possessions Perpetuate Colonialism and Racism

by Anders Bo Rasmussen

While much has changed over a century, the basic question of equal treatment for citizens in American territories has essentially remained the same.

History Suggests Gun Control Will be an Uphill Fight

by Joanna Paxton Federico

The National Rifle Association has succeeded in blocking popular gun control legislation since it overcame strong public support in the 1930s for national handgun registration in FDR's "New Deal for Crime." 

Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback" for the 21st Century

by Tom Engelhardt

Are climate change and collapsing democracy the latest consequences of the machinations of American empire? 

Could the US Win a Modern-Day Battle of Midway?

by Brendan Simms and Steven McGregor

With growing Chinese naval power in the Pacific, two historians consider how well the Navy could respond to a confrontation on the high seas. 

The Roundup Top Ten for June 3, 2022

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

Previous Congressional Hearings Inform What to Expect from the Jan. 6 Committee

by Jennifer Selin

From KKK violence during Reconstruction to Watergate, high profile Congressional investigations have approached controversial issues. Partisanship is likely to be an obstacle to the goals of advancing transparency and public information. 

Why the Voices of the Enslaved's Descendants Matter at Montpelier and Other Historic Sites

by Stephen P. Hanna, Amy Potter and Derek H. Alderman

Descendant communities have put themselves front and center in discussions of how to discuss slavery at public monuments to the nation's founders, which is vital to ensuring that the significance of slavery is not minimized. 

What Alito Got Wrong about the History of Abortion

by Leslie J. Reagan

"The logic that Alito uses in the draft opinion leans heavily on history — history that he gets egregiously wrong."

Destroying the Town is Not Saving It

by William Astore

An imagined graduation speech to the Air Force Academy encourages listeners to refuse to become death dealers. 

Another Tragic Eruption of "Great Replacement" Violence

by Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin

"While the specific targets and methods of spreading this theory may be new, White native-born Americans worrying about being replaced is not. And history demonstrates that the theory has been repeatedly used to legitimize discrimination and deadly violence."

Rescuing Shirley Chisholm's Life from Symbolism

by Anastasia Curwood

Writing a biography of the Congresswoman and presidential candidate required working through the distinction between Shirley Chisholm the symbol and the much more complex reality of Shirley Chisholm the woman, to see how big trends in Black history unfolded at a human scale.

The Asian-Canadian Gay Pioneer Theorist of Sexuality

by Laurie Marhoefer

Li Shiu Tong, the partner of better-known German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, was an important theorist and activist whose once-lost writings anticipated today's politics of gay rights and liberation. 

How History Came to Matter

by Steve Mintz

Academic historians' worthy insistence on cultivating expertise and methodological rigor can't come at the expense of working to alter public understanding of the past now that the stakes of that understanding are so high. 

Doug Mastriano and the White Christian Nationalist Cult of the AR-15

by Thomas Lecaque

The Pennsylvania Republican nominee for governor has connections to a church that merges radical Christian nationalism with the trappings of the militia movement and a fetishism of assault rifles. 

HBO's "We Own This City" and Baltimore's Long History of Police Brutality

by Mary Rizzo

A Baltimore historian notes that the Black community's efforts to fight police brutality are much older than the War on Drugs.