Roundup: Historians' Take

Jul 5, 2004

Douglas Brinkley: On American Patriotism

From CNBC's 'Capital Report' (July 2 2004): ANCHORS: ALAN MURRAY BODY: ALAN MURRAY, host: Americans will celebrate their independence this weekend with fireworks and festivities. There's also fear of terrorism and concern about scores of troops still in harm's way in Iraq. Joining me now with some perspective is presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, also a professor at the University of New Orleans. And, Douglas, we saw after September 11th once again what a p

Jul 5, 2004

Historian Harold Holzer and Mario Cuomo on Modern Politics and Abraham Lincoln

From WNBC-TV's 'News Forum" (July 4 2004): ANCHOR: GABE PRESSMAN BODY: GABE PRESSMAN, host: It's the 228th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a day to celebrate the beginning of our nation and the succession of great leaders who've led this country through the generations, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the declaration, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Our guests on this Fourth of July are two Lincoln scholars, former Gove

Jul 4, 2004

Fred Anderson: Why George Washington Remembered July 3rd

Fred Anderson, a professor of history at the University of Colorado, and the co-author of the forthcoming Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000, in the NYT (July 3, 2004): Because the Fourth of July commemorates the birth of our Republic, we might easily imagine that the holiday had a central importance in the lives of the men who made the Revolution. For ma

Jul 2, 2004

Simon Sebag Montefiore: Saddam, Like His Hero Stalin, May Well Be Revered by Some in the Future

Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, in the NYT (July 2, 2004): ...Aristotle said men do not become tyrants"to keep out the cold." They are motivated by forces that are as unfathomable as they are impractical. While we cannot say for sure what forces drove Mr. Hussein to achieve the rank of tyrant, we can say something about the man on whom he modeled himself: Stalin. By looking at how S

Jul 2, 2004

The Response to Sars: Governments Are Following an Old Pattern

Linda Vergnani, in the Australian (June 30, 2004):FOR Australian Alison Bashford, the drastic measures taken to control the recent SARS scare and the frightening imagery of people quarantined away were all too familiar.A senior history lecturer at the University of Sydney, she is at the forefront of research into medical quarantine and border control...."When it comes to infectious diseases, governments still grapple with the question: U

Jul 2, 2004

A July 4th Quiz: Comparing George W's Record with King George III's

Political Scientist Stephen R. Shalom, in Tom Engelhardt's TomDispatch (July 1, 2004): The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature

Jul 1, 2004

Fran Shor: Michael Moore's Movie Also Turns Up the Heat on Democrats

Fran Shor, a teacher at Wayne State University, in an article sent to HNN (July 1, 2004): Michael Moore’s powerful new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, certainly skewers Bush and his mendacious Administration. Starting with a critical retrospective of the hijacking of the 2000 Presidential election, the film reveals Bush’s ineptitude, cronyism, and callousness. It is hard to imagine how anyone, even an erstwhile Bush supporter, could defend the actions and inactions

Jul 1, 2004

Rashid Khalidi: No Good Choices in Iraq

Rashid Khalidi, in a lecture given at UCLA in May that was just published (June 27, 2004): ... I don't think there are any good choices now for the United States in Iraq. The experts were also right to warn about the impossibility of imposing democracy from the barrel of a gun. Power maybe, but not democracy. For the last 12 months Bremer has tried successfully to prevent elections d

Jul 1, 2004

Juan Cole: The New Government in Iraq Is Hobbled from the Start

Juan Cole, in In These Times (June 22, 2004): The so-called transition to sovereignty for Iraq set for June 30 [actually held on June 28] has been trumpeted as a turning point by the Bush administration. It is hard to see, however, what exactly it changes. A symbolic act like a turnover of sovereignty cannot supply security, which is likely to deteriorate further as insurgents attempt to de

Jun 29, 2004

Fouad Ajami: Iraq Has a Chance Now to Prove Itself

Fouad Ajami, in the WSJ (June 29, 2004):   ...In their fashion, Iraqis have come to see their recent history as a passage from the rule of the tyrant to the rule of the foreigner. This has given them an absolution from political responsibility and toil. Dependence was easy, and easy, too, was holding America responsible for everything under the sun. A measure of this abdication on

Jun 29, 2004

Daniel Pipes: Why Israeli Prime Ministers Keep Breaking Their Promises

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (June 29, 2004):Two patterns have shaped Israel's history since 1992 and go far to explain Israel's predicament today. First, every elected prime minister has broken his word on how he would deal with the Arabs. Second, each one of them has adopted a unexpectedly concessionary approach.Here is one example of deception from each of the four prime ministers:Yitzhak Rabin promised the Israeli public immediately after winning o

Jun 29, 2004

Andrew Bacevich: Fighting a War in Name Only

Andrew Bacevich, in the LA Times (June 21, 2004): According to George W. Bush, the global war on terror is the central event of our time, comparable to the great struggles of the last century between those who put their trust in tyrants and those who put their trust in liberty.  As prior generations confronted the challenges of Nazism and Stalinism, so destiny summons the present generation to confront and defeat global terror.  This has become Americas mission to de

Jun 29, 2004

Jim Sleeper: The Roots of What Went Wrong at Abu Ghraib

Jim Sleeper, in the American Prospect (June 25, 2004):... [C]onservatives who claimed Reagan's faith two weeks ago don't understand that faith themselves. In the run-up to the war last year, self-styled"grand strategists" in some universities and think tanks brandished the fifth-century Greek historian Thucydides' work to buttress claims that war in Iraq would be a necess

Jun 28, 2004

Tom Engelhardt: The Bush Administration's Lexicon of Deliberate Misinformation About the Iraqi Insurgency

Tom Engelhardt, on his blog, TomDispatch.com (June 27, 2004): Finally, the week of"transition" has come. The rolling of drums (or is that the boom of mortars?), the handing over of what our President insists is " complete, full sovereignty" to an"Iraqi government," the moment for which this whole war was supposedly fought (once, at least, that every o

Jun 28, 2004

Garry Wills: Abortion Is Not an Issue for the Pope to Decide

Garry Wills, in the NYT (July 27, 2004): Catholic bishops recently met and sought the best way to enforce" church teaching" with Catholic politicians who fail to oppose laws that allow abortion. Some critics of the bishops see this as a violation of the separation of church and state. Both sides are working from misconceptions. Abortion is not a church issue, so what the bishops have to say about it cannot

Jun 24, 2004

Douglas Brinkley and James Taranto: Ranking Presidential Greatness

From CNBC’s ‘Capital Report’ (June 23 2004): GLORIA BORGER, host: And when it comes to book sales, Bill Clinton will soon be number one among American presidents, but when it comes to his years in the Oval Office, where does he rank? James Taranto is editor of The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com and the editor of the new book"Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House." Doug Brinkley contributed to the book. He's a professor at the Uni

Jun 23, 2004

Clinton Biographer: "I'm Absorbed" by His Memoirs

From NBC, the Today Show (June 22 2004): ANN CURRY, anchor: As you may have heard by now, former President Bill Clinton's memoirs,"My Life," went on sale at book stores at midnight last night. And as people lined up to get their hands on a copy, the details Clinton reveals about his life continue to dominate media coverage. Well, David Maraniss is the author of"First In His Class," a Clinton biography. David, good morning. Mr. DAVID MARANISS (Clinton Biographer): G

Jun 22, 2004

Thomas Powers: U.S. Intelligence Problems Rooted in Past

Thomas Powers, in the New York Times (June 22 2004): Recent staff reports from the 9/11 commission, soon to be followed by the results of a Senate investigation into flawed intelligence before the invasion of Iraq, lend powerful new support to conclusions long fermenting in official Washington: American intelligence is broken, and the moment is ripe to do something about it. Prominently at stake in any reorga

Jun 21, 2004

Niall Ferguson: Will the World Experience A 21st-Century Power Vacuum?

Niall Ferguson, in the Wall Street Journal (June 21 2004): We tend to assume that power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. In the history of world politics, it seems, someone is always bidding for hegemony. Today it is the United States; a century ago it was Britain. Before that, it was the French, the Spaniards and so on. The 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke, doyen of the study of statecraft, portrayed modern European history as an incessant struggle for mastery, in whic

Jun 20, 2004

Gould, Dallek, Shenkman et al on Presidential Memoirs

From the Journal News (NY) June 20 2004: People have been anticipating Bill Clinton's memoir ever since he left the White House in 2001. But that's nothing compared to the length of time historians have waited for a truly great presidential autobiography. By consensus,"The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant" was the last. Twenty-one presidents have come and gone since 1885, the year Grant's book wa