Historians in the News

Weekend summit on slavery held at Monticello

Historian Peter Onuf started off the first panel discussion looking at the country’s founding and key lessons from slavery up through the Civil Rights Movement.

Historians are uncovering the forgotten history of African-Americans in the California Gold Rush

"My favorite response when I give a talk is for somebody to say I hadn't thought of that or I didn't know that."

David Singerman warns the sugar industry has used tactics like Big Tobacco to confuse the public about the dangers of their product

by David Singerman

"If we want to check the power of Big Sugar, we’d be well served to acknowledge the long record — past as well as present — of the industry’s machinations."

Canadian in his 50s decides to get a PhD. Then he wins the award for the best history dissertation.

This unlikely too-good-to-be-true story happened. Meet Douglas Hunter.

3 works are helping us better understand what the world can and can't do about war's devastating toll on cultural artifacts

by Hugh Eakin

One suggestion:  Rely on local preservation experts to stem the attacks and save treasures. It's worked before.

Conservatives complain when a liberal historian at Saddleback College takes down their 9-11 poster

They claim she overstepped her authority as a department chairwoman and professor by taking down the posters, suggesting that if the group had been rallying for a more traditionally liberal cause, she would have left them untouched.

AHA notes criticism of Texas history textbook

The AHA cites a report that the book is “a polemic attempting to masquerade as a textbook.”

Manisha Sinha breaks with modern claims. Says abolitionists were key to the abolition of slavery.

In The Slave’s Cause, she offers nearly 750 impassioned pages for considering abolitionism as a longstanding progressive force in American life.

Corey Robin goes after Yale professor over column on striking grad students

by Corey Robin

At issue: whether unionizing students would lead to strikes.

Standing Rock Sioux Historian: Dakota Access Co. Attack Comes on Anniversary of Whitestone Massacre

On September 3, 1863, the U.S. Army massacred more than 300 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Historian Van Gosse has advice on “Teaching in the Time of Trump"

Until Trump came along, Van Gosse says he couldn’t imagine the US harking back to the dark times we’ve seen before.

Alan Taylor has a new book out on the Revolution.

by Gordon S. Wood

The question raised by Taylor’s book is this: Can a revolution conceived mainly as sordid, racist and divisive be the inspiration for a nation?

AHA: More bad news ... History enrollments are way down

Undergraduate enrollment in all history courses in 2014–15 was 7.6 percent lower than it had been in 2012–13.

Obama says he read 2 history books on vacation

They were: Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad" Yuval Noah Harari’s “Spaiens: A Brief History of Mankind.”

Yet more media interest in the idea floated by professors for a White House history council

by Gillian Tett

It’s now getting the support of the US managing editor of the Financial Times.

Historian Charles Dew takes on the racism of an infamous ancestor, the slavery apologist Thomas R. Dew

The book, “The Making of a Racist,” is part memoir, part history.

More critics are coming out against the proposal of a White House Council of Historical Advisors

by Jesse Walker

"One of the best things about history as a discipline is that it doesn't pretend to be a predictive science—or, indeed, to be any sort of science at all. That isn't a flaw; it's self-awareness."

Harvard’s Drew Faust tells students studying history is an ideal way to learn about leadership

History has also helped her understand that “things could have been otherwise” and that “we have the power to make things otherwise.”

Jean Edwards Smith derides a negative review of his new book about George W. Bush

by Jean Edward Smith

"The errors [the reviewer] claims to have found in the biography exist not in the book but in his review."

Frank Dikötter says China's Economic Reforms Actually Started During the Cultural Revolution

Deng Xiaoping gets the credit, but shouldn’t.