Historians in the News

NYT interviews Rick Perlstein about his book

"I don’t read many popular histories like the ones I write."

A historian who studies China has discovered an overlooked angle in the debate about the Middle East. Could he have figured out a key reason for Iraq’s failure to defeat ISIS?

by HNN Staff

The overlooked factor in Iraq's failure may have been the absence of an air force. 

American Historical Association backs revision of the AP course in history

The AHA remains confident that the College Board’s Advanced Placement US History Framework will help teachers achieve these goals without introducing partisanship, dictating content, or ignoring important aspects of US history.

Middle East Scholars and Librarians Call for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

"We, the undersigned scholars and librarians working on the Middle East, hold that silence about the latest humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s new military assault on the Gaza Strip – the third and most devastating in six years –constitutes complicity."

Is this the way to teach history? Mark Carnes thinks so.

Called “Reacting to the Past,” the program immerses students -- largely self-directed -- into historical events such as the drafting of the U.S. Constitution or the trial of the Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei.

A prominent historian of science dies and no one takes notice

by Barry Mehler

The first obituary of Daniel E. Gasman, who died in 2012

Cornel West and the Insular World of the Obama-Hating Left

"Tom Frank, an anti-Obama leftist, interviews Cornel West, another anti-Obama leftist, in a conversation so deeply marinated in shared assumptions that, at one point, both interviewer and interviewee agree that nobody disagrees with them."

Martin Kramer says Columbia University professors claim Israelis are the new Nazis

"Based in the claim that Israel now behaves toward the Palestinians as Nazi Germany behaved toward the Jews, it originated in post-World War II Soviet propaganda, and from there spread to the Soviets’ Arab clients.”

A Map To The Roots Of Ferguson's Civic Unrest

Historian Colin Gordon says what we need to understand about Ferguson is that it’s got northern-style segregation.

A pro-Hamas Left emerges among historians, complains Jeffrey Herf

by Jeffrey Herf

In the pursuit of political goals and an anti-Israel message, Historians Against the War has abandoned the standards of its profession and adopted a stance that objectively supports Hamas’s war aims.

Ilan Pappé praised in Iran as a "prominent anti-Zionist Israeli historian and intellectual"

Zionism has reduced Judaism "into a narrow minded ethno-nationalism that depended on the success of a colonialist project."

It's hard to be an optimist today, but Juan Cole is

by Irshad Manji

"For all of the 'liking' and 'sharing,' [Juan] Cole shows [in his new book] that the revolution’s most important triumphs took place in the sphere of physical effort — the “meatspace.”

Georgetown U. Professor Compares Israel to ISIS

Al-Arian quickly deleted the tweet, but it had already been publicized.

It’s not 1939, says Deborah Lipstadt, but Jews have a right to be worried

by Deborah E. Lipstadt

Why Jews are worried.

Denying Historians: China’s Archives Increasingly Off-Bounds

“How’s your archival access been lately?”

Fox to turn Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “No Ordinary Time” into a 10 hour series on FDR and Eleanor

“[The late Alan Pakula] loved this project — this era, the people, the drama – as do I, and I am so glad that it will now be brought to life through his wife Hannah Pakula and this remarkable circle of talented people.”

Pierre Ryckmans, 78, Dies; Exposed Mao’s Hard Line

He challenged the prevailing romantic view of Mao harbored by many Western intellectuals by writing about the cruelties of the Cultural Revolution.

How are historians faring around the world?

by Antoon De Baets

News about the domain where history and human rights intersect, especially about the censorship of history and the persecution of historians, archivists, and archaeologists around the globe.

What Kind of Jobs Do History Majors Land?

by HNN Staff

A survey tool created by LinkedIn shows where they work, what they do, and where they went to school. 

Azerbaijan throws a historian and his wife in jail for activism

The regime of President Ilham Aliyev has imprisoned one of the country’s most outspoken advocates for human rights and her husband.