Historians in the News

Raymond Craib on the History of Adventure Capitalism and Libertarian Exit Schemes

"Silicon Valley tech culture seems convinced that its projects and schemes are new, innovative and sui generis… and they are not."

Black People at Work, Play and Rest are a Picture of American Democracy

Smithsonian NMAAHC curator Aaron Bryant talks about photographs that tell untold stories about American history and life. 

Douglas Brinkley on Presidential Leadership in Crises

Douglas Brinkley joins Morning Joe to discuss presidential leadership in earlier moments of crisis. 

The End of the Terror

by David A. Bell

Colin Jones's book examines the events of one day, but poses big questions about popular will and the legitimacy of the state. 

John Oliver Takes on Critical Race Theory Panic

John Oliver explains what critical race theory is, what it isn’t, and why we can expect to hear more about it in the coming months.

CSULB's Andrew Jenks on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

Andrew Jenks, a history professor at Cal State University Long Beach joined the studio to discuss the current dilemma that has the entire world on edge - Russia's threat to invade Ukraine.

The Lancet: John Snow Myth Hides Public Health's Roots in Slavery and Empire

Historian Jim Downs's "Maladies of Empire" is cited as a source showing that the profession of public health grew out of the concerns of slavery, war and imperialism.

Hardcore Urban Renewal: The Punk Origins Of The City Creative

The authors' study and advocacy for place-based and democratic redevelopment policies is rooted in their experiences in underground punk music scenes in the 1990s. 

"The New Negro" Launched a Renaissance, and Not Just in Harlem

Alain Locke's anthology proposed and modeled a new image of Black life that held room for artistic creation and criticism of art and society. 

When Eartha Kitt Disrupted the Ladies Who Lunch

In 1968, real life imitated "Batman" as the Catwoman actress broke the veneer of politeness at a luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson to denounce the war against Vietnam. But while Catwoman always got away, Kitt's career was destroyed for a decade.

Harvard Law Prof Responds to Critics of His "Comfort Women" Claims, Fails to Squelch Controversy

Two Harvard historians (and several colleagues at other instituitons) say that Mark Ramseyer's defense of his article claiming Korean "comfort women" freely contracted their labor as sex workers serving Japanese soldiers during World War II ignores the substance of their criticism. 

Michael Kazin Asks: What Defines the Democratic Party?

by Sam Rosenfield

Kazin's new history of the Democrats examines broad ideas of economic fairness that resonate with the party's faithful, but also the pattern of lurching compromise and triangulation that frustrates its progressive critics. 

Zora Neale Hurston's Complicated Relationship to Black Race Pride

by Lauren Michele Jackson

A new edited collection of the folklorist, anthropologist and novelist reveals the broad, category-defying intellectual life of a "genius of the South."

Trolling History: Social Media Harassment From Abroad

by Alexandra F. Levy

In authoritarian regimes there are fewer and fewer safeguards for historians whose work challenges nationalistic myths; often harassment has a green light from the state. 

20 Year Of Research Led to the Truth about Mary Seacole, the Scottish-Jamaican Nurse and Rebel

Helen Rappaport's biography of Seacole began with a fortuitously discovered portrait, and pushed past the respectability-driven narrative she presented of her own life. 

Was Forgetting the Holocaust a Pillar of West German Rebuilding?

Harald Jähner's book contents that the West German public's view of the nation's recent past grew darker as the years passed, but in the immediate aftermath of the war, a mood of adventurousness and liberation was widespread – at the cost of avoiding discussions of atrocity.

Docuseries "Everything's Gonna Be All White" Challenges Recurrent Historical Denial

The CRT moral panic is just the latest instance of white America preferring to forget about the significance of race in history. Historian Nell Irvin Painter joins a new series where Americans of color critique the idea of whiteness. 

The "Dead Hand" on the Supreme Court

by Ronald Brownstein

The Supreme Court's conservative majority has been nominated by presidents and confirmed by senators who represent rural, white, Christian conservatives in an increasingly diverse country. Court historian Jeff Shesol says this dynamic has threatened the court's legitimacy in the past. 

Missing from the Conversation on Christian Nationalism? Whiteness

by Peter Laarman

The extreme wing of the Christian right is attracting attention for its rhetoric equating freedom with their own power to determine the course of society. A minister argues that recent works in religious history show that it's a mistake to leave out the significance of white racial identity to that movement. 

Why Following Joe Rogan Seems Easier than Following the Science

by Yair Rosenberg

"But in order for this science to be followed, it has to include the science of how people interact with each other. In other words, there has got to be a science of the virus, and there’s also got to be a science of society."