Roundup: Historians' Take

Source: Common-Place.org
Aug 31, 2008

Jeff Pasley: Veeps don't matter

... I would lose my political historian’s license if I did not emphasize just how little vice-presidential picks matter, electorally speaking. Voters vote for president, the top, nation-embodying office, and always have, even back in 1796 when only local electors were actually running. Now, the fact that the Veep might have to assume the main office, we should take seriously. [Something McCain, apparently, does not take seriously.] The Whigs wished they could have had a do-over on

Source: TPM Cafe
Aug 29, 2008

Ruth Rosen: Sarah Palin and Feminists for Life

[Ms. Rosen is a visiting professor of history at Berkeley.] Many people are unfamiliar with Feminists for Life and wonder what the choice of Sarah Palin, who is against abortion rights, signals to the electorate. Well, let me tell you something about Feminists for Life. In 2003, I decided to investigate this group and its energetic leader, Serrin Foster. What did it mean, I wondered, to be a feminist and actively fight against the right to choose when or whether

Source: Japan Focus (This excerpt is from a long article entitled: "Migrants, Subjects, Citizens: Comparative Perspectives on Nationality in the Prewar Japanese Empire." Click here for pictures.
Aug 28, 2008

Tessa Morris-Suzuki: Comparative Perspectives on Nationality in the Prewar Japanese Empire

[Tessa Morris-Suzuki is Professor of Japanese History, Convenor of the Division of Pacific and Asian History in the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, and a Japan Focus associate. Her book Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War has just been published at Rowman & Littlefield.] Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro seems an unlikely champion of a multicultural Japan. His brief term of office is, after all, perhaps best remembered for the f

Source: Special to HNN
Aug 28, 2008

Joshua Spivak: Let's stop hyping the conventions

[Joshua Spivak, a public relations executive and attorney, is a research fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Center for Government Reform at Wagner College.] American voters are bracing themselves for the most overhyped event of the political calendar – the party conventions. These expensive events, paid for partly by public funds, are portrayed as critical points in the electoral process. But, despite an avalanche of coverage, the most important story is missed: While once critical to our

Source: NYT
Aug 28, 2008

Robert Carol: Johnson's Dream, Obama's Speech

[Robert A. Caro, who has won Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, is at work on the fourth and final volume of his Johnson biography.] AS I watch Barack Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention tonight, I will be remembering another speech: the one that made Martin Luther King cry. And I will be thinking: Mr. Obama’s speech — and in a way his whole candidacy — might not have been possible had that other speech not been given. That s

Source: Mary L. Dudziak at Legal History Blog
Aug 27, 2008

Mary L. Dudziak: Fannie Lou Hamer's convention

[Ms. Dudziak is Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science, University of Southern California. Her newest book is Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall’s African Journey (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008).] In spite of various sorts of whiningaccompanying this year’s Democratic National Convention, it is an historic moment in

Source: Huffington Post
Aug 27, 2008

Julian Zelizer: Barack Obama Does Not Have to Be Another Jimmy Carter

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s" (Harvard University Press). He is writing a book on the history of national security politics since World War II and another book about the presidency of Jimmy Carter.] When Barack Obama speaks to the Democratic Convention tomorrow night, many Democrats will be wondering about a q

Source: Poynter Online/Jim Romenesko
Aug 26, 2008

Michael H. Ebner: The Downsizing of the Chicago Tribune--And What It Means

[Michael H. Ebner is the James D. Vail III Professor of American History Emeritus at Lake Forest College in north suburban Chicago. He has published op-ed essays and book reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer. The Chicago Tribune also included him on its all-star Team of college professors.] As I contemplate the downsizing of the Chicago Tribune -- some 80 editional positions eliminated thus far this month -- it brings to mind how my grandfathe

Source: Nation
Aug 26, 2008

Eric Alterman: Blind Punditry (Re: McCain)

In June, I wrote (with George Zornick) in Loving John McCain about the media's maddening blindness towards the extremism and/or crass political expediency of Senator John McCain: On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain's extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remai

Source: Slate
Aug 25, 2008

David Greenberg: Why Biden's plagiarism shouldn't be forgotten

[David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers, has two new books out: Presidential Doodles and Calvin Coolidge.] Teachers and scholars consider the unattributed use of someone else's words and ideas to be a very serious offense, but the public doesn't seem to mind much, at least when it comes to politics. The incidents of plagiarism and fabrication that forced Joe Biden to quit the 1988 presidential race have drawn little comment since his selection as Barack

Source: Truthout.org
Aug 25, 2008

Dean Baker: The Housing Bubble Villains Deny Responsibility

[Mr. Baker, an economist, is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.] The central bankers of the world gathered last weekend for their annual meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This was an opportunity to talk about the major issues confronting the world economy, as well as an opportunity to spend some time in a very beautiful vacation spot. When they met in Jackson Hole in 2005, the meetings were devoted to an Alan Greenspan retrospective, honori

Source: Special to HNN
Aug 25, 2008

Mark Naison: To Win the Presidency, Barack Obama Needs to Take a Page Out of the Book of Harry Truman and James Brown

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] The Obama Presidential campaign is off to a terrible start. The cerebral, thoughtful persona that Obama projects in his campaign advertisements, while it plays well with younger, educated voters, and leaders of foreign nations, has fallen flat with the main constituency Obama needs to win over to become President- working class and middle class Americans battered by stagnant wages, rising

Source: Frontpagemag.com
Aug 25, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] How do Muslims see Barack Hussein Obama? They have three choices: either as he presents himself – someone who has"never been a Muslim" and has"

Source: Washington Times / Frontpagemag.com
Aug 25, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: Blame Everyone But Russia

Everyone is distracted by the Olympics. The squabbling here on the campaign trail consumes the media. Two presidential candidates and a lame-duck president all are weighing in on foreign policy. No wonder Vladimir Putin thought it was a good time to invade Georgia. Apparently the Russian prime minister knew exactly what he was doing but assumed no one in the West did. And he was right. Our pundits and politicians are all over the map as Mr. Putin is variously portrayed

Source: Newsweek
Aug 23, 2008

Sean Wilentz: A Liberal’s Lament

[Mr. Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton and author of The Age of Reagan.] ... [H]ow has the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, proposed to revivify Democratic liberalism? There is a quotation that ought to give Democrats, and not just Democrats, pause:"This year will not be a year of politics as usual. It can be a year of inspiration and hope, and it will be a year of concern, of quiet and sober reassessment of our nation's character and purpose. It has alrea

Source: Britannica Blog
Aug 23, 2008

Joseph Lane: Is McCain going to alter our constitutional government by creating a "Question Time" in Congress?

[Joseph Lane is the Hawthorne Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Emory & Henry.] [Little] attention has been paid to [John] McCain’s reiterations, and expansions, upon his claim that he will provide unprecedented access to both Congress and the media to ask questions of him when/if he is President. Over at least the last thirty years, we have been watching a trend towards less and less unfettered public or congressional access to the Presiden

Source: http://www.historiae.org
Aug 23, 2008

Reidar Visser: Change the Iraqis Can Believe In? Why Obama–Biden Could Mean More of the Same (Or Maybe Something Worse)

[Reidar Visser is research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs with a background in history and comparative politics (University of Bergen) and a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies (University of Oxford). In many ways, Barack Obama’s approach to Iraq is strikingly similar to that of the Bush administration and John McCain. In theory, the addition of Joe Biden to Obama’s ticket could change this, but over the last weeks and months there have been interesting

Source: http://politicalaffairs.net (Marxist Thought Online)
Aug 22, 2008

Norman Markowitz: Ten Truisms of Capitalism From the Mouths of Robber Barons

[Mr. Markowitz is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and Contributing Editor to Political Affairs.] 1. "We are not in business for our health." A statement attributed to J. P. Morgan, when fellow parishioners in New York's Trinity Church criticized him for "investing" Church funds in lucrative East Side slum property. Capitalists have never been in business for anybody's health and today that is most evident for pharmaceutic

Source: Huffington Post
Aug 22, 2008

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: U.S.-China Similarities: An Olympic Perspective

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. He is co-founder and regular contributer to The China Beat: Blogging How the East is Read. His books include China's Brave New World (2007) and the forthcoming Global Shanghai, 1850-2010.] China and America, according to much U.S. Olympic commentary, currently offer a study in contrasts. Not surprisingly, we've been hearing repeated references of late to the stark differences between our young

Source: Nation
Aug 22, 2008

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: What Would Mao Think of the Games?

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. He is co-founder and regular contributer to The China Beat: Blogging How the East is Read. His books include China's Brave New World (2007) and the forthcoming Global Shanghai, 1850-2010.] China specialists make a parlor game of imagining what Mao Tse-Tung would make of the People's Republic of China today, with its capitalist-friendly Communists and young people more familiar with the theme s