Historians in the News

Cadence13 and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian Jon Meacham Partner to Produce Documentary Podcast Series for These Times

On Cadence13-directed and produced five-episode podcast docuseries "Hope, Through History," the New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned historian Jon Meacham explores five pivotal moments of crisis in American history and how they shaped the nation.

A Lively and Enlightening History of the Census

Because censuses helped governors subjugate the governed, most people resented them.

California’s ‘Western States Pact’ with Oregon and Washington Has a Long History

USC history professor William Deverell contextualizes California's unique response to the coronavirus.

Inequality by Design: How Redlining Continues to Shape our Economy

Professor of history Nathan Connolly visited the travelling exhibit "Undesign the Redline."

“Prisons Are Microcosms of the Broader Society”: An Interview with Heather Ann Thompson

"The COVID-19 outbreak is essentially a reaping of what we’ve sown with mass incarceration, from a public health perspective."

Deportation Nation

Historian Adam Goodman discusses his new book entitled, "The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants."

Henry F. Graff, Columbia Historian of Presidents, Dies at 98

An author of 12 books and countless articles and a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review, Professor Henry Graff was best known as a keen observer of the men who occupied the White House — 17 of whom presided during his lifetime.

In Memoriam: William Rorabaugh

William Rorabaugh, known to his colleagues as Bill, was a popular teacher and prolific scholar whose legacy will be felt for many years to come.

The AHA, Historians, and COVID-19

by James Grossman

AHA President James Grossman says that as historians, we work hard to understand people—the people we study and the people we teach, in the classroom and beyond. This perspective will inform the AHA's efforts to help historians affected by this emergency.

How America Has Racialized Medicine During Epidemics

Mab Segrest explores the history of blaming black people for bad health outcomes in her new book, “Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum.”

How the ‘Father of Epidemiology’ Made the Connection Between Disease and Geography

by Deirdre Mask

“The poor were dying in disproportionate numbers not because they suffered from moral failings,” Steven Johnson writes. “They were dying because they were being poisoned.”

Might the Coronavirus Be a Peacemaker?

Historian Tom Engleheart uses his past book "The End of Victory Culture" to propose how politics may function in a post-coronavirus world.

A Review of Mike Davis and Jon Wiener's New Book "Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties"

L.A. has a rich history, and it deserves to be told.

What Street Names Say About Us

A geographer who studies the civil rights movement told Deirdre Mask, “We have attached the name of one of the most famous civil rights leaders of our time to the streets that speak to the very need to continue the civil rights movement.”

What We Can Learn from 1918 Influenza Diaries

Historians including Kevin Levin, Nancy Bristow and Lora Vogt reflect on what people today can do to help historians of the future understand life during the COVID crisis. 

The Republican President Who Vetoed a Great Depression Rescue Package in an Election Year

In 1932, President Hoover was also wary about government spending during an economic crisis.

Reporting on the World Between the Wars

Historian Nancy F. Cott tells the story of the interwar period through the lives of four American foreign correspondents.

How Hitler's World War II Weapons Helped Israel Win Independence

And here is where the other odd twist of fate happened: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin provided the arms.

A Sharp Shock, But Not a Depression: A Historian's View

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the economic effects will be severe but not nearly as long-lasting as the Great Depression,” says David Kennedy, a professor of history at Stanford University. “Both the depth and duration are not likely to look like the Great Depression.”

The Ultimate Stress Test: The American World That Covid-19 Reveals

The coronavirus crisis is putting America's flaws into the spotlight.