Roundup: Talking About History

Michael Lind: All sides blame McNamara for Vietnam

Robert McNamara has died. Notwithstanding his previous career at Ford in the 1950s and his later career as president of the World Bank, Robert Strange McNamara will always be remembered for his service as secretary of defense for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations during the height of the Second Indochina War, known in the U.S. as "the Vietnam War." In death, as in life, he is likely to prove to be a Rorschach test for what people think about that conflict and the four-decade Col

Ben Stein: Wal-Mart in the Wilderness

So, here I am at the Ponderay, Idaho Super Wal-Mart. It is beautiful. They've totally redesigned it to be far more wide open, with immense aisles, immaculately clean surfaces, and somehow still a fabulously good selection of items. Anyone who follows me even a little bit knows I am an extreme fan of Wal-Mart, which basically adds several percentage points of extra income to every worker's pay check by offering such low prices as it does. Plus, the Wal-Mart is a friendly, upbeat shop

Erin L. Murphy: Women's Anti-Imperialism, 'The White Man's Burden,' and the Philippine-American War

[Erin L. Murphy, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the author of the "'Prelude to Imperialism': Whiteness and Chinese Exclusion in the Reimagining of the United States." Journal of Historical Sociology (2005), 18:457-490, and "Women's Anti-Imperialism, 'The White Man's Burden,' and the Philippine-American War: Theorizing Masculinist Ambivalence in Protest." Gender & Society (2009), 23:244-270. She can be contacted at

Pejman Yousefzadeh: Our "Inordinate Fears" of Communism

[Pejman Yousefzadeh is an attorney in Chicago and a Senior Editor of The New Ledger. (Courtesy, The New Ledger).] Nearly twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end–or at least, the beginning of the end–of the Cold War, it seems that some people are still having trouble processing the lessons of the epic struggle. Not surprisingly, perhaps, one of those people, Andrew O’Hehir, writes for Salon. O’Hehir reviews Archie Brown’s The Rise and Fall of Communism, and draws con

NYT Editorial: Pardon boxer Jack Johnson

It was on the Fourth of July 99 years ago that Jack Johnson, the proud and gritty African-American boxing champion, outraged the world of bigotry by retaining his heavyweight crown against the “Great White Hope,” Jim Jeffries. Riots ensued across the country as racists took to the streets, while black ghettos celebrated the triumph of their own flamboyant champion, the son of former slaves. This landmark moment in the struggle up from slavery still has not been set right in history.

Sarah Vowell: I stand up to defend Rhode Island's name

LAST month, Rhode Island’s Legislature approved a proposal to allow a ballot referendum in 2010 to change the state’s official name from “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” to simply “State of Rhode Island.” According to The Providence Journal, “Proponents of the name change say the word ‘plantations’ is offensive to the African-American community because it conjures up images of slavery.” On the one hand, as a person who spends a minimum of 20 minutes a week furious

John Gilbert McCurdy: Bachelors at the time of the American Revolution

[John Gilbert McCurdy, an assistant professor of history at Eastern Michigan University, is the author of “Citizen Bachelors: Manhood and the Creation of the United States.”] BY July 4, 1776, Elbridge Gerry had tired of independence. A delegate at the Second Continental Congress, Gerry had worked for months to secure his country’s freedom. But in the oppressive heat of a Philadelphia summer, Gerry’s mind turned to the woman he had left behind in Massachusetts. While America’s freedo

Peggy Noonan: In appreciation of our country's founders

Monday, July 1, was heavy and hot, and a full-scale summer storm passed through the city late in the morning. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose to speak. He knew he was endangering the respect in which he was broadly held, his "popularity," but he once again counseled caution: Slow down, separation from Britain is "premature," to declare independence now would be "to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper." When he sat down, "all was silent except for the r

Carl M. Cannon: Frederick Douglass' July 4 Challenge Answered by Obama's Election

[Carl M. Cannon is the senior Washington correspondent for PoliticsDaily.com.] Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on the National Mall, memorably described the Declaration of Independence as a "promissory note" that had guaranteed freedom to Americans of every color. Redeeming that note required a bloody Civil War. Redeeming it fully required a Second American Revolution -- the civil rights movement. A century and a ha

Peggy Noonan: The Making of American History

[Peggy Noonan is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the best selling author of seven books on American politics, history and culture.] Monday, July 1, was heavy and hot, and a full-scale summer storm passed through the city late in the morning. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose to speak. He knew he was endangering the respect in which he was broadly held, his "popularity," but he once again counseled caution: Slow down, separation from Britain is "premature

L. Brent Bozell: Oliver Stone, Lousy Historian

Dear Oliver, Many years ago, when Bill Maher’s comedy show was hosted by Comedy Central and he was funny, his formula for success was truly unique. Every week two sets of political and/or cultural opposites were pitted against each other, and he refereed with humor. It was all designed for a good laugh and succeeded because once upon a time Bill Maher was truly funny. Some producer really thought in extremes when they pitted Oliver Stone and Brent Bozell for one episode

Adam Freedman: Independence, British-Style

[Adam Freedman, the host of the Legal Lad podcast at quickanddirtytips.com, is a lawyer.] Tomorrow night, as you watch the fireworks, don’t forget to raise a toast to George III. After all, it was the annual celebration of that king’s birthday on June 4 that gave Americans the habit of summer “illuminations.” After 1776, the ritual was cleverly rebranded to commemorate the republic’s birthday, just one month later. That was just one example of the founders’ uncanny abil

Kathleen DuVal: Life, Liberty and Benign Monarchy?

[DuVal is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina, is the author of “The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent” and a forthcoming book on the American Revolution on the Gulf Coast.] From the perspective of 2009, democracy in the United States is a great success. This makes it is easy to imagine that the march to democracy was the only path — that there is a clear line from the Declaration of Independence to the presidency of

Duncan Currie: Whose Reagan Is It, Anyway?

[Duncan Currie is managing editor of The American. Prior to joining the magazine in September 2007, he spent more than three years writing for The Weekly Standard. He has been a “Publius” fellow at the Claremont Institute and a Phillips Foundation journalism fellow. His essays have been featured in a number of publications, including The National Review. (Courtesy, The Journal of American Enterprise Institute).] Ramesh has a smart piece in the latest NR on the right and wrong lesso

David N. Gibbs: Was Kosovo the Good War?

This article draws from David N. Gibbs's new book, First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Vanderbilt University Press, June 2009), especially from chapter 7. Readers interested in obtaining full source citations can find most of them in the book or request them from the author at dgibbs@arizona.edu. As the 1999 NATO war against Serbia reaches its tenth anniversary, it is being recalled with a measure of n

Mara Lazda: Fascism Past and Present, West and East

Roger Griffin, Werner Loh, Andreas Umland, eds. Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2006. Reviewed by Mara Lazda (Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts) Fascism Past and Present, West and East invites readers to take part in an international debate with thirty-one German- and English-speaking experts on fascism. On the surface, some

David Silbey: The First Rough Draft of History [Boxers, June 30, 1900]

[David Silbey teaches history at a small American university that is, technically, in an extremely eastern part of the American West.] Journalism is famously the “first rough draft of history” an

Bill Kauffman: The 'little red schoolhouse' of legend, whatever its flaws, made more sense than the warehouse-schools of today

[Mr. Kauffman's most recent books are "Ain't My America" (Holt) and "Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin" (ISI). ] Tacked to my wall is a lithograph of the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. For many years, it graced my mother's one-room schoolhouse in Lime Rock, N.Y. Antiquarian relic or enduringly relevant image? The same question may be asked of the "little red schoolhouse" itself, whose reality and legend

David A Andelman: Versailles, 1919-2009: a new world order’s legacy

[David A Andelman is the editor of World Policy Journal and the author of A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today (Wiley, 2007) ] The real roots of many major recent and current political events - the convulsions surrounding Iran's Islamic regime, the bloody troubles in neighbouring Iraq, the ethnic cleansing and mass murders in the Balkans, even numerous wars and uprisings from Palestine to Indochina - lie in a ceremony that occurred ninety years ago. This was

John McMillian: Today's Reverberations From the 60s

[John McMillian teaches in the Harvard College Writing Program. He is writing two books, Tom Paine's Children: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media (forthcoming, Oxford University Press) and Beatles vs. Stones: The History of a Legendary Rivalry (forthcoming, Free Press).] It remains to be seen whether Barack Obama will help the United States finally transcend the divisive culture wars that have beleaguered the country since the 1960s. But by some accounts