Roundup: Historians' Take

Tanaka Sakai and Gavan McCormack: Japanese Bureaucrats Hide Decision to Move All US Marines out of Okinawa to Guam

[Tanaka Sakai is the creator, researcher, writer and editor of Tanaka News (www.tanakanews.com), a Japanese-language news service on Japan and the world. This is the sequel to an earlier article called “China-Japan Defense Cooperation and the Okinawa-based US Military Base.” Both of the original Japanese texts of December 10 and December 15, 2009 are available at his site. Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at Australian National Universit

Tom Engelhardt: William Astore, grinding down the US Army

Last week, the U.S. Army released its suicide figures for November.  Twelve soldiers on active duty were classified as “potential suicides” for the month, bringing the yearly suicide total to 147, 19 more than for all of 2008, and the

Robert Mackey: Secrets, Iran and a Healthy Skepticism

[Robert Mackey is a historian and retired US Army officer. He specialzes in American Civil War history, history of intelligence, and counter-terrorism.] Today, The Times (UK) posted a story about a "Secret Document [that] Exposes Iran's Nuclear Trigger" that detailed what is supposedly "a final key component" of a nuclear weapon. The article is located at "Secret Document Exposes Iran's Nuclear Trigger." Ok, I'm not a nuclear physicist. I'

Peter Hayes and Michael Hamel-Green: The Path Not Taken, The Way Still Open: Denuclearizing The Korean Peninsula And Northeast Asia

[Peter Hayes is Professor of International Relations, RMIT University, Melbourne; and Director, Nautilus Institute, San Francisco, email phayes@nautilus.org. Michael Hamel-Green is Dean of and Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Education and Human Development, Victoria University, Melbourne, email michael.hamel-green@vu.edu.au] IntroductionThe international community is increasingly aware that cooperative diplomacy is the most productive way to tackle the multiple, interconnect

Joshua Brown: LBJ also promised to get the job done (illustration)

[Joshua Brown doubles as a historian and illustrator. He is the co-director of the New Media Lab and Executive Director of the Center for Media and Learning/American Social History Project (ASHP) at the CUNY Graduate Center. He received his Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University. Since the beginning of the Iraq War he has become well-known for his caustic illustrations. ]

Daniel Pipes: A Call for American Boldness in Iran

In a striking coincidence, two very different expressions of Iranian dissent took place exactly simultaneously on two continents on Saturday, June 20. Between them, the Islamic Republic of Iran faces an unprecedented challenge.

Glenn Melancon: Who would Jesus torture?

[Glenn Melancon, Ph.D. is a Professor of History at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.] My oldest son will enter the US Army in June. In all likelihood he will go overseas with thousands of our brave men and women. If captured by the enemy, do I want him water boarded? Do I want his captors to strip him naked, to throw freezing water on him, to slap his face or to slam him repeatedly against a wall? When I think about torture, I’m reminded of the story told in

Dick Howard: Obama and the World Outside

SOURCE: La Vie des Idees [Dick Howard is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His many books include Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (1971) From Marx to Kant (l985), The Birth of American Political Thought (1989), and The Specter of Democracy (2002).] ... Obama recognizes that there is a “world” outside of the United States and its unilateral will, and distinct from the “global” universe of finance cap

Juan Cole: What's Israel's game plan?

[Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) has just been published. He has appeared widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, e

Yinon Cohen and Neve Gordon: Obama can end the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ... Will he meet the challenge?

[Yinon Cohen is Yerushalmi Professor of Israel and Jewish Studies, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York. Neve Gordon is the chair of the Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and is the author of Israel’s Occupation, University of California Press, 2008. His website is www.israelsoccupation.info .] As Barack Obama enters the oval office he will face a series of daunting cha

Ezra Klein vs. Eric Rauchway: Is the Great Depression Relevant?

Ezra Klein in the American Prospect : Brad DeLong, Tyler Cowen, and Justin Fox all make much of Christina Romer's expertise on the causes of the Great Depression. And, indeed, Romer does seem to be an expert on the Depression. She even wrote the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on the subject. This is a point you frequently hear in Ben Berna

Mark Naison: Race, Presidential Politics, and the US Men's Olympic Basketball Team

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] The other day, I was eating dinner with a friend of mine, one of New York;s top criminal defense attorneys, when he shared a story about the racial attitudes of some of the people he does business with. " Several attorneys I know, highly educated people, were absolutely shocked when I told them I planned to vote for Barack Obama," my friend told me. "They told me they couldn't beli

Mark Naison: Who Are the Real Elitists? Michael Moore, Barack Obama, And The Resurgence of American Liberalism

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] Ever since the late 60's, conservatives in the US have done a brilliant job in portraying liberals as self righteous elitists who are out of touch with hard working Americans who keep the country going and defend it from its enemies . George Wallace pioneered this approach in his two presidential campaigns in 1964 and 1968 . By attacking liberals as "pointy headed intellectu

Mark Naison: Columbia Forty Years After the Strike: A Multiracial Community "Cleansed" of a Working Class Presence

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] Yesterday, I stopped by Columbia University to do an interview with Gabe Pressman of NBC TV News about the 1968 strike and building occupation that had occurred 40 years earlier. Because it was a beautiful day, I came about an hour earlier so I could walk around the Columbia campus, which unlike Fordham, allows anyone, student or not, to stroll through its gates or sit on the wide, manigificent con

Robert S. McElvaine: A Feminist Response to Robin Morgan

[Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters and Professor of History at Millsaps College. His latest book, Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America, will be published by Crown in March.] I have long been proud to call myself a feminist. Robin Morgan is among my heroes. Her justly famous 1970 essay “Goodbye to All That” is a wonderful, powerful statement that I have quoted in my writings and use in classes. At the beginning of February,

Mark Naison: Owning Up to Our Racial Fears ... Thoughts on the Trial and Conviction of John White

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] A former student's appeal to "own up to" the racial baggage we all carry has inspired me to go public with my thoughts about the manslaughter conviction of John White, a black Long Island father who was defending his son from a mob of angry white teenagers who had come to his home shouting racial epithets There are many things about this incident which should give paus

William Marina: Ron Paul is simply misinformed about the Civil War

[Mr. Marina is Prof. Emeritus in History, FL Atlantic U., Research Fellow, the Independent Inst., Oakland, CA, & Exec. Dir., the Marina-Huerta Educ. Foundation.] While I like Ron Paul as my candidate, he is simply wrong on the Civil War. There is no indication the South wanted to end Slavery in the way it had ended in other nations; on the contrary, radical leaders there wanted to expand it into the American West (Bloody Kansas), and to create a Slave Empire in the

Mark Naison: Culture is Politics in the Bronx and Berlin

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] I just came back from another amazing trip to Berlin. I was there, with my wife Liz, to give a speech on Bronx Music and Migration at a Conference on Berlin and New York sponsored by the House of the Cultures of the World, but also was able to spend three additional days touring the city, talking to conference participants, and reconnecting with friends I had made on my last trip. Thanks to

Mark Naison: The Bronx Comes to Germany- My Visit To Hip Hop Berlin

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] My head is spinning after the three days I spent in Berlin. I came to deliver a paper on the Multicultural Roots of Bronx Hip Hop to an international conclave of scholars in Urban Studies, but spent as much time in the immigrant neighborhoods of Berlin as I did at the university and discovered, first hand, how much hip hop has become the chosen vehicle of expression for disaffected and disfranchised you

Ruth Rosen: Berkeley Blues

The young man in change of checking people’s identification cards as you enter the University of California, Berkeley library noticed my faculty card. He stopped me. “Say professor,” he said, “could I ask you a question?” I looked at his serious face. His eyes were deep brown, his skin even darker. His smile was warm and appealing. “Sure,” I answered, knowing that I was early for a two-hour library class to teach my students how to do electronic research. “Do you think