Historians in the News

Juan Cole compares Sarah Palin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Is Sarah Palin America's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The two differ in many key respects, of course, but it is remarkable how similar they are. There are uncanny parallels in their biographies, their domestic politics and the way they present themselves -- even in their rocky relationships with party elders. Both are former governors of a northwest frontier state with great natural beauty (in Ahmadinejad's case, Ardabil). Both are known for saying things that produce a classic Scooby-Doo d

Prof. Gates Says He Received Death And Bomb Threats

Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Sunday joked about his arrest by a white police officer, but also described receiving death threats and dreaming about being arrested at the White House. FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE In his first public appearance since sharing a beer at the White House on Thursday with the officer and President Barack Obama, Gates said the national debate over racial profiling sparked by his arrest shows that issues of class and race still run

New web service publishes books online for free

A new concept in web-based publishing, Libertary provides free books to readers through direct links from blogs and other websites, allowing them to enrich their offering with the in-depth reading experience that only a good book can provide. The idea is to support online communities while broadening readership for Libertary’s books. Take Mike Gray’s Drug Crazy, a history of America’s misguided and ineffective war on drugs, which is considered a leading work by those who seek repeal

Historian Bonnie J. Morris celebrates women's studies in her latest book

It is important to study women because the male experience does not constitute the entire truth of human existence. Throughout her career as a scholar of women’s history, Professor Bonnie J. Morris has encountered surprising resistance to this simple and seemingly inoffensive notion.[1] What is worse, she has found that sexist backlash against women’s studies continues to keep otherwise interested students away from the field. To counter the barrage of insults, misconceptions, and stereotypes, a

Juan Cole interviewed about Afghanistan, Iran and other hot spots

Juan Cole has a weblog called Informed Comment. But he is not just a blogger, he is a commentator and a Middle East historian who teaches at the University of Michigan.  He speaks fluent Persian and Arabic. Rooz had a chance to talk to him on the current issues of the region.  Rooz:   In your new book,  Engaging the Muslim World,

The Onion satirizes Henry Louis Gates controversy

Statement of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. after meeting with Sergeant James Crowley at the White House

I would like to applaud President Obama for bringing Sergeant Crowley, me and our families together. I would also like to thank the President for welcoming my father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., who for most of his life has been a Republican! My dad turned 96 this past June, and the fact that he worked two jobs every day is the reason that my brother, Dr. Paul Gates, and I were able to receive such splendid educations. I am honored that he chose to join me at the White House, along with my fiancée,

Anthropologist receives Medal of Freedom

Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief, is the author of seminal works in Native American history and culture. He is the last person alive to have received direct oral testimony from a participant in the Battle of the Little Bighorn: his grandfather was a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. A veteran of World War II, Medicine Crow accomplished during the war all of the four tasks required to become a "war chief," including stealing fifty Nazi SS hor

Julian Zelizer says the beer summit is unprecedented

It's highly unusual for a president to become personally involved in a local racial matter such as the arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., presidential historian Julian E. Zelizer said today. Zelizer said he couldn't remember a recent president inserting himself in a local issue this way, and certainly not inviting the principal parties to the White House. On a much bigger scale, Zelizer noted that President John F. Kennedy, then a candidate, did personally

Historians donate book collection to Southwestern University

Two Georgetown residents and historians are donating much of their personal library to Southwestern University's A. Frank Smith Jr. Library Center. Robert Utley and his wife, Melody Webb, moved to Georgetown in 1996. Utley was the former chief historian for the National Park Service and has written 16 books on the American West. Webb was a regional historian for the National Park Service in Alaska and Santa Fe, and also served as superintendent of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Hist

Douglas Brinkley takes a long, fond look at Theodore Roosevelt

Historian Douglas Brinkley finally has a moment. Just in from breakfast with C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb, he stops for an interview with his former hometown's newspaper the day before he makes an appearance with Diane Rehm on NPR. Earlier this month he wrote a cover story for Vanity Fair, a postcard from a weeklong cruise in the Caribbean with actor Johnny Depp. Last month there was dinner with President Barack Obama and fellow presidential historians Michael Beschloss, H.W. Brands, R

How budget cuts in California could impact Chinese studies

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California at Irvine. He is author, most recently, of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (forthcoming from Oxford University Press).] Budget cuts at the University of California have generated a lot of attention, especially after a plan of across-the-board salary cuts, combined with mandatory furlough days, was recently announced. How will such drastic financial measures threaten the strengths

President Obama Nominates David S. Ferriero Archivist of the U.S.

On July 28, President Obama announced his intent to nominate David S. Ferriero to the position of Archivist of the United States. Mr. Ferriero currently serves as the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries (NYPL). Mr. Ferriero succeeds Professor Allen Weinstein who resigned as Archivist last December. The New York Public Libraries is one of the largest public library systems in the United States and one of the largest research library systems in the world. Mr. Fe

Author's Nightmare: Two publishers choose the same cover for different books

This is the cover for Jonathan Zimmerman's new book about the history of the little red schoolhouse (Yale University Press, July 2009): And this is the cover for Mike Rose's new book about the meaning of education (New Press, September 2009):

Alan C. Hall taught technology and history at Gateway Community and Technical College and pushed for the onetime vocational school to offer more for its students

To his colleagues at Gateway Community and Technical College, Alan C. Hall, an associate professor of history, was a man who seemed to do it all. During his 20 years at the college, Mr. Hall, who died on July 8 in a lawn-mowing accident at his home in Falmouth, Ky., moved from teaching electronics to information technology to history. He held numerous leadership roles at the college and earned three degrees while on the faculty. When Kentucky's community colleges and vocational scho

19th-Century Lessons for Today's Drug War, Says Historian

[Brian DeLay is an assistant professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. He is author of War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War (Yale University Press, 2008).] This spring in El Paso, after a talk I gave on the Indian raids and the U.S.-Mexican War, a man in the back row raised his hand. "Do you see any similarities between the borderland violence you've just described for the 1830s and 1840s and the current drug war?" The en

FDR had people over for drinks, too, says Doris Kearns Goodwin

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Foundation Run by Harvard’s Gates Is Revising Tax Return After Questions Raised

A charity headed by star Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is filing an amended 2007 report to the Internal Revenue Service because $11,000 it paid to foundation officers as compensation was mischaracterized as being for research grants. Questions about Inkwell Foundation emerged over the weekend, part of a tsunami of attention Gates has received since July 16, when he was arrested at his home by a police officer responding to a report about a possible burglary in p

Gordon Brown reprimanded for mythologizing W W I

Dr Gordon Brown is a qualified historian. As readers of his biography of James Maxton will know, he can be a considerable and a rigorous one. As a politician, though, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an opportunist about his former academic discipline. He plays fast and loose with British history, and rarely more so than in his most recent remarks about the first world war.The

Historian discusses new book on an academic exodus that saved lives and changed mathematics

Much has been written about the immigration of Jewish scholars and others who opposed or feared the Nazis to the United States and other countries. A new book focuses on one discipline -- mathematics -- and how this migration affected not only those who moved, but scholarship. The book is Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact, by Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, professor of the history of mathematics at the University of Agder, in Norway. The work, just out fro