Roundup: Talking About History

Michael Vlahos: Has the American narrative authored its own undoing?

[Michael Vlahos is principal professional staff at the National Security Analysis Department of The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.] We are losing our wars in the Muslim world because our vision of history is at odds with reality. This is a well-established condition of successful societies, a condition that inevitably grows more worrisome with time and continuing success. In fact, what empires have most in common is how the

Gary Freeman: The N-Word and Black History Month

[Gary Freeman is currently fighting extradition to the United States from Canada. He can be reached at www.freemandrum.org] Let's not allow the N-word issue to be over-intellectualized into a debate that focuses on the style of language. The focus must be on the style of racist subjugation and hatred, including the pathologies of black inferiority and self-hatred. We need to go back to the relevant beginning regarding the N-word

Meredith Arms Bzdak: We Should Preserve Recent Buildings Before It's Too Late

[Meredith Arms Bzdak is an architectural historian and director of business development for Farewell Mills Gatsch Architects, in Princeton, N.J.] The preservation of buildings from the recent past — broadly defined as the period from around 1945 to 1975 — is a popular subject, even if it is still widely debated in scholarly circles. We've seen the incredible revival of places that emerged in that era, like Palm Springs, Calif., where it seems as if each month a fabulous new hotel or

Gerard DeGroot: The dark side of JFK's moon shot

[SUBHEAD] John Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is often quoted – most recently by?Gordon Brown – as an inspired civic vision. Gerard DeGroot sees the reality somewhat differently. *** The Soviet launch of Sputnik on October 4th, 1957, plunged the American people into black despair. In one dramatic stroke, the Russians had undermined the credibility of the United States as a modern, dynamic nation. Worse still, it seemed that if the Russians c

Nicolai Ouroussoff: History vs. Homogeneity in New Orleans Housing Fight

NEW ORLEANS — In this hard-pressed city a proposal by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish four public housing complexes has touched a raw nerve. The demolition, which would affect more than 4,500 housing units, represents for some the plight of a poor, black underclass displaced by Hurricane Katrina and struggling to return. It also represents the problems that faced the city even before the hurricane: poverty, crime and racial divisions. The bluntnes

Anshel Pfeffer: Suddenly Menahem Begin is beloved by all

As anniversaries go, 15 isn't usually an especially significant number. But for some reason, this year's commemoration of prime minister Menahem Begin's death has generated a lot more interest than in past years. This is, of course, no coincidence. Everyone is talking about "the loss of leadership" so often that it has become a clich . But when the prime minister and the Defense Ministry are receiving single-digit approval ratings and the only serious candidates to replac

Interview with Dore Gold: The Fight for Jerusalem

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dore Gold, Israel ’s U.N. ambassador from 1997 to 1999. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Hatred’s Kingdom and of Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. His new book is The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. FP: Dore Gold, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Gold: I appreciate the opportunity to get into real substance, which has become a trademark of

David Lewis Schaefer: Deconstructing the Lincoln Memorial

[David Lewis Schaefer is professor of political science at Holy Cross College and author of Illiberal Justice: John Rawls vs. the American Political Tradition.] ... Should any such Americans wish to learn more about our country's greatest and most reverence-inspiring monument, the Lincoln Memorial, by looking for information to the National Park Service website, here is what they will find under the heading "Symbol of Democracy": One of the interesting t

Interview: Gold-Medalist Tommie Smith on His Historic Black Power Salute at 1968 Olympics

The raised fists of two African-American Olympic medal winners at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, is one of the most iconic images of our time. Today in honor of black history month, we look back at that moment and the men who made it happen. The 1968 Olympics were among the most controversial Olympics ever held — buffeted by the Vietnam War, the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The U.S. Civil Rights movement was grappling with the aftermath of the a

John Fund: George Washington ... Businessman

Although George Washington was born 275 years ago tomorrow, most Americans think they know a great deal about him. He led American soldiers in winning our independence from Britain. He was the nation's first president. He adorns our dollar bill and a new dollar coin. But how many people know he was also a leading businessman, probably the No. 1 whiskey producer in all of colonial America? Indeed, Washington was a prosperous farmer and entrepreneur throughout his life. "He thoug

Scott McLemee: Sally Hemings ... 10 years later

[Scott McLemee writes Intellectual Affairs each week.] Ten years ago, the University of Virginia Press issued what turned out to be a very well-timed book , Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy by Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of law at New York Law School. In late 1998 came the results of a DNA test showing a match between descendants of Hemings and of Jefferson — corroborating the story (first put in the public record by an anti-Jeffersonian journalist in

Joseph Loconte: British abolition's faith-based roots

JOSEPH LOCONTE is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and host of a London-based television/Internet program, "Britain and America." IN THE FIERCE struggles of the 19th century to abolish slavery, Abraham Lincoln remains the mythic American champion. In Britain, however, that honor belongs to William Wilberforce, the Christian activist and member of Parliament who thundered against the slave trade for 20 years. Friday marks the 200th anniversary of his l

Gerald Posner: Single Bullet, Single Gunman

[Gerald Posner is the author of “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of J.F.K.”] THE ability to use advanced forensics and minuscule traces of DNA to solve crimes, even cold cases decades old, has turned many Americans into armchair sleuths seeking to “solve” the unexpected deaths of people like Princess Diana and Anna Nicole Smith. But sometimes, old-fashioned evidence is as useful in solving puzzles as anything under a nuclear microscope. Last weekend

Paul Kengor: Leftist Publishers Trash Reagan

Readers of FrontPage Magazine are better informed than readers anywhere on subjects like the Left’s control of academia, media, and culture. But what about the Left’s continuing control of the publishing industry?To be sure, the Left’s control of this hugely influential medium has waned with the advent of conservative imprints at several major houses. A new day has dawned, where the Left no longer can simply not publish an entire segment of opinion with which it disag

George Pendle:

[GEORGE PENDLE is the author of "The Remarkable Millard Fillmore," due out in April.] A NATION did not mourn him. History has not restored him. His picture will never adorn an ad for a President's Day sale. When death claimed Millard Fillmore, the unlucky 13th president of the United States, on a bitterly cold March day in 1874, few but his family cared about his passing. Newspapers attempted to eulogize Fillmore, but aside from pursuing the blandest of polit

Jay Tolson: The 10 Worst Presidents

Is George W. Bush's presidency shaping up to be one of the worst in U.S. history? You hear the question being asked more and more these days. And more and more, you hear the same answer. With Iraq a shambles and trust in the administration declining, it is probably not surprising that 54 percent of respondents in a recent USA Today/Gallup survey said that history would judge Bush a below-average or poor president, more than twice the number who gave such a rating to any of the five preceding occ

Daniel Mendelsohn: Anne Frank's Father's letters tell a familiar story

[Daniel Mendelsohn, a professor of humanities at Bard College, is the author of “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million.”] AS soon as I read last week about the discovery of the desperate, faded letters written by Anne Frank’s father, I knew my mother would call. “Did you see the paper?” she asked. Yes, I said, I had. “Did you read the letters?” Yes, I said, I did. “I couldn’t,” she murmured. “It’s too sad. They’re too much like my uncle’s.” Yes, I said, I knew.

Harold Evans: The individual dominates the story of U.S. innovation

[Mr. Evans is the author of "They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators" (Little, Brown, 2004).] Why does the American economy keep confounding the Jeremiahs (and the Dow Jones Industrial Average keep soaring)? It is the appetite for innovation, the extraordinary capital to support risk, and the political framework of freedom for the individual. I recently asked Sergey Brin and Larry Page, through their search engine Google,

Damian Whitworth: What on earth did Antony ever see in her?

A silver coin from 32BC that went on display at Newcastle University on Valentine’s Day bears an unflattering image of Antony and Cleopatra. Contrary to popular belief, he had bulging eyes and a hooked nose, and she, as The Sun so pithily put it, was “a minger”. Cleopatra VII did not look like Elizabeth Taylor. Or rather she did look like Elizabeth Taylor, but as the screen legend is now, rather than as she was when she made eyes at Richard Burton in the 1963 film. I

Rose Russell: Black history not only about slavery and Martin Luther King

Here we are halfway through Black History Month and I'm just now writing about it. I probably should have waited until May, or maybe September, to write about black history. I can imagine people checking their calendars, wondering, "what's up with her writing about black history in the spring or fall and not February?" Maybe then people would begin to understand that they can discuss black history and hold related events any time of year. And also