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: WSJ
Nov 10, 2012
ALBANY, N.Y. — When Americans gather Sunday at war memorials, battle monuments and military cemeteries to honor the nation's veterans, it may appear to some that such places have existed since the United States was founded 236 years ago.Not so, says the author of a newly published book that details the nation's belated, haphazard approach to establishing formal memorials, monuments and marked burial sites for veterans of its earliest wars.In his book, "Memories of War: Visiting Battlegrounds and Bonefields In The Early American Republic" (Cornell University Press), Thomas Chambers writes that it was well into the 19th century before Americans seriously began considering marking Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields with monuments and memorials, and how in some instances the skeletal remains of the fallen remained unburied for decades....
Source: LA Times
Nov 9, 2012
JERUSALEM — Historian Benny Morris has a knack for enraging Israelis of every political stripe.
Morris' research on the 1948 war for independence challenged long-standing Zionist narratives that said Israel was not responsible for the creation of 750,000 Palestinian refugees. He infuriated right-wing Israelis by documenting secret plans to expel Arabs and accounts of massacres and rapes by Jewish forces....
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Morris, 63, insists he has no regrets.
You've scoffed at the fuss made about your supposed "right-wing conversion," but haven't you changed your views?
My historical views haven't changed at all, and my historical writing remains the same, for good or ill. In fact, my second book on the Palestinian refugee problem, which came out in 2004, has got material that is unpleasant for Israelis to read. But my political views have changed. In the 1990s I was cautiously optimistic that the Palestinians were changing their tune and becoming agreeable to a two-state solution. [The late Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat seemed to signal this with the Oslo process. Before the 1980s, they just talked about destroying Israel....
Source: Harvard Gazette
Nov 8, 2012
Thomas K. McCraw Sr., a renowned and much-honored Harvard Business School (HBS) historian, teacher, and author, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for his book “Prophets of Regulation,” died Nov. 3 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., after a long illness. He was 72.McCraw, who played an important role in making business history more influential and accessible in the broader fields of history and management, retired from the active HBS faculty in 2006. At the time of his death, he was the School’s Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus. He was also the former editor of the Business History Review, a quarterly journal of research published by Harvard Business School.“Tom McCraw was an extraordinarily insightful and influential historian who won acclaim both on this campus and around the globe,” said HBS Dean Nitin Nohria. “His work will influence students and scholars for generations to come. Tom was the personification of the phrase ‘a scholar and a gentleman,’ and he will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him at Harvard Business School as a friend, colleague, or teacher.”...
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Nov 7, 2012
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The former director of the Illinois State Military Museum is headed to New Jersey to help the National Guard in that state clean up and preserve military artifacts damaged by Superstorm Sandy.The Illinois Army National Guard says Lt. Col. Mark Whitlock of Springfield will spend about a week helping the New Jersey National Guard Museum's curator assess restoration needs. The museum has a large collection of New Jersey related Civil War research material....
Source: NYT
Nov 7, 2012
From the first time Barack Obama summoned the country’s leading presidential historians to dinner, they saw that the type of discussion he wanted would be different from their talks with previous Oval Office occupants.There was almost no small talk, for this was no idle exercise. Though Mr. Obama knew many of his predecessors’ stories cold, he was no history buff: he showed little curiosity about their personalities and almost no interest in the founding fathers. His goal, the historians realized, was more strategic. He wanted to apply the lessons of past presidential triumphs and failures to his own urgent project of setting the country on a new path.
Source: Santa Barbara Independent
Nov 7, 2012
Eileen Boris, Hull Professor and chair of feminist studies at UC Santa Barbara, is the recipient of the 2012 Sara A. Whaley Prize for her book, “Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State” (Oxford University Press, 2012).Presented by the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), the Whaley Prize recognizes outstanding work that addresses women and labor. It is named for Sara A. Whaley, who, in the 1970’s, owned Rush Publishing –– one of the first publishing companies to focus on feminist studies –– and served as editor of its scholarly journal, Women’s Studies Abstracts. The award will be presented this week at the NWSA annual conference in Oakland.“On behalf of the UC Santa Barbara community, I congratulate Professor Boris on her receipt of the Sara A. Whaley Prize,” said UCSB Chancellor Henry T. Yang. “This important award is representative of Dr. Boris’s stature in the field of feminist studies, and recognizes her valuable scholarly research on the politics of home health care in America –– a subject that affects millions of people every day.”...
Source: The Press-Enterprise
Nov 7, 2012
Following a national search, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens has named Catherine its Nadine and Robert A. Skotheim Director of Education. Allgor is a professor of history at the UC Riverside.She joins the Huntington staff Feb. 1.Allgor takes the helm from Susan Lafferty, who stepped down from her position in August to pursue a doctoral degree in education.Allgor has been at UCR since 2001 and has established herself as a leading historian of first ladies. She is known for her scholarly work on Dolley Madison, Abigail Adams, and Louisa Adams, among others, and is a frequent commentator on television and in other media on issues having to do with the role of the first lady. Her 2006 book, “A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation,” served as the basis for the film “Dolley Madison,” produced by PBS for its American Experience series....
Source: Fairfax County Times
Nov 7, 2012
Herndon historian, Civil War author and film producer Chuck Mauro is adding the title of playwright to his résumé.Mauro has written a one-act play that will be performed for the first time Saturday at the eighth annual Fairfax County History Conference in Fairfax.The play, “Chantilly . . . After the Storm,” is historically based on Fairfax County’s only major Civil War battle, the Battle of Chantilly — or Ox Hill as it was called by the Confederates — which took place on about 500 acres near Route 50 and Interstate 66 on Sept. 1, 1862. About 1,500 soldiers were killed and wounded during the battle....
Source: NYT
Nov 7, 2012
Thomas K. McCraw, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who used biography to explore thorny issues in economics, died on Saturday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 72.He had been treated for heart and lung problems, his wife, Susan, said.Professor McCraw, who taught from 1976 to 2007 at Harvard Business School, won the Pulitzer for history in 1985 for “Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis and Alfred E. Kahn.” The book focused on those men, of different eras, to illustrate how government regulation of industry affected the American economy from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries....
Source: WaPo
Nov 7, 2012
A concession speech is the last thing any presidential candidate wants to make, the last thing to prepare for, the last thing in a winner-focused society that he or she wants to be remembered by. Mitt Romney ”cleared the bar” with a short speech in Boston early Wednesday but it won’t be one of the most memorable concessions, said historian and political analyst Scott Farris. Farris, author of “Almost President: The Men Who Lost The Race But Changed The Nation,’‘ breaks down a solid concession speech into several elements.“The first part is the concession. Usually, this entails something along the lines of, as John McCain said, ‘the American people of have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.’ Wendell Willkie had a nice turn of phrase when he said, ‘People of America, I accept the results of the election with complete good will.’...Related Links
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nov 6, 2012
Allegheny County Councilwoman Barbara Daly Danko will push for final action Wednesday on an ordinance to rename Pittsburgh's 16th Street Bridge in honor of historian David McCullough.Although located in the city, the span across the Allegheny River is owned by the county.A special review committee, headed by Thomas E. Donatelli, a former county public works director, recommended last month that the bridge be named for Mr. McCullough, a Pittsburgh native who speaks often about his local roots....
Source: WSJ
Nov 6, 2012
Joseph J. Ellis, a history professor at Mount Holyoke College, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of numerous biographies, including “Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation,” “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” and “His Excellency: George Washington.”...What would be George Washington’s thoughts about the 2012 elections?If by some magic we were able to transport George Washington to the twenty-first century, he would think he had landed on another planet. As for the presidential election, he would regard it as an unseemly disgrace, believing as he did – as did most of the other prominent founders – that campaigning for office was akin to an act of prostitution that automatically disqualified the candidate for the office of president....Related LinksHNN Hot Topics: Election 2012
Source: Liz Townsend for the American Historical Association
Nov 6, 2012
As an example of the kinds of public information on placement of history PhDs recently recommended by the AHA’s Professional Division, Liz Townsend, the Association’s coordinator of professional data, prepared the following list of departmental websites that include at least some information on placement. Only three departments report specific statistics; most have only limited lists of jobs obtained by their graduates. If we failed to find other history department web pages that include placement information, please let us know.Specific statistics: University of Chicago; Duke University; University of MinnesotaLimited statistics: University of Georgia; Indiana University; Ohio State University; University of Washington
Source: Jordan Weissmann for The Atlantic
Nov 5, 2012
Jordan Weissmann is an associate editor at The Atlantic. He has written for a number of publications, including The Washington Post and The National Law Journal.Philosophy lovers, prepare to be outraged. Down in Florida, a task force commissioned by Governor Rick Scott is putting the finishing touches on a proposal that would allow the state's public universities to start charging undergraduates different tuition rates depending on their major. Students would get discounts for studying topics thought to be in high demand among Florida employers. Those would likely include science, technology, engineering, and math (aka, the STEM fields), among others. But Art History? Gender Studies? Classics? Sorry, but the fates are cruel. Unless a university could show that local companies were clamoring to hire humanities students, those undergrads would have to pay more for their diploma.
Source: 60 Minutes
Nov 4, 2012
He's won most of the literary prizes worth winning. His voice is familiar to anyone who watches public television. As an historian, he's bridged that yawning gap between popular and academic history.David McCullough is in love with America's history, from its struggling birth to its soaring achievements. In turn, American readers are in love with David McCullough -- more than 10 million copies of his books are in print. All published by Simon and Schuster, a company owned by CBS. In these last hours before Tuesday's election -- in this season of uncertainty -- we thought it might be useful to reflect a little with McCullough, on our history and the people who got us here.
Source: NYT
Nov 4, 2012
Richard N. Current, a Civil War historian whose award-winning scholarship helped demythologize Abraham Lincoln and raise Lincoln studies to a professional level of scholarly inquiry, died on Oct. 26 in Boston. He was 100.The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his wife, Marcia Ewing Current, said.
Source: NYT
Nov 3, 2012
After one of the longest waits in publishing history — more than 20 years — the third and final volume of William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill, “The Last Lion,” is finally about to arrive in bookstores. Manchester, who died in 2004, will not be among those eagerly awaiting its reception. The man with the most at stake is the co-author of record, and in fact the actual author: Paul Reid, who had never written a book before and whose specialty before he met Manchester was features for The Palm Beach Post. The story of how Reid, 63, was plucked from anonymity and thrust into the spotlight is not a simple understudy-replaces-star saga, and it’s safe to say that Reid could not have imagined what a mixed blessing he would experience after accepting Manchester’s invitation to co-write the third volume of Churchill’s biography. Now he has emerged from the project in a kind of literary shell shock, knowing that if the book is a success, most of the praise will go to Manchester, and if it flops, blame will fall on him.
Source: AP
Nov 1, 2012
NEW YORK — Richard Nelson Current, a prolific and award-winning Abraham Lincoln scholar who for decades was a leader in his field and helped shape a more realistic view of the iconic president, has died. He was 100.Current died Oct. 26 in Boston, fellow Lincoln historian Harold Holzer said Thursday. Current’s many books included “The Lincoln Nobody Knows” and “Lincoln the President,” winner of the Bancroft Prize in 1956. He had many other interests, writing about Daniel Webster, the invention of the typewriter and the state of Wisconsin. In his 80s, he and his wife, Marcia Ewing Current, co-wrote a biography of dancer Loie Fuller. In his 90s, he translated essays and stories by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun, teaching himself the language of his ancestors....
Source: San Antonio Express-News
Oct 30, 2012
Former Express-News columnist Cary Clack is communications director for the congressional campaign of Joaquin Castro.More than eight years ago, I went to my mailbox in the newsroom of the San Antonio Express-News, found a letter addressed to me from Jacques Barzun and almost collapsed from the anticipated intellectual beat-down no doubt coming from this historic and iconic writer and thinker. Such was my self-confidence that I assumed I'd written something Barzun had dismantled point by point. To my surprise, it was a note praising me for a column I'd written on education.
Source: Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Oct 30, 2012
Bruce Edward Walker is the former managing editor of MichiganScience, a quarterly Mackinac Center publication that explores science, technology and related policy matters, and currently a free lance writer and editor-at-large for the Center.It hardly came as a surprise last week when Jacques Barzun shuffled off the mortal coil. He was, after all, 104. But his legacy as an anti-statist is grand.Barzun’s death presents a renewed opportunity to discuss his important contribution to cultural history. His magnum opus, “From Dawn to Decadence, 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Cultural Life,” published in 2000, summarizes nearly 75 years of observations culled from in-depth and astute reading as well as rubbing shoulders with some of the best thinkers and artists of the 20th century.By decline, Barzun wasn’t indicting primetime television fare, Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party protests, orStephen King novels. As he wrote in the book’s introduction, decadence:
