Roundup: Historians' Take

Juan Cole: Conservative Hypocrisy on Race & Sotomayor

The tactic of congressional conservatives, of portraying Sonia Sotomayor as a reverse racist for her 'wise Latina' comment, has so many holes in it that you could make a Swiss cheese sandwich with it.First of all, her statement about the wisdom gained by members of oppressed and discriminated-against groups didn't have anything to do with race. It had to do with belonging to oppressed and discriminated-against groups. The thesis that if you have that background and you overcome it, the

Huw Davies: Will history repeat itself in Afghanistan?

[Dr Huw Davies is a lecturer in Defence Studies, King's College, London based at the UK Defence Academy.] General comparisons of Britain's first three wars in Afghanistan and the current conflict, are difficult and fraught with pitfalls and traps. However, if one compares the specific experiences of soldiers and officers, there is much to learn from Britain's history in Afghanistan. Many know that the British tried three times between 1839 and 1919 to subjugate Afghanis

Abbas Milani: An intellectual history of the Green Wave (Re: Iran)

[Abbas Milani is Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University.] What we are witnessing right now in the streets of Tehran is, first and foremost, a political battle for the future of the Iranian state. But closely linked to this political fight is also an old theological dispute about the nature of Shiism--a dispute that has been roiling Iran for more than a century. Shiism, like most religions, is no stranger to heated schisms. Shia a

Sean Wilentz: Lincoln, Obama and the myths liberals have fallen for

[Sean Wilentz is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and the author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (Norton).] ... The adage that understanding history requires understanding the historian also applies to literary critics trying to write history. Despite their differences in methods and conclusions, much of the new wave of books on Lincoln reflects a common mood among a portion of the liberal intelligentsia, one that cannot be ascribed simply to Lincol

Michael T. Klare: Will Iraq Be a Global Gas Pump?

[Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He is the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Henry Holt). A documentary movie of his previous book,"Blood and Oil," is available at bloodandoilmovie.com.] Has it all come to this? The wars an

Julian Zelizer: Stimulus is too low, too slow

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book, "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," will be published this fall by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.] Vice President Joseph Biden has acknowledged that the $787 billion economic stimulus program has not yet had the impact that the White House was looking for.

Stephen M. Walt: 10 lessons on empire

[Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University.] As I mentioned awhile back, I devoted a good chunk of my vacation out west reading Piers Brendon's The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997. As you might imagine, I spent a lot of time thinking about possible parallels and lessons for America's current global position, just as English imperialists spent a lot of time pondering the Roman experience (ably documented by Edw

Martin E. Marty: Homosexuality and Slavery in the Bible

[Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.] Annually I write the report on "Protestantism" for World Book and other yearbooks. For a dozen or score of years now, the lead story always has to be about churches tearing themselves apart in lose-lose battles over the blessing of gay marriages and ordination of homosexuals, et cetera. One could wish it were oth

Juan Cole: Truth Commission Needed to Examine Cheney, Assassination Squads, Cover-Ups

It turns out that the secret CIA program that Leon Panetta cancelled, and which former VP Richard Bruce Cheney ordered hidden from Congress, was in fact an assassination squad focusing on al-Qaeda figures.The problem with assassination teams is that they are extra-judicial. They are killing people who have not been proven to have done anything wrong. The long litany of mistakes that security

James MacGregor Burns: Judicial supremacy and the rise of the high court

[James MacGregor Burns is professor of government emeritus at Williams College and author of “Packing the Court: The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming Crisis of the Supreme Court.’’] WHEN THE Senate Judiciary Committee begins confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor tomorrow, Americans will have an opportunity to evaluate her qualifications and judicial philosophy. But it may be more illuminating for us to reexamine the powers of the Supreme Court itself - especially its

Peter Winn: Education of Sonia Sotomayor

[Peter Winn was Sotomayor's thesis advisor at Princeton. He now teaches at Tufts.] The first time she walked into my office in Princeton University's Dickinson Hall, Sonia Sotomayor was holding a paper she'd written for my Contemporary Latin America course. It was marked up with my corrections in red ink. Spanish was her first language, and many of her errors reflected its syntax. Where she had written "dictatorship of authority," I had scribbled "authoritarian dicta

Clare Spark: Multiculturalists and Wilsonians can’t diagnose “the new antisemitism”

Professor Bernard Harrison recently delivered a well-received lecture at a recent conference on antisemitism at the U. of Haifa, June 22, 2009. (The link is http://www.edu.haifa.ac.il/~ilangz/antisemitism_conference/. What follows is my critique of two aspects of his general argument: 1. His notion of “prejudice” is not analyzed sufficiently as a term developed by propagandists for the ”progressives” (conservative reformers staving off socialism and com

Stephen Schlesinger: Obama's Internationalism: Echoes of FDR, HST, and JFK

[Stephen Schlesinger is an Adjunct Fellow at the Century Foundation in New York City. He is the former Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University in New York City (1997-2006). Mr. Schlesinger received his BA from Harvard University and his JD from Harvard Law School...For twelve years, he served as Governor Mario Cuomo’s speechwriter and foreign policy advisor. ] President Obama gave a speech last week in Moscow that conjures up memories of our greatest fore

Tom Palaima: The captivation of those who can offer diversion

[Palaima (tpalaima@sbcglobal.net) is a professor of classics at the University of Texas.] The full-saturation media coverage of Michael Jackson between his unexpected death June 25 and his memorial service Tuesday understandably has us wondering about celebrity in our country and our cultural values. There is a long tradition of such issues and an equally long tradition of cultures going gaga over famous performers of all kind

Rick Perlstein: Why the GOP is falling out of love with gun-toting, churchgoing, working-class whites

[Perlstein is the author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.] The conservative opinion elite is divided—irreconcilably so—about Sarah Palin's decision to quit the Alaska governorship. One faction says good riddance: The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer had already judged her unfit for national office 24 hours before her announcement, and The New York Times's Ross Douthat now refers to her "brief sojourn on the national stage" in the pa

Jonathan Zimmerman: Obama’s test in Ghana

[Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, is author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.’’ ] ACCRA, Ghana ‘OBAMA FEVER Grips Ghana.’’ So read a recent front-page headline in a local newspaper, as Ghana prepares to host President Obama this weekend. Wherever you look - from billboards and wall murals to T-shirts and soccer balls - you see Obama’s smiling face. His picture is often paired with a photo of Ghana’s n

Daniel Pipes: Limping away from a Shattered Iraq

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] American forces departed Iraqi cities last week to parades, fireworks, and

Tom Engelhardt: Mourning Michael Jackson, Ignoring the Afghan Dead

[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. He also edited

Mark Naison: Recovery is NOT Around the Corner ... The Challenge Facing Today’s College Graduates

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] I hate to be the bearer of bad news on a 4th of July weekend, but this years college graduates are going to face a really tough job market for at least the next five years The economic free fall that began last October is starting to ease, but that doesn’t mean the economy is going to start growing rapidly, and generating millions of new jobs, any time soon. The banks are sti

Jim Downs: Michael Jackson Vilified By Vanity Fair Writer Maureen Orth

[Jim Downs is an assistant professor of history at Connecticut College, specializing in African American studies and 19th-century U.S. history.] In polite society, children are often told, "If you don't have something nice to say, then don't say anything at all." Yet in the hours following the death of Michael Jackson, a number of media outlets turned to an unlikely source for commentary — Vanity Fair's Maureen Orth, who used the opportunity to vilify Jackson and remind Am