Roundup: Historians' Take

Victor Davis Hanson: History Down the Danube

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and editor, most recently, of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome.] A German remarked on our Tour 2010 that he found it odd that, given all the graffiti one sees, there is never any defacement on the great stone stage at Nuremberg (patterned by Albert Speer after the Pergamon altar) that is immortalized in so many film clips of Hitler screaming to the

Steve Hochstadt: We Have Met the Environmental Enemy and He is Us

[Steve Hochstadt of Jacksonville is a professor of history at Illinois College. His column appears every Tuesday in the Journal-Courier.] Suddenly everyone’s worried about the environment. The Gulf oil disaster, perhaps the biggest oil spill in history, and still pumping, once again puts the spotlight on how human activity can destroy our earthly home. Watch the news and everybody is angry. Some scream at BP, a repeat offender who puts profits before safety

Andre Gerolymatos: Hamas, Israel and the War for Hearts

[Andre Gerolymatos is professor of history and holds the Hellenic Studies Chair at Simon Fraser University.] The recent crisis involving Israel and Hamas at first glance appears to be part of the endless cycle of violence that has doomed the region to perpetual conflict. It's certainly not conventional warfare, although the Middle East has had its share, but a type of war that is fought mostly in the shadows with only its outcome making it to the light of day. Ordinaril

Geoffrey Wawro: Blockading Palestine: Lessons from Exodus 1947

[Dr. Geoffrey Wawro is the General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History and Director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas. He is the author of Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East (Penguin Press, 2010.)] The IDF's blockade of the Gaza Strip and its interdiction of humanitarian flotillas is ironic in view of recent history. The end of World War II and the liberation of the Nazi death camps left a pool of 500,000 Jewish refu

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway: Quantcast Seeds of Doubt against Climate Science

[Naomi Oreskes is a professor of history and science studies at UC San Diego. Erik M. Conway is a historian of science living in Pasadena. They are the authors of "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming."] If some of the ongoing attacks on the credibility of climate science feel familiar, there's a reason. With their unattributed claims downplaying the severity of the problem and their vague allegat

Daniel Pipes: Islamist Turkey Overreaches

[Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.]As typical Islamist-leftist theater to delegitimize Israel, late May's Turkish-sponsored"Free Gaza" flotilla was tediously repetitious. As an illustration that Israelis don't understand the

Nelson Lichtenstein: Labor’s Role in the Obama Era: A Troublesome and Unreliable Ally?

[Nelson Lichtenstein is MacArthur Foundation Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy. His most recent book is The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business. This article is taken from a talk given at the AFL-CIO Executive Board Meeting on March 1, 2010.] WITH A perilous set of midterm elections on the horizon, it would be understandable if labor and its li

Judith Stein: The Perils of Portugal

[Judith Stein is a professor of history at the City College of New York Graduate Center. She is the author of The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society, Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism, and Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies.] The British economist David Ricardo told the Portuguese in the nineteenth century to sell their wine to England in exchange for cloth. What

Victor Davis Hanson: The Art of Seaborne Humiliation

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and editor, most recently, of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome.] A tiny flotilla of “peace ships” sets out to run an Israeli blockade of the Gaza coast. The Israeli strategy in response is intended to ensure that neither weapons nor terrorists enter the Hamas-held territory, at a time when Hamas is in a virtual war with Israel. Once t

Jonathan Zimmerman: Our Leaders' Privacy Isn't All We Might Lose

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author, most recently, of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).] Here's an old cliché, tired but true: You never know what goes on inside somebody else's marriage. But in the case of Al and Tipper Gore, why would you want to know? That's the real question raised by the Gores' separation, which they announced last week

Harold James: China’s Renminbi Seen as a Major Reserve Currency

[Harold James is professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University and Marie Curie professor of history at the European University Institute, Florence. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalisation Cycle.] Fears about sovereign debt and doubts about the euro rescue package have pushed the question of international reserve currencies to the fore. Until this spring, most observers had assumed that the share of the dollar in inter

Peter A. Coclanis: An Optimist Envisions America at Midcentury

[Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome distinguished professor of history and director of the Global Research Institute at UNC Chapel Hill.] *Joel Kotkin, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 (Penguin, 2010) In his provocative new book the California-based writer Joel Kotkin argues that by midcentury the population of the United States will grow by at least 100 million - to more than 400 million people in all. Although the author readily admits that adjusting to

Julian Zelizer: Why Obama Should Forget "Change You Can Believe In"

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security: From World War II to the War on Terrorism," and of a book on former President Jimmy Carter, to be published next fall by Times Books.] Congressional Democrats have been warning President Obama to tone down his anti-Washington rhetoric. While the president has continued to expound on his campaign

Ilan Pappe: What Drives Israel?

[Ilan Pappe is professor of history at the University of Exeter, and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine and A History Of Modern Palestine. His forthcoming memoir, Out Of The Frame (published this October by Pluto Press), will chart his break with mainstream Israeli scholarship and its consequences.] Probably the most bewildering aspect of the Gaza flotilla affair has been the righteous indignation expressed by t

Moshe Dann: Ehud Barak’s Theater of the Absurd

[The author, a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.] There was no need to endanger Israeli troops. How could Ehud Barak not see the looming disaster? Stopping a large Gaza-bound ship could have been carried out below the waterline, or by an assault on the bridge, using smoke bombs and tear gas to take control. Dropping individual soldiers into a mob of hostile people lacks reason. The confrontation could hav

Roy Schreiber: Should Indiana Reform How It Awards College Degrees?

[Roy Schreiber is a professor of history emeritus. He taught at Indiana University South Bend.] The vast majority of students who come through the public school systems in Indiana are reluctant university students. Just ask them. This is especially true of those who attend the state-funded universities like Indiana and Purdue and all their regional campuses. These fresh-out-of-high-school students are there for a degree, not an education. Most of them come to universiti

Jim Sleeper: From Beit Shemesh, a Cry to American Jews

[Jim Sleeper is a lecturer in political science at Yale University.] I won't even try to improve on the exemplary posts here by MJ Rosenberg and Jo-Ann Mort on the Flotilla mess and the Gaza blockade, but since I'm in Israel right now (for another few days), I do want to recount two experiences and mention a recent "incident" that underscores how urgent it is that U.S. policy and American-Jewish opinion shift substantially. Yesterday I went to a wedding at Bei

Victor Davis Hanson: Our 1979?

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and editor, most recently, of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome.] It has been sort of a topos to evoke the specter of 1979. I’ve done it repeatedly, as have other observers. Aside from the growing stagflation in the U.S. (I remember farming that year at the ending of an inflation-driven boom), that was the year that China invaded Vietnam

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: The Anniversary of Tiananmen Square

[Jeffrey Wasserstrom's China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know was published in April by Oxford University Press.]The Chinese protest surge that ended in bloodshed exactly 21 years ago today near central Beijing's Tiananmen Square continues to exert a powerful hold on Western thinking about China. The very term"Tiananmen" has taken on a powerful and protean life of its own in the realm of political analogy: Last July, for example, commentators wondered whether Tehran

Gary Bruce: Ich bin ein Ost-Berliner?

[Gary Bruce is a history professor at the University of Waterloo. His latest book is The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi.]Gabriela S., whether she intended to or not, has caused many in Germany to rethink their view of racism. The 49 year-old bookkeeper, originally from East Berlin but now resident in western Germany, sued a Stuttgart firm in the amoun