Historians in the News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

Source: Common Dreams

Mar 13, 2017

Hundreds of Arkansas Teachers Request Howard Zinn’s A People’s History

700 teachers asked to receive copies of the book after an Arkansas legislator proposed banning it from schools.

Source: AHA

Mar 13, 2017

Historians' Leading Group Condemns Second Draft of Executive Travel Ban

The American Historical Association says that the new order, like its predecessor, "stands at odds with the values stated in our nation's founding documents."

Source: Tribune News service

Mar 12, 2017

Did a historian from Ecuador find the lost ‘treasure’ of the Incas — in a book?

Her discovery was that the lost treasure didn't consist of gold. It was the body of the Incas' leader.

Source: NYT

Mar 9, 2017

NYT honors Marilyn Young with an obituary

The paper profiles her as a historian who challenged US foreign policy.

Source: NYT

Mar 9, 2017

Harvard’s Drew Gilpin Faust takes to the op ed page of the NYT to defend the NEH from Trump’s knife

"The work of the endowment nurtures our national soul. We must ensure that it continues.”

Source: The Atlantic

Mar 8, 2017

'This Kind of Strike Is Really Something New'

L.A. Kauffman, a historian of radical protest in America, fits the “Day Without a Woman” into history.

Source: Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Mar 8, 2017

French Jewish historian cleared of hate speech charges against Muslims

Bensoussan was acquitted on Tuesday ending a polarizing trial that observers regarded as a significant test case for determining the boundaries of academic freedom amid growing inter-ethnic tensions.

Source: Special to HNN

Mar 8, 2017

Historians sign petition objecting to the inclusion of a nationalist who praised a Nazi collaborator

"We are concerned about the fact that Volodymyr Viatrovych, Director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, will be speaking at the symposium 'The Holocaust in Ukraine. New Perspectives on the Evils of the 20th Century.' ”

Source: Daniel Pipes Blog

Mar 8, 2017

Daniel Pipes warns that Jordan is on the precipice

by Daniel Pipes

"We're in dire straits." So spoke Jordan's King Abdullah a half-year ago. A just-completed week of intensive travels and discussions throughout Jordan finds no one disagreeing with that assessment.

Source: Harvard Gazette

Mar 7, 2017

The killing of Trayvon Martin prompted Harvard historian Caroline Light to investigate the loaded history of self-defense

She says history shows it’s all about the right of a white man to protect himself.

Source: Common Dreams

Mar 7, 2017

Andrew Bacevich, a retired colonel in the army, says Trump exploited Ryan Owens’s widow

by Andrew J. Bacevich

“[The] contrast between the respect shown for the grief-stricken widow and that shown for the grief-stricken father reveals something important about American politics today.”

Source: Slate

Mar 7, 2017

Yale’s Timothy Snyder has a warning for us: Fascism can happen here, too

by Isaac Chotiner

It was his friends in Russia and other despotic countries who thought that Trump could win. To them he seemed like a familiar figure.

Source: Harvard Epicenter

Mar 6, 2017

What's Harvard's David Armitage up to in his new book on civil wars?

Harvard historian and Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate David Armitage, whose new book, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas tracks the evolution of human understanding of civil war over two millennia.