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: National Law Journal
May 18, 2009
Is New York Law School's Annette Gordon-Reed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning law professor/historian, on President Obama's Supreme Court "short list"? Or, Alabama lawyer Bryan Stevenson, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award recipient and tireless advocate on behalf of indigent defendants and prisoners? How about veteran consumer rights champion Alan Morrison and University of Notre Dame Law School Dean Patricia O'Hara?
Probably not. But they appear on the short list
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 18, 2009
How do historians become historians? That's the question answered in the essays of Becoming Historians, just published by the University of Chicago Press. Among those contributing -- senior scholars in the field today -- are Joan Wallach Scott, Linda Gordon, David A. Hollinger and the two co-editors of the volume, James M. Banner Jr. and John R. Gillis. Banner, co-founder of the National History Center and historian-in-residence at American University; and Gillis, professor emeritus at Rutgers U
Source: HNN Staff
May 18, 2009
David Donald died on Sunday. On our homepage we have published a tribute by Gil Troy.
Related Links
HNN Doyen: David Herbert Donald
WaPo Obituary
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 15, 2009
It is a custom well known among farmers and ranchers: Inspect the fences each year to ensure their soundness.
David M. Kennedy first heard of it in the 1960s from his roommate at Yale University, an Iowa farm kid. Two and a half years ago, as a distinguished historian at the former horse farm known as Stanford University, Mr. Kennedy approached Jon Christensen, a doctoral candidate and instructor in history. "You ever heard of walking the farm?"
Turns out that
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 15, 2009
... What hasn't been talked about much is the idea that the settlement may benefit certain groups of authors more than others. A professional writer and an academic author often have different notions about when and how to make work available. One counts on revenue from book sales; the other cares more about spreading ideas.
That distinction is made loud and clear in the letter sent to Judge Chin. Organized by Pamela Samuelson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
May 14, 2009
If Mormon history is a kind of rich, hearty stew, the professional historians and independent researchers gathering next week in Springfield, Ill., are like picky eaters, fishing out a carrot, potato or a morsel of beef for closer scrutiny.
Like any omnivore, some LDS Church observers prefer the flavor of all the ingredients mixed together.
Such specificity and expansiveness will be much in evidence at the annual three-day meeting of the Mormon History Association begi
Source: Independent (UK)
May 14, 2009
Serious research can be a solitary affair. As Malcolm Noble and Matt Neale, two first-year history PhD students at Leicester University discovered, long hours in dusty archives and obscure collections all too often follow the bustle and camaraderie of undergraduate life. But they have found a cure for the loneliness of the historian: the New History Lab.
The Lab is an act of mild insurrection. Leicester's conventional postgraduate seminars – in which students read papers and comment
Source: Globe and Mail
May 14, 2009
A Quebec historian is giving a failing grade to a high-school course that skips René Lévesque, obscures the Quiet Revolution and scratches the surface of two sovereignty referendums.
Charles-Philippe Courtois, who recently analyzed the history curriculum aimed at Grades 9 and 10, condemned it for replacing Quebec's nationalist history with "radical Trudeauist" teachings of multiculturalism.
The 1980 and 1995 referendums were omitted from the original course ou
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
May 14, 2009
The development of Bush Administration policies on the treatment of suspected terrorist detainees was probed yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing, which also led to the release of two primary source documents reflecting internal Bush Administration deliberations.Former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow described his efforts in 2005-6 to advance a standard that would effectively prohibit “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” treatment of detainees, a standard
Source: CAROLYN EISENBERG in a letter to the editor of the NYT Book Review
May 13, 2009
[The writer, a professor of American diplomatic history at Hofstra University, is completing a book about the foreign policy of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.]
To the Editor:
From Paul M. Barrett’s review of Mark Rudd’s memoir, “Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen” (May 3), one might imagine that Rudd had written an unrepentant, unreflective, shallow defense of his activist days with “some mistakes” tossed in.
In his introduction, Rudd expr
Source: HNN Staff
May 13, 2009
Mother Jones reports today that former State Department counselor Philip Zelikow's memo against torture has apparently been found and will be declassified.
In April Zelikow, a historian at the University of Virginia, revealed that he had written a memo expressly rejecting torture while at the State Department. He said that the White House ordered all copies of the memo destroye
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 13, 2009
In March, a few institutions -- such as Emory and Columbia Universities -- announced plans to shrink the enrollment of new Ph.D. students this fall. Now it appears that a number of other universities, generally private institutions that have some of the most well regarded Ph.D. programs around, are also getting smaller. At some, but not all, of the institutions, the shrinkage will be greatest in the humanities....
... Emilio H. Kouri, an associate professor who is chair of the gradu
Source: Austin American-Statesman
May 12, 2009
Noted Texas historian and author Light Townsend Cummins of Sherman was named the official State Historian by Gov. Rick Perry.
Cummins replaces Jesus de la Teja of Austin.
The state historian is a largely ceremonial designation that lasts for two years.
Cummins is a history professor and director of the Center for Southwestern and Mexican Studies at Austin College in Sherman.
He is also a board member of the Texas State Historical Association, a
Source: Atlantic
May 12, 2009
Donald Cole, 87, has been answering questions as part of the Harvard Study on Adult Development since he was a sophomore in the early 1940s. [The landmark study tracked Harvard students throughout their lives.] A historian who’s written books on 19th-century American politics, Cole served in World War II and spent most of his career teaching at Phillips Exeter Academy. His next book, Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System, is due out in September. Josh
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 12, 2009
Two national groups are weighing in on the controversy over William I. Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara who is being investigated for charges of unprofessional conduct related to an e-mail message he sent to students in one of his courses, comparing images of Nazi attacks on Jews with Israeli attacks on Gaza. Some students have called the e-mail anti-Semitic.
The Middle East Studies Association of North America sent a letter express
Source: Jon Stewart The Daily Show
May 11, 2009
The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
May 11, 2009
The CIA Historical Review Panel, an advisory group which is composed of academic historians and political scientists, provides the CIA with recommendations on its declassification policies and priorities. The role of the Panel was described lately by its chairman, Prof. Robert Jervis, in the latest issue of Passport (pdf, at pp. 10-13), the newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.Pro
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
May 8, 2009
Under the Obama administration’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 budget request, funding for the National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) would increase by $7 million from the current fiscal year’s $447 million to $454 million.
The Teaching American History (TAH) Grants program at the U.S. Department of Education would see no increase under the Obama administration’s proposed fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget released this week. The budget for the program would stay at the FY 2009 le
Source: http://www.2theadvocate.com
May 7, 2009
LSU has quietly and unceremoniously ousted Graduate School Dean William Worger after just eight months on the job.
LSU leaders are calling it a private personnel matter, and Worger did not respond to a request for comment.
But some LSU graduate students who support Worger are angrily demanding answers and a meeting with LSU Provost Astrid Merget, who is the university’s chief academic officer.
Electrical engineering graduate student Charisma Edwards ,of Hou
Source: David Sanger in the NYT Book Review
May 7, 2009
... [George W.] Bush’s effort to equate America’s amalgam of new enemies to the Axis powers of World War II quickly fizzled. Even some in the White House admitted privately to embarrassment, and the word “Islamofascism” was stricken from presidential speeches. Evil? Yes. But not an organized force — and Bush’s speeches quickly came to be regarded as a huge mistake because they inflated the power of America’s enemies rather than dividing them by playing off their longstanding rivalries. After all
