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: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Aug 12, 2009
BOWMAN, Shearer Davis, son of Carolyn and Shearer Bowman, died at his home on December 4, 2009. Born on July 9, 1949 in Richmond, Virginia, Dave attended the Collegiate Schools before enrolling at the University of Virginia, where he received a B.A. with distinction in history and served the student body as captain of the men's soccer team, president of his fraternity, vice president of the College of Arts and Sciences, vice-chair of the Honor Committee, and member of the Imp Society, TILKA, the
Source: Newsweek
Aug 12, 2009
There are few better fixes for insomnia than listening to a professor read her PowerPoint to you, slide by slide. And that can be a good thing, especially if you've been up all night playing Rock Band. But discovering a teacher who wakes you up instead of putting you to sleep is one of the most rewarding college experiences you can have. A great professor can get you excited about a whole new subject, influence which major you choose, and maybe even change your life. As we discovered in an infor
Source: Worldwide Faith News
Aug 12, 2009
The Rev. Dr. William J. Schmidt, church historian and biographer of ecumenical pioneers Samuel McCrea Cavert and Henry Smith Leiper, died Monday night after a long illness.
"Bill was a devoted supporter of the World Council of Churches and often accompanied his wife Jean to our New York office, where she was chief financial officer and later served as a loyal volunteer," said the Rev. Deborah DeWinter, Program Director for the United States, World Council of Churches
Source: Matthew Yglesias at his blog
Aug 11, 2009
[HNN: On Tuesday the liberal blogosphere lit up with complaints about Niall Ferguson's recent column in the Financial Times. An example follows.]
I cannot believe the Financial Times agreed to run this lead:
President Barack Obama reminds me of Felix the Cat. One of the best-loved cartoon characters of the 1920s, Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that p
Source: Sun Journal
Aug 11, 2009
Thousands of Americans have bought Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 book, "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," after hearing that it shaped President-elect Barack Obama's thinking.
"Rivals," which examines how Lincoln put three of his opponents in the 1860 election in his Cabinet, was No. 14 on Amazon.com's bestseller list the Friday before Thanksgiving, no small feat for three-year-old nonfiction. (Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" and &q
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 10, 2009
The BBC period drama set during the reign of Henry VIII, The Tudors, is historically inaccurate despite it being in its third series, one of the country's leading historians, Tracy Borman, says.
Despite the inaccuracies, the show, starring Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyer as Henry VIII, had successfully recreated the drama and atmosphere of his court, said Dr Borman, the head of interpretation for Historic Royal Palaces.
Dr Borman, also the Heritage Education Trust chie
Source: Elaine Tyler May in the OAH Newsletter
Aug 10, 2009
This summer marks a transition in leadership of the OAH. Lee Formwalt, who has served as executive director for the last ten years, is leaving us. Under Lee’s guidance, the OAH has flourished. Lee expanded the membership in both numbers and diversity, and developed numerous new programs, including the highly successful community college initiative. He led us through some tough times, including two convention hotel crises that forced us to move the annual meetings at the last minute. He also care
Source: James Oakes in the OAH Newsletter
Aug 10, 2009
Kenneth M. Stampp, one of the towering figures of our profession, died on July 10, 2009, just shy of his ninety-seventh birthday. Physically robust until well into his nineties, Ken’s health began to fail only a few years ago. Yet he remained intellectually sharp until, a week before he died, his heart failed him, he fell, and never recovered. His first marriage ended in divorce. His second wife, the magnificent Isabel, died in 1996. He is survived by his four children--Kenneth, Jr., Sara, Miche
Source: St. Augustine Record
Aug 9, 2009
Jack Temple Kirby, 70, died Aug. 6, 2009, at Flagler Hospital. He was born in Portsmouth, Va., the son of Clifford Kirby and Theodosia Palmer Kirby.
He graduated from Old Dominion University and received his master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Virginia. He was W.E. Smith professor emeritus of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where his specialties were the American South, rural and agricultural history, and environmental history. He was author or editor
Source: St. Augustine Record
Aug 9, 2009
Jack Temple Kirby, 70, died Aug. 6, 2009, at Flagler Hospital. He was born in Portsmouth, Va., the son of Clifford Kirby and Theodosia Palmer Kirby.
He graduated from Old Dominion University and received his master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Virginia. He was W.E. Smith professor emeritus of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where his specialties were the American South, rural and agricultural history, and environmental history. He was author or editor of sev
Source: Time
Aug 8, 2009
[Charles Geisst is a professor of finance at Manhattan College]You write that one of the major myths about American society is that we used to be prudent with our money and only recently did we go astray. What's the real history?
Americans are speculative people. During and after the Civil War, for instance, there was a lot of stock market and commodities speculation—people trying to make a quick buck. But it was only when financial institutions picked up on that
Source: NYT
Aug 7, 2009
Richard A. Baker says he has received some strange inquiries throughout his 34 years as Senate historian.
Many people ask him questions about the Senate jail, which does not exist. And he spends a lot of time correcting rumors, like claims that tourists can still see pockmarks from the 1814 British attack on the Capitol. What they see is just corrosion, he says.
Mr. Baker, 69, will retire as the first Senate historian at the end of August, and Donald A. Ritchie, the as
Source: NYT
Aug 6, 2009
John R. Hale was a freshman at Yale in 1969 when an offhand comment from the legendary classics professor Donald Kagan changed the direction of his life. Mr. Hale was taking Mr. Kagan’s Introduction to Greek History, and when the professor learned his student was rowing for the freshman crew (“Ha!” Mr. Kagan exclaimed. “A rower.”), he made a suggestion. “He told me that I should investigate Athenian history from the vantage point of a rower’s bench,” Mr. Hale writes in his new book. “It was an a
Source: AP
Aug 6, 2009
Top U.S. officials have reached out to a leading Vietnam war scholar who opposes American involvement in Afghanistan in an apparent effort to apply the lessons of the earlier conflict to the fight against the Taliban.
NATO's top commander in Afghanistan and the U.S. special envoy to the country telephoned renowned Vietnam War historian Stanley Karnow on July 27 to discuss the two conflicts.
Source: JTA
Aug 5, 2009
Germany named a panel of 10 Jewish and non-Jewish experts to an anti-Semitism commission.
The panel's first meeting will be Sept. 9, according to the announcement Wednesday by Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble.
The panel, whose members are an ethnic and religious mix, is to report regularly on anti-Semitism and efforts to combat it in Germany. It also will make recommendations based on best practices and consult with other experts.
It inclu
Source: London Evening Standard
Aug 5, 2009
...Roberts, 46, is widely hailed as the most brilliant historian of his generation and he is unstoppably prolific. His latest work, The Storm of War, is already being hailed as a masterpiece by some critics. “My agent just rang to say my book is number one on the Amazon history bestseller list. It's very exciting. It's the first time I have had a proper selling book on my hands. The bestselling Andrew Roberts'— wouldn't that be wonderful?”
The Storm of War is comprehensive, compelli
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
Aug 4, 2009
In the early 1970s, the Nixon Administration plotted to interfere in Uruguay’s presidential elections in order to block the rise of the leftist Frente Amplio coalition. But when the State Department published its official history of U.S. relations with Latin America during the Nixon era last month, there was no mention of any such activities. Instead, the State Department Office of the Historian said that Uruguay-related records could not be posted on the Department website becaus
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Aug 4, 2009
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq may be about to change Middle Eastern studies -- and not just by adding plenty of new subject material.
The incoming director of Middle Eastern studies at George Washington University last week published a post at his Foreign Policy blog that has set off a discussion about the next generation of Middle Eastern studies students and, eventually, professors.
Marc Lynch writes (and some others agree) that master’s programs and doctoral progr
Source: LibraryJournal.com
Aug 3, 2009
Could veteran Librarian of Congress James Billington, a historian who has served nearly 22 years and recently turned 80, be headed toward retirement?
And could the administration of President Barack Obama make a significant change, appointing a public librarian like Carla Hayden, director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, who also would become the first woman and African-American in the job? Rumors denied
Right now the changes are the stuff of
Source: Steven Hahn in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Aug 3, 2009
As most scholars know, one book leads to another. Questions unanswered beg for more work. When I was finishing A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South From Slavery to the Great Migration (Harvard University Press, 2003), I became increasingly interested in Marcus Garvey's organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association, as the capstone to the story I was telling. I discovered with astonishment, however, that the secondary literature on the group (especiall
