Roundup: Historians' Take

Michael Kazin: The Trouble With Independents

Michael Kazin is a professor of history at Georgetown University and co-editor of Dissent. His next book, American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation, will be published in August (Knopf).

Julian E. Zelizer: Are We Heading for Royal Weddings in U.S.?

Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter," published by Times Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, published by Princeton University Press

Fouad Ajami: The Freedom Movement Comes to Syria

Mr. Ajami is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is co-chair of the Hoover Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.It was inevitable that the caravan of Arab freedom would make its appearance in Syria. It was there, three decades ago, that official terror hatched a monstrous state—and where practically everything Arabs would come to see in their politics in future decades was foreshadowed.

Niall Ferguson: Copper Is King

Niall Ferguson is a Harvard professor and Newsweek columnist.Copperfinger doesn’t have the same ring as Goldfinger. Nor would you be very impressed by a man with a copper gun. Copper isn’t glamorous. Unlike gold, it is not likely to be recommended as an investment by Glenn Beck. Yet, before and after the financial crisis, copper has been one of the world economy’s star performers.

Sander A. Diamond: When the Middle East Dust Settles

Sander A. Diamond is professor of history at Keuka College.The acceleration of the march of history in the Islamic world has presented a challenge. The streets of nearly every ancient city have been filled with countless demonstrators demanding a new direction for their nations and ending decades of repression.

Walter Russell Mead: War In Syria Next?

Walter Russell Mead is professor of foreign affairs and the humanities at Bard College and editor-at-large of The American Interest.The long-brewing crisis in Syria has entered a critical phase and it is changing the rules of the Middle East.  If the people keep marching and the regime keeps shooting, the Obama administration could face its toughest Middle East choices yet.  Will Samantha Power bomb yet another country in the region, or will she try to sleep nights with the blood of thousands of Syrians on her hands?

Richard White: Fast Train to Nowhere

IT is hard for liberals like me to find good news in the latest agreement to cut the federal budget, but there is at least one silver lining: subsidies for high-speed rail have been sharply reduced. Why is this good news?

Mark LeVine: Mirage and Reality in the Arab Spring

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).Reading the chronicle of the violence and death that have blanketed the western Libyan port city of Misurata during the last week, I couldn't help thinking of a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1967 classic, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Peter A. Coclanis: Pride and Prejudice: Contrarian Speculation on Wall Street’s Future

Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Conrad Black: The Long History of Media Bias

Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full. He can be reached at cbletters@gmail.com.

Victor Davis Hanson: The Nature of Arab Unrest

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.

Harold James: Inflationary Angst Grips Central Banks

Harold James is professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University and professor of history at the European University Institute, Florence. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalisation Cycle.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Affirmative Action Isn't for White Guys

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.

Max Boot: It's in America's Interest to Stay in Iraq

[Mr. Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.]  Secretary of Defense Bob Gates was in Iraq early this month urging Iraqi leaders to decide whether they want U.S. forces to stay beyond Dec. 31. "If there is to be a presence, to help with some of the areas where [the Iraqis] still need help," he said, "we're open to that possibility. But they have to ask."

Dirk Vandewalle: Libya’s Divisions

Vandewalle, a professor at Dartmouth College, is author of A History of Modern Libya, published by Cambridge University Press.

Rick Perlstein: Obama's silence on state protests speaks volumes

 

Jon Wiener: Bob Dylan in Beijing: No Sellout

[Jon Wiener teaches US history at UC Irvine. His most recent book is Historians in Trouble.] Bob Dylan did not sell out to the Chinese government when he performed in Beijing on April 6. The “sellout” charge was made in the New York Times on Sunday by Maureen Dowd, along with several other people. The problem: Dylan submitted his set list to the Chinese culture ministry, according to The Guardian’s Martin Wieland in Beijing, and as a result the concert was performed "strictly

Nezar AlSayyad: Cairo’s Roundabout Revolution

[Nezar AlSayyad, a professor of architecture, planning and urban history and the chairman of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of “Cairo: Histories of a City.”] IT has become fashionable to refer to the 18-day Egyptian uprising as the “Facebook revolution,” much to the dismay of the protesters who riveted the world with their bravery in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. But revolutions do not happen in cyberspace, even if they start

Victor Davis Hanson: Yes, Libya Is Not Iraq

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] The Left is terribly embarrassed about the U.S. intervention in Libya. We have preemptively attacked an Arab Muslim nation that posed little threat to the national-security interests of the United States. President Obama did not have majorit

Diane Ravitch: The Education of Lord Bloomberg

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her most recent book is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. (November 2010)