Historians in the News

What Can a Medievalist Teach us about Jacinda Ardern's Resignation and Women in Power?

Eleanor Janega joins Matthew Gabriele and David Perry to discuss the erasure of women in history and the recurrent disbelief about women doing public things today. 

Kidada Williams on The Reconstruction that Wasn't

In the new "I Saw Death Coming," Williams describes a "shadow Confederacy" that refused to cede freedom or dignity to African Americans who often lived far from the reach of a federal government that was unreliably committed to their protection. 

Edward Larson Speaks to the New History Wars

by Jon Meacham

"To me, Larson’s unemotional account of the Republic’s beginnings confirms a tragic truth: that influential white Americans knew — and understood — that slavery was wrong and liberty was precious, but chose not to act according to that knowledge and that understanding."

Parthenon Marbles' Fate Subject to Secret Talks

The British Museum and Greek government officials have acknowledged secret talks over the last two years about the repatriation of marbles taken by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon in the early 1800s. The resolution is not yet known. 

Mary Ziegler: Prepare for Legal Chaos Around Abortion

Roe author Mary Ziegler has chronicled the legal, political and cultural battles around abortion, and says the debate is far from over: "We're at the very beginning of something very confusing."

An Oral History of Riker's Island

An oral history of New York's notorious jail is chaotic and difficult, but could an account of the place be any different and be true? 

You Can't Understand MLK's Politics Without Understanding His Critique of Capitalism

Adam Tooze discusses King's longstanding efforts to link racial discrimination and economic exploitation, as well as the working-class base of the civil rights movement. 

Two Black GI's Deaths Show the Racism in the WWII Military

Allen Leftridge and Frank Glenn were shot and killed by military police for asking a French Red Cross worker for donuts. The aftermath showed the administrative and bureaucratic racism of the military supported and protected individual prejudice in the ranks.

Nobody Likes the Electoral College—What are the Alternatives?

Constitutional Scholar Akhil Reed Amar discusses how to replace the current electoral system with something more democratic and participatory. 

Three Novels Rooted in Forgotten Black Histories

Novels by Kai Thomas, Jamila Minnicks, and Nyani Nkrumah tell stories of Black life at the Canadian end of the Underground Railroad, an all-Black town in 1950s Alabama, and in post-Civil Rights Mississippi. 

Historians of Science: What Exxon Knew About Oil and the Climate, and When

Exxon Mobil's internal documents show that since the late 1970s the company's researchers agreed with academic scientists' predictions of global warming—but continued for decades to pretend that the science was too uncertain to justify constraining the industry. 

What Jill Lepore Got Right—And Wrong—About January 6 Committee

The historian's critique of the committee's report—that it focused too narrowly on Trump and not enough on the far right movement—is undercut by a false equivalency that election denial and conspiratorial thinking are equally prevalent on the left and right of the spectrum. 

Hamline Administrators Won't Let the Academic Freedom Controversy Die

Adminstrators and the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations have defended a personnel decision that academic freedom advocate have called egregious. 

Anastasia Curwood on New Shirley Chisholm Bio

By framing Chisholm as a person with a life history, Curwood elevates knowledge of the New York congresswoman from a "first major party candidate" to a political theorist and visionary. 

Exxon's Scientists Predicted Warming for Decades While Exxon Executives Sowed Doubt

Predictions made by Exxon's own scientists beginning in the 1970s accurately tracked the actual progress of subsequent warming, and those scientists explicitly contradicted dismissals of anthropogenic climate change linked to fossil fuels. 

House GOP Invokes Church Committee, but Echoes Earlier McCarthy

While they claim to be fighting abusive government agencies, promised investigations have uncomfortable parallels to McCarthy and HUAC, warns historian Beverly Gage. 

100 Years Later, Rosewood Descendants Tell Family Stories of Survival

“The violence that destroyed a Black community, destroyed families, it prevented families from passing on their legacy and property to their kids and their grandkids,” said Maxine Jones, a historian at Florida State University who was the lead researcher on the Rosewood reparations case.

Why George Kennan Thought He Failed His Biggest Challenge

by Patrick Iber

After urging the United States to firmly oppose the expansion of Soviet influence as a way of bringing the USSR's internal weaknesses to the forefront, Kennan grew disillusioned at the militarized tack later versions of "containment" took. A new book revisits and challenges canonical studies of the diplomatic thinker. 

The Roman Empress Who Willed Herself to Power Amid Chaos

Galla Placidia was the only member of the imperial family who remained in Rome in 410 AD when the Visigoths approached the city. Her role in what happened next has been misrepresented or ignored by historians for centuries. 

Kruse and Zelizer: History is a Battleground

Is it reasonable for historians to "stick to the facts" and hope the truth will win out when political partisans are cherry-picking the past for justification of radical agendas in the present?