Roundup: Talking About History

Richard Dannatt: Bloody Sunday ... We must not dwell on the errors of the past

[Sir Richard Dannatt was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009.] After 12 years of listening to witnesses, exhaustive fact-finding and detailed analysis, it is only proper to conclude that Lord Saville has got as close to the truth about what really happened on January 30, 1972 in Londonderry as it is practically possible to do. The fact that this inquiry has cost more than £190 million is not strictly relevant, but the fact that it has taken nearly 38 years to arrive at the

Nicolas Kinloch: How Do We Record History Education?

[Nicolas Kinloch teaches history at the Netherhall School & Sixth Form College, Cambridge.] There’s much excitement in my school. It used to be split-site, with two buildings separated by a main road and some playing-fields. Now, following a building project that seems to have taken longer than the construction of Versailles, one of the buildings has been abandoned and a vast new block has arisen adjacent to the surviving one. We took possession at the

Freddy Umutanguha: Peter Erlinder Charges in Rwanda: A Genocide Survivor's Perspective

[Freddy Umutanguha is the Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center.] Many people in the United States appear confused as to why a Rwandan court continues to prosecute US lawyer and prominent genocide denier, Peter Erlinder. They say he is 62 years old and unwell, physically and mentally. In their eyes, his views about the 1994 genocide may be extreme and offensive to Rwandans, but surely he is entitled to his opinion. He is a lawyer and an academic, professions that can thriv

William Underhill: Bloody Sunday Redux

[William Underhill is a Special Correspondent at Newsweek.] The folk memory of Northern Ireland is crowded with painful episodes, and Bloody Sunday is among the cruelest. In the space of a few hours in 1972, British paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed Catholic civil-rights protesters on the streets of Londonderry. A sectarian struggle was already underway, pitting Catholic republicans against Protestants loyal to the British crown. A new bitterness had entered a conflict that was to l

Mick Fealty: Bloody Sunday Inquiry: Laying the Ghosts to Rest

[Mick Fealty is a writer, analyst and the founding editor of Slugger O'Toole (www.sluggerotoole.com), one of Northern Ireland's leading political blogs.] David Cameron has just outlined the findings of the Saville inquiry. It was not, as he says, his responsibility to defend the indefensible. It was, he says, the fault of the "poor bloody infantry". Not the officers, not the politicians, not the government.... And we

Peter Robinson: Immigration ... What Would Reagan Do?

[Mr. Robinson, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and an editor of Ricochet.com.] In a television advertisement airing in Arizona, John McCain, running for a fifth term in the Senate, strolls through the desert near Nogales with Paul Babeu, sheriff of Pinal County. Beside the two men rises a section of the border fence that the Department of Homeland Security has been erecting to keep undocumented Mexicans in Me

Christopher Corbett: The Pony Rides Again (and Again)

[Christopher Corbett, a former news editor and reporter, is author most recently of The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West (Atlantic Monthly 2010) and Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express (Broadway Books 2003).] Shortly before last Christmas, a prominent New York auction house put up for bid a collection of 63 postmarked envelopes and stamps that the daring riders of the Pony Express had carried 150 years ago. Experts estimated tha

Ben Macintyre: De Gaulle would have hated the Saville inquiry

[Ben Macintyre is Writer at Large for The Times and contributes a regular column.] Charles de Gaulle would have been baffled and outraged by the Saville inquiry. Not by its findings, but that any country would go to such lengths to explore a painful and complicated chapter from the past. This week a handful of surviving members of the French Resistance will come to London to commemorate the 70th anniversary of de Gaulle’s famous radio address from London, in which he to

Richard Overy: The Battle of Britain 70 Years On

[Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is the author of more than 20 books on the second world war, the history of air power and the European dictatorships. His most recent include The Morbid Age: Britain between the Wars (2009) and 1939: Countdown to War (2009). He is also the author of The Battle of Britain Experience (2010) sponsored by the RAF. In 2010 he was presented with the James Doolittle Award for his contribution to aviation history.] ...Se

Paul Bew: The Bloody Sunday Inquiry ... Was It Worth It?

[Lord Bew is professor of Irish Politics at Queen's University, Belfast, and was a historical adviser to the Saville Inquiry from 1998 to 2001.] After 12 long years, and at a cost approaching £200 million, the Bloody Sunday inquiry into the killing of 14 civilians in Londonderry will tomorrow report its findings in a document 5,000 pages long. The shootings, by the British Army on January 30, 1972, happened during a civil rights march which had been banned: all marches in Northern I

Julian Ryall: Did the U.S. Wage Germ Warfare in Korea?

[Julian Ryall is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph. He lives in Tokyo.] America denies using biological weapons in the Korean War. But North Koreans still claim the US dropped bombs containing disease-carrying insects and food. In the winter of 1952, Yun Chang Bin recalls, the American bombers flying overhead had become a fact of life. The small detachment of Chinese 'volunteers’ stationed in his village, Hwanjin, 40 miles north-east of Pyongyang, was not a w

Seumas Milne: This Attempt to Rehabilitate the British Empire is a Recipe for Conflict

[Seumas Milne is a Guardian columnist and associate editor.] David Cameron's coalition government likes to present itself as consensual, even touchy feely. However threatening its policies, the message is "we're all in this together". But if the latest plans of his close ally Michael Gove were to come to fruition, prepare for an outbreak of culture wars under the new regime: conflicts that would be fought out in classrooms across the country. Last week the new

Brian Phillips: The Secret History of American Soccer

[Brian Phillips blogs about soccer at The Run of Play.] In the 1920s, soccer was big in America. Not big in the way that baseball was big (this was the era of Ruth and Gehrig) or college football was big (these were the days when Ivy League rivalries played out as violent eruptions in the mud), but at its height, the top American soccer league had tens of thousands of fans, featured some of the world's best players, and looked set to challenge the fledgling NFL in the competition to

Thomas Rosica: A Martyr to Solidarity

[Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, chief executive officer of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation and Television Network in Canada, is a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.] For Catholics and Christians, the Eucharist is truly the sacrament of non-violence: The way of Jesus to conquer evil and violence must be the Christian way. This reality was lived out in the life of a young Polish priest, Rev. Jerzy Popieluszko who was beatified as a

J.D. Dolan: Anniversary of a Disaster: Edison's Mohave Generating Station Explosion

[J.D. Dolan, who lives in Michigan, is the author of "Phoenix: A Brother's Life."] On a blue-sky afternoon 25 years ago today, just as the second-shift crew was about to begin work at Southern California Edison's Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., a massive re-heat pipe exploded, unleashing high-pressure, superheated steam into the plant's control room with such force that it knocked down a wall and sealed the exit doors shut. Sixteen people were severely burned

Olivia Judson: The Human Phenome Project, Thanks to Francis Galton

[Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist, writes every Wednesday in the New York Times about the influence of science and biology on modern life. She is a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London.] In 1884, a man called Francis Galton opened the doors of his “Anthropometric Laboratory.” This was “for the use of those who desire to be accurately measured in many ways, either to obtain timely warning of remediable faults in development, or to learn their powers.” The man

Scott Carlson: Happy Birthday, F.H. King, Professor and Pioneer of Sustainable Agriculture

[Scott Carlson is a senior reporter at The Chronicle, covering architecture, sustainability, and energy.] The Writer's Almanac notes that Franklin Hiram King was born on this day in 1848. He was an early advocate of sustainable agriculture and a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he studied soil and soil fertility. Last year I happened to pick up a copy of Farmers of Forty Centuries, which documents King's travels through Japan, China, and Korea

Michael Korda: Ike’s Decision

[Michael Korda, author of With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain (Harper 2009) and Ike: An American Hero, is the former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster.] It has been 65 years since D-Day—the early June day when the United States and its allies launched a massive attack on the shores of Normandy in a bid to liberate western Europe from the Nazis. It’s been long enough for most people who still remember the date to have come to think of its success as natur

Matthew Duss: Inconvenient Alliance ... Israel and South Africa

[Matthew Duss is a research associate with the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and a blogger at CAPAF’s Wonk Room.] To say that Sasha Polakow-Suransky's new book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa comes at a particularly inconvenient time for the Netanyahu government would be an understatement. Israel is resisting calls for an independent investigation of the May 31 flotilla attack -- in which Israeli naval commandos killed nine

Nicholas Griffin: How Soccer Defeated Apartheid

[Nicholas Griffin, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is writing a book on sports and foreign policy.] Imagine an alternate reality of the United States in the 1960s, where the collective experience of the political elite had been formed in all-black baseball leagues. The country is led by President Jackie Robinson, Vice President Satchel Paige, and Secretary of State Willie Mays. Sounds crazy? Replace baseball with soccer, and you've got South Africa, a country that