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: Anchorage Daily News
Aug 10, 2010
From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage –
I spoke to Stephen Haycox, author and professor of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage, after the news of Ted Stevens’ death.
“I’d put him pretty much at the top of the people who have helped shape Alaska. He’s right up there with James Wickersham and Sheldon Jackson and Bob Bartlett,” Haycox said....
Haycox called Stevens as big of a presence in defining modern Alaska as anyone.
“Now that presence i
Source: BBC News
Aug 10, 2010
When William the Conqueror wanted to consolidate his power over his new English subjects he created the Domesday Book.
It was a comprehensive list of who owned all property and livestock.
Now Cambridge University historians have digitised the information in an interactive website.
"It's possible for anyone to do in a few seconds what it has taken scholars weeks to achieve," said Dr Stephen Baxter, a co-director of the project....
Source: Nikil Saval at n+1
Aug 9, 2010
[Nikil Saval is an assistant editor at the journal n+1.]
Tony Judt began as an intellectual historian; he will be remembered by many as a bracing critic of Zionism, a vigorous proponent of European-style social democracy, and—tragically—a victim of ALS. I have heard many describe as “moving” his snatches of memoir, published at intervals in the New York Review of Books over the last year of his life. This is true—but what may have been even more moving was the extent to which he dev
Source: Gulf News (Qatar)
Aug 9, 2010
Abu Dhabi: India has three million Arabic documents in its archives, which proves there has been dynamic learning of Arabic in the country for centuries, an eminent Indian historian told an audience in Abu Dhabi.
Professor K.N. Panicker, one of India's foremost historians and vice-chairman of the Higher Education Council of Kerala, said India and the UAE could co-operate with each other to preserve and utilise that historical knowledge.
The professor was speaking in the
Source: AP
Aug 9, 2010
North Carolina's claim that it lost the most men during the Civil War is getting a recount from a state historian who doubts the accuracy of the accepted, 144-year-old estimate.
Howard is reviewing the military records of every Tar Heel who served in the 1861-65 conflict, as the state prepares to mark its sesquicentennial, The News & Record of Greensboro reported Monday.
Since shortly after the war ended, North Carolina has boasted that it sacrificed more men to th
Source: David A. Bell at Dissent
Aug 9, 2010
[David A. Bell teaches history at Princeton University.]
Tony Judt, who passed away this weekend, always struck me as an old-fashioned historian, in the best sense of the phrase.
First, he liked big, ambitious themes. Lots of historians today write textbooks that cover broad geographical areas and time periods, but they generally distinguish these efforts from their “serious” work, while carefully calibrating their sentences to fit the comprehension of ill-educated adol
Source: CNN.com
Aug 9, 2010
...[H]istorians say Americans have long accused their presidents of being illegitimate officeholders for all sorts of dark, and bizarre, reasons....
"Heavens, where do I start?" says David Crockett, an associate professor of political science at Trinity University in Texas....
You can go back to the 19th century, where calling a president illegitimate was a common -- and often nasty -- practice, says Thomas Alan Schwartz, a presidential historian at Vanderbilt
Source: University of Oregon
Aug 9, 2010
Peggy Pascoe was the Beekman Professor of Northwest and Pacific History and Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon. With family and friends at her side, she died from ovarian cancer on July 23, 2010, at home in Eugene, Oregon. She was 55. Peggy is survived by her life-partner of 30 years, Linda Long, and their two daughters, Ellie and Joie Pascoe-Long. She will be profoundly missed by he
Source: Guardian (UK)
Aug 8, 2010
[Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a British journalist and contributor to the Guardian.]
Tony Judt, in Manhattan, in 2008. In the summer of that year he learned he had Lou Gehrig's disease, a variant of motor neurone disease, that left him paralysed. Photograph: Lisa Carpenter
In the 1960s, Cambridge produced a remarkable generation of historians – David Cannadine, Linda Colley and Simon Schama among others – but one name acquired a particular resonance. Well before his death at
Source: Saul Goldberg at the Guardian (UK)
Aug 7, 2010
[Saul Goldberg cycled across the United States for the organisation Move for ALS moveforals.com]
'Everyone needs a Tony Judt in their life." This was how one of his former students responded in 2009 when asked by a high school teacher to describe what Tony Judt was really like. I remember the teacher well. He was himself an intellectually serious man, not just familiar with Tony's work but an avid follower of it: he proudly owned every one of Tony's seven major history books, a
Source: NYT
Aug 7, 2010
Tony Judt, the author of “Postwar,” a monumental history of Europe after World War II, and a public intellectual known for his sharply polemic essays on American foreign policy, the state of Israel and the future of Europe, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 62.
The death was announced in a statement from New York University, where he had taught for many years. The cause was complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which he learned
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
Aug 6, 2010
In July, the National Coalition for History (NCH), and ten other NCH members joined forces with over 20 educational organizations representing other K-12 academic disciplines in issuing a statement to Congress and the Administration calling for the continued robust funding of core academic subjects including history. This includes maintenance of discrete budget lines—such as the Teaching American History gr
Source: NY Post
Aug 6, 2010
Plea negotiations broke down this morning for accused Dead Sea Scrolls cyber-bully Raphael Golb -- who now says he's taking his wacky identity theft and impersonation case to trial.
Golb, 49, is charged with trying to boost his historian father's scholarship on the 2,000 year old scrolls by going online in the name of rival scholars -- notably Dr. Lawrence Schiffman of New York University -- to discredit their work.
Plea negotiations before Manhattan Supreme Court Justi
Source: The National (Abu Dhabi)
Aug 5, 2010
Here’s a question for you: who is the British journalist who has lived in Lebanon for decades, knows the region inside and out, writes weighty and influential tomes about regional politics, takes positions that are controversial in the United States and is not terribly fond of Israel?
Most people would point to Robert Fisk, the hot-headed correspondent for The Independent, who has been lionised (and demonised) for his jeremiads against American and Israeli policy. But Fisk isn’t the
Source: Globe and Mail
Aug 5, 2010
A good historian is expected to be meticulous and balanced. A very good historian is challenging, perceptive, integrative, and nuanced. But a great historian is all that and more – audacious and brave. Peter Hart, who died at 46 on July 22 following a brain aneurysm, was well on his way to becoming a great historian. Although only in mid-career, he was already a major international figure in Irish history.
His first book, The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1
Source: Eurasia Review
Aug 5, 2010
As prosecutors at The Hague war crimes tribunal pore over recently discovered diaries allegedly penned by top war crimes indictee Ratko Mladic, historians are debating the find's significance.
For many, it is compelling evidence of Serbia's deep involvement in the violence and atrocities that ripped apart Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)....
Historian Mile Bjelajac, who has been examining war documents in Bosnia and Croatia for years and has examined earlier diaries written
Source: Gay & Lesbian Times
Aug 5, 2010
History was made yesterday not only for California and all of the cities who reside in it, but for every state in this great nation. After waiting, after watching other states and countries make same sex marriage legal, we finally as Californians have made the same strides towards our marriage and equal rights with yesterday’s decision of Prop 8 violating the U.S Constitution’s 14th Amendment. What a day this is for all GLBT people and those of us lucky enough to live in California are proud of
Source: Ron Radosh at Pajamas Media
Aug 5, 2010
[Ronald Radosh is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Hudson Institute, and a Prof. Emeritus of History at the City University of New York's Queensborough Community College.]The announcement last week by the FBI that it was releasing the FBI files of the late radical historian, Howard Zinn, was not met with universal acclaim. In fact, many leftists were enraged. Typical was the reaction of Noam Chomsky, who was
Source: Cleveland Plains-Dealer
Aug 5, 2010
As the new course in American democracy ended to applause last week, professors Carol Lasser and Gary Kornblith walked their matching bikes across the Oberlin College campus -- nearly walking on air.
After more than 30 years teaching history, the husband-wife team had tried to make some. They brought two of the world's most divided peoples -- Israelis and Palestinians -- to Oberlin's serene campus to discuss how multicultural America works.
No one is predicting peace in
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Aug 4, 2010
As soon as Arizona enacted its law designed to crack down on unauthorized immigration to the state, academic groups started to announce they would stay away from the state. But many of those announcing that they would shun it until the law was repealed didn't in fact have any major events scheduled for Arizona. (Much of the law's enforcement has been blocked by a federal judge, but the legal and political fighting remain unsettled.)
On Tuesday, the Medieval Academy of America -- fol
