Historians in the News

Fareed Zakaria back at CNN/Time, but resigns from Yale

Fareed Zakaria, a well-known international author and TV host, has been reinstated by Time magazine and CNN after being suspended earlier this month following revelations that a column he had written for Time (and parts of which appeared on his CNN blog) were plagarized from a New Yorker article by Harvard historian Jill Lepore.The National Journal and the Chicago Tribune are reporting that Zakaria's CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS will be returning to the air on August 26, and his column in Time will resume September 7.Mr. Zakaria has been under suspension from CNN since the plagarism charge surfaced on August 10. Mr. Zakaria himself has apologized for the column, calling it "a terrible mistake."

Indian historians divided over Kolkata's birthday

KOLKATA: Can a lessee of a mass of land become the founder of a city? Can the date of his landing in Kolkata be suddenly interpreted as the city's birth date?Such questions, and many more, will be asked by a host of historians - who contest the claim that August 24 should be celebrated as the city's birthday - on August 23. But the debate has already started raging among those who are preparing to celebrate the occasion on Friday.The state government and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation celebrated the tercentenary of the city in 1990. But a high court ruling had put an end to the celebration, saying that August 24 cannot be considered the birth date of the city. Though the state-backed agencies stopped commemorating the day, several private organizations followed tradition and stuck to the August 24 date.However, there are some who contest this established notion and feel public awareness should be generated about the misconception. One such organization - Sutanati Boimela Committee - will bring together historians of repute, including Debashish Basu, to contest the claim at an event on August 23....

British historian suggests Da Vinci used his own face in famed painting

British art historian Ross King has presented new evidence which he believes shows that Leonardo da Vinci used his own face for two apostles, Thomas and James, in his famous mural, “The Last Supper,” British Daily Mail has reported.Yet, ironically, art experts still have relatively little idea what Da Vinci himself looked like.Because the Renaissance genius left no self-portraits from his youth, academics have been forced to explore their suspicions that he may have placed his image into one of his own masterpieces.Greek nose with flowing hair and long beard Now one art historian believes he has uncovered new evidence that the great man inserted himself not once, but twice, into his famous mural, “The Last Supper.”King, the author of the international best-seller “Brunelleschi’s Dome,” makes reference to a poem written in the 1490s, when Leonardo was painting “The Last Supper,” by his friend Gasparo Visconti. In it, Visconti makes fun of an unnamed artist for putting his image into his works “however handsome it may be.”...

A Full Fact-Check of Niall Ferguson's Very Bad Argument Against Obama

Celebrity historian Niall Ferguson doesn't like President Obama, and doesn't think you should either. That's perfectly fine. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to disapprove of the president. Here's the big one: 8.3 percent. That's the current unemployment rate, fully three years on from the official end of the Great Recession. But rather than make this straightforward case against the current administration, Ferguson delves into a fantasy world of incorrect and tendentious facts. He simply gets things wrong, again and again and again. (A point my colleague James Fallows makes as well in a must-read). Here's a tour of some of the more factually-challenged sections of Ferguson's piece. "Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak."

Ferguson: Paul Krugman Is Wrong

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, has just been published by Penguin Press.You know you have hit the target when Paul Krugman takes time out from his hiking holiday to accuse you of “multiple errors and misrepresentations” ... but can only come up with one truly feeble objection.In my piece I say: "The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period."

Ezra Klein: Ferguson makes the worst case imaginable against Obama

Ezra Klein writes for the Washington Post.But while the fact that Ferguson is trying to trick his readers about the facts of his case might be a reason to be skeptical of the rest of his piece, it’s not the main reason. After all, Ferguson’s careful misdirection is arguably evidence of a quick and agile mind. He might be cheating to strengthen his argument. But that doesn’t mean his argument is wrong.Rather, the main reason to mistrust Ferguson is that, for years now, his argument has been wrong.Almost since the crisis began, Ferguson has pushed a very specific theory with a very specific prediction: The bond markets, he has said, are going to revolt against American debt. And if that doesn’t happen, inflation is going to run amok.

Fallows: As Harvard alum, I apologize for Ferguson distortions

James Fallows is a blogger for The Atlantic.Yes, I know, you could imagine many sentences that would follow that headline. But here is what I have in mind right now:  A tenured professor of history at my undergraduate alma mater has written a cover story for Daily Beast/Newsweek that is so careless and unconvincing that I wonder how he will presume to sit in judgment of the next set of student papers he has to grade. It's by the irrepressible Niall Ferguson, it is headlined "Obama's Gotta Go," and its case rests on logic of this sort:Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak.Hmmm, what might possibly be the flaw in this comparison? Apart from the fact that Obama did not take office until January 2009 and that private sector jobs have recovered better in his first three-plus years than they did under George W. Bush....

America’s worst historians

Andrew Burnstein and Nancy Isenberg are professors of history at Louisiana State University....Let this be, then, the tale of two highly visible Harvard Ph.D.’s who have been caught red-handed committing plagiarism. Both Fareed Zakaria and Doris Kearns Goodwin were awarded degrees in government from Harvard, 25 years apart. Goodwin, the elder, is a serial plagiarizer who has been welcomed back with open arms by the TV punditocracy. She directly and egregiously lifted quotes from others’ works on multiple occasions – a Pulitzer Prize–winning book contained passages plagiarized from three different writers! – and she quietly paid off one aggrieved author.The full story can be read in University of Georgia historian Peter Hoffer’s book “Past Imperfect” (2004). It’s damning. It’s also revealing of the fact that Goodwin recycles material because it’s easier than coming up with something new. Bear in mind that, as a matter of course, history majors are taught to visit the archive and focus on primary sources. Government majors are not. Still, that is no excuse for what she (or Zakaria) did.

Krugman: "Newsweek" should issue corrections to Niall Ferguson's errors in cover story

Paul Krugman is an economist at Princeton University and an op-ed columnist for the New York Times.There are multiple errors and misrepresentations in Niall Ferguson’s cover story in Newsweek — I guess they don’t do fact-checking — but this is the one that jumped out at me. Ferguson says:The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period.Readers are no doubt meant to interpret this as saying that CBO found that the Act will increase the deficit. But anyone who actually read, or even skimmed, the CBO report (pdf) knows that it found that the ACA would reduce, not increase, the deficit — because the insurance subsidies were fully paid for....

Sydney Historian Rob Henderson shares unseen treasures of the Harbour

THEY are some of Sydney's most precious and historical photographs of early maritime activity on the Harbour. But they were almost never seen - ordered destroyed more than 30 years ago when they were deemed "not worth keeping". Sydney historian Rob Henderson said he remembers seeing the occasional photo float through the office while he was working at P&O - and was keen to see more."When I went to investigate I discovered most of the stuff was being destroyed," he said."These are all photographs that would have been burnt had I not found out what was going on."An avid shipping enthusiast, the now 70-year-old saved the photos and began to build his own private archive....

John Keegan had rare gift, remembers Irish Times

JOHN KEEGAN: SIR JOHN Keegan, who has died aged 78, possessed a rare ability to describe warfare from the standpoint of the frontline soldier. For this he depended in great part on imagination, since poor health prevented him from wearing a uniform.It was only in 1984 that he acquired a close-up view of battle (in the Lebanese civil war), which he described as physically disgusting and very frightening.His third book, The Face of Battle (1976), made his name as a fine writer and is still widely regarded as his best despite more than 20 other works.Keegan was five when the second World War broke out. His father came from an Irish Catholic family and had served in the first World War, but when the second came, he was a schools inspector, taking responsibility for the welfare of hundreds of evacuees. So, in 1939, the family left Clapham, in London, where Keegan was born, for Somerset, southwest England....

Naval Historian Participates in the Celebration for War of 1812 Bicentennial

A naval historian for the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) on Aug. 13 provides unique and inspiring insights into the life of U. S. Navy Sailors during the tumultuous time of the War of 1812.Christine Hughes was helping the Naval Support Activity (NSA) Naples commemorate the War of 1812 Bicentennial. She offered presentations that included “Life in the Sailing Navy” and “1812 Navy Battles,” which chronicled some of the highlights from the War of 1812 Battle of Lake Erie.“I think the War of 1812 is an important event in naval history because our country didn’t have a navy before this time,” said Hughes. “This war was a turning point for our Navy because it helped congress recognize our country’s need for one.”...

David Greenberg: Chris Christie has to watch himself at the convention

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been tapped as the keynote speaker for the Republican convention later this month. It’s a high profile slot that can sometimes make or break a political career. David Greenberg, associate professor of history and journalism and media studies in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, said Christie will have to adapt his rhetoric to fill the role of statesman at the convention. Greenberg studies the American presidency and its reflection in the media and popular culture. He is author of Nixon’s Shadow: the History of an Image, Presidential Doodles and Calvin Coolidge. He is presently working on a book about the history of political spin.Rutgers Today: Gov. Chris Christie has been named as the keynote speaker for the Republican National Convention. Why Christie?

Copyright and the Historian: How CUP v. Becker Affects You

Perspectives Online is featuring an important article on a recent landmark copyright case by Michael Les Benedict, emeritus professor of history at The Ohio State University, and a member of the AHA Task Force on Intellectual Property.This case, Cambridge University Press v. Becker, is one that directly affects how teaching historians go about their work, and should be read by anyone who has ever assigned or plans to assign, a course reading through their library’s e-reserve system.Benedict helpfully places Becker, decided in May 2012, within the context of past decisions on copyright rulings and the even larger debate over the meaning of copyright in the U.S. Constitution. He analyzes not only what this ruling means presently, but also looks at where the debate and the legal struggles will move next. He concludes by recommending that educators and librarians get involved immediately in working toward a solution that meets the needs of all parties involved, rather than wait for a “devastating court loss” to radically transform how they serve their students.

Chinese historian battling prejudice to honor Japanese settlers who perished in war

FANGZHENG COUNTY, China--Amid all the rancor in China over Japan's war responsibility, local historian Guo Xiangsheng comes across as a lone voice in the wilderness.He is campaigning to preserve the memory of thousands of Japanese settlers who died in China after the Imperial Japanese Army abandoned them in the chaotic close of World War II.The seeds of his quest lie in Japan's military occupation of northeastern China. Many Japanese were sent there as farmers to raise productivity after Tokyo established its Manchukuo puppet state in 1932.Later, the settlers were dragooned to defend its northern borders against the Soviet Red Army, which overran the region in August 1945.The settlers were left to fend for themselves after the Japanese army fled....

Blaxploitation birthday should mark rethink, urges historian

A cultural historian at The University of Manchester says we should change our minds about “blaxploitation” films, exactly 40 years after the term was first coined by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.Dr Eithne Quinn says that though films such as Shaft (1971) and Super Fly (1972) did contain sex, violence and racial stereotypes, what is rarely acknowledged is that they had more black workers on screen and behind the camera than almost any previous mainstream film productions in US history.The term blaxploitation first appeared, in the wake of Super Fly’s release, as a Junius Griffin quotation in a Hollywood Reporter story called “NAACP Takes Militant Stand on Black Exploitation Films,” on 10 August 1972. Griffin was head of NAACP at the time.The films, says Dr Quinn, were a major influence on ‘hip hop’ culture, typified by a silver tongued Oakland pimp called Goldie in one of the most popular ever blaxploitation films, The Mack (1973)....

Egyptian authorities ban popular history book on Middle East

The Egyptian Print Censorship Authority has banned the import of A History of the Modern Middle East  by eminent academics William L Cleveland and Martin Bunton, now in its 12th edition.Khaled Fahmy, chair of history at the American University in Cairo (AUC), said that he received an email from the university informing him that the book he had requested for his modern Arab history course had been banned from entering the country. The short email did not give any reasons for the ban.

Christian Right Historian David Barton in Freefall Over ‘Jefferson Lies’

Michelle Goldberg is a senior contributing writer for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World, winner of the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award and the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize. Goldberg’s work has appeared in Glamour, Rolling Stone, The Nation, New York magazine, The Guardian, and The New Republic. Her next book is about the world-traveling adventuress, actress, and yoga evangelist Indra Devi.

Historian champions Hoover, his work

When thinking about the leaders of the United States, historian Timothy Walch regards former president Herbert Hoover as a champion.Walch, who served as the director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum from 1993 to 2011, said Hoover’s determination, persistence and compassion set him apart.“When you think of all that he accomplished, saving the lives of a billion people, stepping up and setting aside a career of wealth, applying the skills he had to those who had the most need, is a wonderful message,” Walch said....

Jill Lepore plagiarized by Fareed Zakaria