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: WaPo
Jul 10, 2012
Influential church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch said he believes Christianity faces a bright future, but predicted the Roman Catholic Church will undergo a major schism over its moral and social teaching.“Christianity, the world’s largest religion, is rapidly expanding — by all indications, its future is very bright,” said MacCulloch, 60, professor of church history at Oxford University and an Anglican deacon. His latest book, “Silence in Christian History,” will be published in the fall by Penguin....
Source: Vermont Public Radio
Jul 9, 2012
Host) Writer, educator and commentator Frank Bryan has been thinking about the life and legacy of the late Vermont Historian, Sam Hand. (Bryan) Aldous Huxley wrote "Historians are the original creators of our common humanity" . Others call historians "the guardians of our collective memory" Recently, with the death of Professor Sam Hand, Vermont lost a leading guardian of our memory and humanity. This loss is especially sad for Vermonters because Vermont is one of the few states left in America that is a truly democratic polity - a place where behavior and governance are joined at the human scale. Professor Hand's contributions bespeak the character of the model teacher-scholar. They can be summarized by three brief examples....
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jul 9, 2012
Nearly six decades after Josef Stalin's death, a debate has erupted in Germany on how to evaluate the Russian dictator's regime. It's been triggered by a newly released book by a high-profile Eastern European historian.In his book, Jörg Baberowski delivers plenty of material for debate about the controversial Russian ruler Stalin. But the historian himself is uncompromising in his analysis. The ruler, he argues, was a passionate and ruthless psychopath, a despot who killed according to quotas, sparing no one, who sowed fear, horror and mistrust in his immediate surroundings and subjected an entire society to a culture of destruction and terror.In his evocative book, Baberowski makes a case for this thesis on nearly 600 pages, quoting a wide range of sources. "I have not written a book about the Soviet Union or about Stalinism but rather about excessive force and what it does to people," said the author and professor of Eastern European history at Humboldt University in Berlin in one of his many packed lectures....
Source: HNN Staff
Jul 9, 2012
Harold Holzer, a leading scholar of Abraham Lincoln, is stepping back from some of his responsibilties as Senior Vice President for External Affairs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in order to devote more time to research and writing. He will remain with museum as Senior Vice President for Government Relations and Public Affairs.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jul 8, 2012
Secret testimony from an IRA woman who bombed the Old Bailey can now be handed over to the Police Service of Northern Ireland as part of its investigations into one of the most controversial murders during the Troubles, a US court has ruled.In the ongoing battle between academic freedom and demands for justice from the families of those killed by the IRA in the conflict, a United States appeal court has found that the PSNI can seize tapes from the ex-IRA bomber Dolours Price.The ruling over the weekend has sparked fears among historians and journalists behind the Belfast Project for Boston College that all of their confidential archive of IRA and loyalist paramilitary activists is now vulnerable....
Source: AP
Jul 6, 2012
ROME -- Caravaggio was notorious for his brawling, so it might be fitting that a claim by two Italian art historians that they discovered as many as 100 drawings by the painter in his boyhood has sparked an art world uproar.The researchers say they found dozens of early drawings by Caravaggio in the collection of master Milanese artist Simone Peterzano, the painter's teacher from 1584 to 1588. Many experts have responded with skepticism to the startling claim: Over the centuries, art historians have never definitively attributed any drawings to Caravaggio, who shook up 16th-century art by using models from the lower walks of life for religious scenes and dramatically counterpointing light and dark.On Friday, the curator of the drawings collection at Milan's Sforzesco Castle, where the collection of 1,500 painting generally attributed to Peterzano is kept, challenged the seriousness of the researchers' methods and contended that the pair had never set foot in the room to scrutinize the works....Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/06/2885349/caravaggio-claims-spark-italian.html#storylink=cpy..
Source: NYT
Jul 4, 2012
...Until Friday the network’s Web site — also home to upbeat fare like “Marist Poll Reveals Ignorance of July 4th History” and “Top Five Myths About the Fourth of July” — is accepting nominations at editor@hnn.us for “history books that nobody should take seriously.”On July 9 the top five nominees will be posted on the site, which is hosted by George Mason University. Readers then be asked to vote for “the least credible history book in print.” The winner — or loser? — will be announced on July 16, along with commentary on the finalists from various academic historians, who make up the bulk of the site’s contributors.
Source: Vermont Public Radio
Jul 2, 2012
Funeral services were held on Monday for an academic who helped generations of Vermonters understand their state's history.Samuel Hand was hired as a professor of American history when he was hired at the University of Vermont in 1961.But before long, he became as the "dean of Vermont studies" for his landmark work on 19th and 20th century politics....
Source: NYT
Jul 2, 2012
For a century and a half, Mormonism has been something of a paradox in the history of the American West: passionately argued about by the church’s adherents and detractors, but largely ignored by professional scholars unsure of what to make of the religion Joseph Smith founded in 1830 or the communities created by what Mormon scripture itself described as a “peculiar people.”But now, as Mitt Romney’s candidacy prompts talk of a “Mormon moment,” a growing cadre of young scholars of Mormonism are enjoying their own turn in the sun, and not just on the nation’s op-ed pages. Books relating to Mormon history are appearing in the catalogs of top academic presses, while secular universities are adding courses, graduate fellowships and endowed chairs.“People are seeing right now that Mormonism is a great laboratory for studying all kinds of questions about religion and the modern world,” said Patrick Mason, the chairman of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, which four years ago became the first secular university outside Utah to establish a program on the subject....
Source: Iran Book News Agency
Jul 1, 2012
Boston College Professor of History Prasannan Parthasarathi has won the World History Association Book Prize for his 2011 work, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850 (Cambridge University Press).IBNA: According to news, the WHA, founded in 1982, is the “foremost organization” for the promotion of world history through the encouragement of teaching, research, and publication. Since 1999, the association has awarded a book prize to recognize outstanding contributions to world history.Prasannan Parthasarathi“I am very pleased to be given such recognition by my colleagues,” said Parthasarathi, a Boston College faculty member since 1998. “This book was more than a decade in the making, so an honor like this is particularly satisfying.” ...
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Jul 1, 2012
Adolf Hitler's rambling magnum opus, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle") is considered a blueprint of the radical nationalist, pungently anti-Semitic vision that he would put into practice when the Nazis captured power in Germany, in 1933. It reflects his thinking so accurately that one German historian describes the book as "direct access to Hitler's brain."In fact, the book's contents were considered potent and infectious enough that the postwar administration in Allied-occupied Germany banned its publication, a prohibition that German authorities maintained, and which is to remain in place until the end of 2015, when the copyright expires. What happens then is the object of intense discussion and soul-searching in Germany, where, 67 years after the war's end, freedom of speech is still curtailed when it promotes Nazi ideology....
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jun 29, 2012
Some people think Simon Schama – garlanded academic and presenter of such fabulous series as A History of Britain and Rough Crossings – is full of crap. There have been grumblings that he dumbs down and simplifies his history shows, taking a sweeping view of history designed more for the verbal flourish than historical accuracy.Few people have summarised these criticisms better than the Sunday Times' Adrian Gill who took a swipe at Schama's 2006 series Power of Art: "The point of these authored, visually clotted documentaries is really to be infomercials for instant coffee table tomes". And yes, it is true that even Schama's premium brand of TV history cannot help skating over the deeper complexities of historical truth. But while it's always tempting to point a mocking finger at a man with a plum job as Columbia professor of art history and history, and lucrative TV contracts coming out of his ears, I love him and make a beeline for him every time. I'd go so far as to say he is easily Britain's best arts presenter....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 29, 2012
Ian Kinnaird, 72, has a genetic marker inherited from his mother that traces his ancestry to an African lineage that has not been found before in Western Europe.Researchers from Britain’s DNA, who carried out the tests, said the result meant that in genetic terms he was a “thoroughbred”, and could be described as the “grandson of Eve, or the grandfather of everyone in Britain”....They told him his mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), passed through the female line, was 30,000 years old and only two genetic mutations removed from the first woman, while most men have a genome with around 200 mutations since the earliest humans.Alistair Moffat, the historian and rector of St Andrews University, who was involved in setting up the DNA project, said: “It is an astonishing result and means he could have been in the 'Garden of Eden’....
Source: AHA Today
Jun 28, 2012
In light of the historic importance of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, and with the belief that history can help inform debate on any contemporary topic, [the American Historical Association offers] three commentaries from professors of history on yesterday’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act. Alan Brinkley, Columbia UniversityHaving prepared comments on the demise of the health care bill, I am happily surprised that the Court has sustained it. Over the months of waiting, I had thought that the only conservative justice who might support the bill would be Kennedy. Roberts seemed to be a long shot. In many ways, Chief Justice John Roberts’s vote—so surprising at the time—is much like Justice Owen Roberts’s votes on U.S. v. Butler and West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in 1935 and 1936, which supported the commerce clause in much the same way John Roberts did this week. Perhaps what made the chief justice support the bill might have been that striking it down could not only end the health care law but many other efforts that could be struck down in many other laws—with the possibility of returning to something like Lochner. [Read more…]David T. Beito, University of Alabama
Source: BBC News
Jun 27, 2012
The Queen has shaken hands with the former IRA commander, Martin McGuinness, in one of the most powerful symbols of reconciliation since the start of the peace process in Northern Ireland....Royal historian Charles Mosley said Prince Philip deliberately moved away from Mr McGuinness as he advanced to speak to him. He added that the duke's memories about the death of Lord Mounbatten were still 'bitter'.
Source: Deseret News
Jun 27, 2012
For the second time in its 47-year history, the Mormon History Association is taking its annual conference to Canada — but in Calgary this time, in the western province of Alberta, where the first Mormon settlers to the country founded the town of Cardston 125 years ago."We met in Kingston, Ontario, in 1995," association president Richard L. Jensen noted, "and just crossing that border and getting some Canadian perspective on things, a little bit different from what you get from the Americans, was a really refreshing experience. We hope to take advantage of that again this time with some new views of things in connection with our conference theme."That theme is "Mormonism in Its Expanding Global Context: Invitations to New Interpretation and Understanding." More than 130 scholars and students have been invited to address that theme in papers to be presented in some 50 sessions....
Source: Talk Radio News
Jun 26, 2012
During a discussion on the future of the United States Postal Service held on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Dr. Sheldon Garon, a professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton University, said the USPS might experience greater revenues if additional services are implemented at post offices across America.Garon detailed the long historical trajectory of postal savings by banks worldwide in both developing and developed countries, adding that at one time, the United States had a postal saving system, but that the system was phased out by savings bonds during World War II and the FDIC by 1966.Many other countries, including Germany, France, Switzerland, and Japan, have surviving postal savings banks as well as additional banking and monetary services....
Source: Irish Times
Jun 25, 2012
THIS YEAR is the first of a busy decade or so that will be marked by a number of significant commemorations of a key period in our history.On Saturday, the Royal Hospital Kilmainham was the venue for a packed conference on the topic; the first of many such events planned for the next 10 years.Reflecting on a decade of War and Revolution in Ireland 1912-1923: Historians and Public History was the name of the conference, organised by Universities Ireland. This network of academics from north and south of the Border is supported by The Irish Times. The conference, attended by 320 academics, was opened by Lord Mayor of Dublin Andrew Montague.The first speaker, Prof Diarmaid Ferriter of University College Dublin, said commemorations over the years had been consistently political....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jun 25, 2012
Historian David Starkey provoked a race row yesterday after claiming the Rochdale child exploitation ring who groomed white girls for sex had values 'that were 'entrenched in foothills of the Punjab'.During a public debate he said the gang, who were jailed last month for targeting vulnerable teenage girls, needed to be 'inculcated in the British ways of doing things.'But he was branded a 'racist' and a 'bigot' by journalist Laurie Penny, who attended the panel event at Wellington College in Berkshire....
Source: NYT
Jun 25, 2012
Paula Hays Harper, one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture, and the co-author of a major biography of Camille Pissarro, died on June 3 in Miami. She was 81.The cause was cancer, according to the University of Miami, where she taught from 1983 until her retirement last year.In the early 1970s, Dr. Harper provided the creative spark for a project that became a milestone in women’s art. As a lecturer at the California Institute of the Arts, outside Los Angeles, where the first feminist art program at a major art school had just begun, Dr. Harper suggested that the 21 students in the original class collaborate on a project about what house, home and domesticity meant to women....
