Historians in the News

From Trust in Institutions to Partisan Polarization: The Legacy of Watergate at 50

Garrett M. Graff calls the events set in motion by the 1972 burglary a dividing line in history that changed the political culture forever. 

Intimacy at a Distance: A New Book on Teletherapy Reviewed

by Danielle Carr

Hannah Zeavin's book traces the roots of the contemporary surge in mental health apps and pandemic-driven teletherapy, arguing that psychiatry has always relied on a fantasy of unmediated communion between two separate people that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Northwestern Prof and Evanston HS Teachers Engage Illinois Black History

"High school teachers are experts in their field; specifically they are experts in creating grade-level, adaptable content," says Prof. Kate Masur of her collaboration with Evanston HS teachers Michael Pond, Yosra Yehia and Kamasi Hill.

Exhibition Shows Ongoing Toll of Minneapolis Freeway Building

"We are clearly critics of 35W and the freeway system but I drove on a freeway to get here so I'm not above this history and I think we're all culpable," project co-lead Dr. Greg Donofrio said.

Simon Balto: January 6 Not an Anomaly in American History

"Americans need to understand that what the terrorists at the Capitol did that day wasn’t the anomaly people think it was within the long history of the United States."

Reece Jones on How "Great Replacement" Idea Revived

"Thanks to the great replacement theory, the people that once forcibly colonised much of the rest of the world can cast themselves as oppressed victims."

Monica Muñoz Martinez on the Border, Violence, and Uvalde

Michelle Garcia, journalist, essayist, Soros Equality Fellow and Dobie Paisano writer-in-residence, and Monica Muñoz Martinez, associate professor of history at the University of Texas-Austin, talk about the border security apparatus at Uvalde, and the history of violence and discrimination at the South Texas and Mexican border.

Inventing Solitary Confinement

Kali Nicole Gross, Ashley Rubin, Jen Manion and Paul Takagi offer insight into the historical irony of modern incarceration's roots in Philadelphia, the nominal cradle of American liberty. 

Michael Hines Recovers the Legacy of Black Educator Madeline Morgan

The pioneering educator recognized that Black students needed a curriculum that transmitted knowledge but also countered the prevailing ideology of racial hierarchy. A new biography shows how progress in education is never fully secure. 

Matthew Barton is the Man Behind the Library of Congress's Recorded Sound Division

"Ah, well, that’s it. This is the national parks of culture, of history, of memory."

James Kirchick's "Secret City" Tells the Story of Closeted Washington

by Samuel Clowes Huneke

Samuel Huneke reviews a new history of the capital city's gay residents, which focuses on those in government and conservative politics and the gradual lessening of hostility to gays in public service, a choice that undermines the book's usefulness for understanding contemporary queer liberation issues. 

Judging Jefferson: Ideals or Actions?

by Daniel N. Gullotta

Thomas Kidd's intellectual and spiritual biography of Jefferson engages with the contradictions of the ideals he proclaimed and seeks to engage with the ambiguities of his subject in ways that defy both iconoclasm and hagiography. 

Collin College Prof Fired over Speech Lands at SMU

Michael Phillips will join the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at SMU after his firing from Collin College over social media criticism of Confederate statues and other aspects of racism. 

Two Books on Israeli Nationalism Show a Growing Divide on Zionism in America

by Ari Hoffman

Books by Omri Boehm and Yossi Shain take diametrically opposed positions on the historical and contemporary merits of Zionism as institutionalized in the Israeli state, and signal the growth of a polarization in the American Jewish community. 

The Debate Renews: Show Images Victims of Mass Killings in the Press?

by Jelani Cobb

Mamie Till's decision to place her son's open casket in the national media shone a light on Jim Crow atrocities, but it's unclear that showing the victims of gun massacres – even children – is making any difference. Photos of hundreds of lynching victims only encouraged their killers.

Paul Ginsbourg: London-Born, Florence-Based Historian of Modern Europe

Energized by student protests at Cambridge in 1968, Ginsbourg was drawn to study the European revolutions of 1848 and rise of the modern Italian nation. 

Professor Discusses the use of Asylum Scenes in "Stranger Things"

Troy Rondinone's expertise on cultural portrayals of mental health facilities connects with two key plotlines in the latest season of the Netflix horror series. 

Cambridge Slavery Researcher Quits Citing Pressure to Censor Report

A postdoctoral researcher investigating the involvement of two of Cambridge's colleges in the slave trade reported pressure from senior fellows who objected to focus on the past faults of the institution. 

Ellen Schrecker on the Parallels between Today's Attacks on Universities and the 1960s?

by Marybeth Gasman

Historian Ellen Schrecker's new book examines how the antiwar movement led the right to mobilize against universities, and the costs of that battle. 

The Ideology of the Bicycle

The bicycle since its invention has found itself at the center of debates about who public space is for.