Historians in the News

Conservative class on Founding Fathers' answers to current woes gains popularity

Earl Taylor has spent 31 years teaching that "the Founding Fathers have answers to nearly every problem we have in America today." Only in recent months has he found so many eager students. Two years ago, Taylor, who is president of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, made about 35 trips to speak to small church groups and political gatherings. This year, he has received so many requests that he enlisted 15 volunteer instructors, who are on pace to hold more t

Honored scholar Norman A. Graebner dies at 94

Norman A. Graebner, a former University of Virginia professor who was known for his love of teaching and esteemed for his knowledge on American diplomatic history, died on May 10 at the Colonnades in Charlottesville. He was 94. Graebner, who was a UVa faculty member from 1967 to 1986, was the recipient of several academic accolades, including being named the Edward R. Stettinius Professor of Modern American History and the Randolph P. Compton Professor of history. The revered histor

Randolph Roth says that Juárez murder rate like that of civil war

The murder rate in Juárez rivals the most dangerous cities in the world and is more typical of regions where government has collapsed, an expert on homicides said. The number of murders in Juárez is more typical of regions during a civil war, a revolution or other form of a state breakdown, said Randolph Roth, a historian who studies homicides. "Whenever you have a real struggle for power -- civil wars, revolutions -- organized gangs can get very, very bad like you

American people cynical and uninvolved, says historian

Nobody led. Not the president of the United States. Not the chief executive of BP. Not Congress, federal agencies or local elected officials. From its fiery beginning, the Gulf oil spill has stood as a concentrated reminder of why, over four decades, Americans have lost faith in nearly every national institution.... "This spill, it's another blow to the body politic," says John Baick, professor of history at Western New England College in Springfield, Mass. It

Questions Raised About a Chapter Frank J. Williams Wrote in the 1990s

by HNN Staff

Frank Williams, past Chief Justice of Rhode Island, has twice been found to have used language in articles about Lincoln that bear a strong resemblance to others' work. 

Letters reveal key role played by 'passionate' wife in securing justice for Alfred Dreyfus

Fresh light has been thrown on the Dreyfus Affair, the cause célèbre that divided France and shook the world in the late 19th century, by the discovery of thousands of unpublished letters. Following the exile of Captain Alfred Dreyfus after his wrongful conviction for spying for Germany against France, his wife, Lucie, was portrayed as a bourgeois heroine, the epitome of the dutiful Victorian spouse. But, according to her letters, she was a passionate woman whose undying love for he

Historian criticizes Beck's "ludicrous" embrace of anti-Semitic author

In an interview yesterday with Media Matters, a prominent historian criticized Glenn Beck's"ludicrous" promotion of an anti-Communist screed written in the 1930s by a" crackpot" anti-Semite.On June 4, Beck praised 

Raza studies author says "occupied" does not mean "to take over" in Arizona embroglio

"Occupied America." It's the title of a textbook at the center of a new Arizona law that targets ethnic studies programs in public schools. That textbook is used by TUSD in an ethic studies class. So, what exactly does "occupied" mean? Rudy Acuòa, Ph.D., is the book's author. He says the word "occupied" means "to have a history" which he says his book teaches. Acuna says "occupied" does not mean "to take over." Hence, the r

Historian Spence Delivers 2010 NEH Jefferson Lecture

On May 20, Jonathan Spence, one of the world’s leading experts on Chinese history and culture, delivered the 2010 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Arizona Immigration Law No Different from the Past, Says Texas Tech Historian

While politicians, law enforcement officials and citizens of every background stand divided over a recent Arizona immigration law designed to secure the state’s borders from illegal immigrants, a Texas Tech expert on immigration and border history says that the law is no different than the Repatriation Act of the 1930s or Operation Wetback of the 1950s. Miguel Levario, an assistant professor of history, says that even since the days of the Gold Rush when Mexican-American residents o

Scholar asks if the Crusaders had a Muslim ally in the First Crusade

A new article is examining the relationship between Islamic states and the Crusader army during the First Crusade (1096-99) and suggests that the Fatimid kingdom of Egypt did attempt to ally with the Crusaders. The article, "Fatimids, Crusaders and the Fall of Islamic Jerusalem: Foes or Allies?" was written by Maher Y. Abu-Munshar in the latest issue of Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean. Abu-Munshar explains that both the Fatimids and the Crusaders wanted to &

McMaster: Hey, the U.S. military has adapted and is now back in the game

"The military has adapted tremendously." So began Brigadier General H.R. McMaster's American Enterprise Institute talk the other day, begging the question: "Since when?" McMaster's point is familiar to many Best Defenders but serves as an important reminder of how much the military has evolved in a short time. McMaster harkened back to the 1990s, when we "took a break from history." The Gulf War encouraged a false sense of confidence among our armed f

Flotilla raid could be fatal blow to Turkey-Israel friendship, says Israeli historian

Israel’s good relations with Turkey look to become another casualty of Monday’s deadly boarding of a humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza. The only question, analysts say, is whether the rift will lead to a more radically polarized region, or force Israel to retreat from its blockade of Gaza. “The steps that [Israel] will undertake in the coming days will be determining its position in the region,” was the ominous warning issued Wednesday by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Prime Mini

Historian tapped as running mate for GOP governor candidate in South Dakota

South Dakota gubernatorial candidate Gordon Howie announced today that he has asked former Sioux Falls mayoral candidate and alderman Kermit Staggers to be his running mate in his bid for governor of South Dakota on the Republican ticket.Howie held a meeting in the Best Western Ramkota this afternoon to make the announcement; the move was announced earlier this morning in Sioux Falls.Staggers has

As Oil Slips Away, So Do Chances for Obama, says Doug Brinkley

President Obama is supposed to leave Washington in 10 days for Indonesia, Australia and Guam, but with oil still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, some in the White House are wondering whether the weeklong trip should be scrubbed.... “This has hijacked his entire legislative agenda,” said Douglas Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who has written about Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was consumed by the Iran hostage crisis. “The White House felt they were on a roll. They were lo

Christians and Muslims are distorting crusades, says historian

Christian and Muslim attempts to draw parallels between the tensions of today and the crusades of almost 1,000 years ago are a distortion and manipulation of history, according to historian Tom Asbridge. Speaking at the Guardian Hay festival today, Asbridge, author of two books on the crusades, argued that the modern belief that the Christian and Muslim worlds have been "inevitably predicated towards conflict" since the crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 is not based on hist

Laurie Penny: Niall Ferguson and Michael Gove

[Laurie Penny is a writer, journalist and feminist activist from London.] The Tories want our children to be proud of Britain's imperial past. When right-wing colonial historian Niall Ferguson told the Hay Festival last weekend that he would like to revise the school history curriculum to include "the rise of western domination of the world" as the "big story" of the last 500 years, Education Secretary Michael Gove leapt to his feet to praise Ferguson's "exc

Lila Weinberg, Chicago historian and author, dies

Lila Weinberg, a Chicago historian, author, teacher and editor, has died. Weinberg, who died May 29 at the age of 91 from complications of cancer, collaborated with her late husband, Arthur, on six books on social history, including two on attorney Clarence Darrow. One of the books, "Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned," spent 19 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list in 1957. Arthur Weinberg died in 1989. A resident of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborh

Shaping Gotham's Past with Richard Rabinowitz

Elegantly dressed in a three-piece suit, gray hair framing his square-rimmed glasses, Richard Rabinowitz once met me on a blustery spring afternoon outside the New-York Historical Society, the 206-year-old institution where he has helped shape the way that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers see their city's past. Best known as curator of Slavery in New York, an acclaimed NYHS exhibit that exposed the ties between enslaved African labor and New York City's wealth, the 65-year-old h

The 1970s get a second look by historians

[Christian Caryl is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy. His column, "Reality Check," appears weekly on ForeignPolicy.com.] Those were the days: Economic upheavals wiped out long-established institutions and jolted self-satisfied elites. Terrorists declared war on the West in the name of eccentric utopias. New technologies collapsed geographical distance, bringing far-flung regions closer together and undermining the power of the traditional nation-state.