Historians in the News

Historian Kristin Kobes-Du Mez: Hawley Latest to Politicize So-Called Threats to Masculinity

"It's never entirely clear how he defines masculinity, even though he's quite certain that masculinity is under attack, and the left is trying to do away with real men."

Jeopardy! To Host Tournament of Professors

Historians Ed Hashima and Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders will be among the competitors in the $100,000 event beginning December 6. 

Rethinking Afro-Indigenous History in the United States

by Kyle T. Mays

A historian argues for rethinking the cultural practices of enslaved Africans and their encounters with Native Americans by considering that both were, in a sense, "indigenous" resistance to the European settler-colonialist agenda. 

America's Only LGBTQ Historic District Is Falling Apart

"Because of centuries of general anti-gay sentiment and laws punishing queerness, little queer history has been preserved, and much of it has been erased."

Allen Guelzo: Critical Race Theory Started with Kant, Who Also Enabled Marxism and Nazism

by Marc Thiessen

Post columnist Marc Thiessen presents excerpts from his interview with historian Allen Guelzo, who offers a new explanation for where critical race theory originated. 

They Still Had to Fight the Battles: Jeremy Black's "Brief History of War" Shuns Technological Determinism

by Crawford Gribben

Black's synthesis of a long career of writing the history of war offers a bleak assessment of the likelihood of world peace, situating war in the context of humanity's perpetual state of crisis and adaptation. 

For Research, Portland State Prof Read 60 Years of Marvel Comics

Douglas Wolk argues in "All the Marvels" that the more than 27,000 comics he read are the "longest, continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created," but doesn't necessarily advise any comics fans to try to repeat his research process. 

What You Think You Know About DC's Metro Skipping Georgetown is Wrong

by Luke Mullins

Zachary Schrag, author of the definitive book on the DC Metro system, says that the legend of affluent community opposition in the 1960s is a just-so story that ignores the realities transit planners faced, but does jibe with city residents' sense of issues of race, power, and influence. 

Fact Check: History of Robert Moses's Parkways Shows Racist Intent of Bridge Height is Not Certain

Pete Buttigieg's remarks racism in urban planning were informed by Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses. Some historians say that while Moses's projects harmed minority communities and his prejudices well-known, the specific anedcote about using parkway bridges to keep buses full of Black New Yorkers from Long Island beaches may be apocryphal.

"The Ivory Tower is Dead": An Interview with Davarian Baldwin

Davarian L. Baldwin's work interrogates how universities in postindustrial cities exemplify new models of economic development and are implicated in the problems of labor exploitation, gentrification and inequality. 

Emerson Never Practiced the Self-Reliance He Preached

by Mark Greif

Historian Robert A. Gross's new "The Transcendentalists and Their World" sets the famous experiments in living of Emerson and Thoreau in the social context of the town of Concord, through which the writers understood the shocks of modernization. 

Enslaved Women as American Revolutionaries: Karen Cook-Bell

"Instead of viewing Black women as at the margins of the American Revolution and abolitionism, it is important to see them as visible participants and self-determined figures who put their lives on the line for freedom."

"Civil Rights in Black and Brown" Examines Texas's Forgotten Activists

Todd Moye and Max Krochmal's history of multiracial Texas activism grew out of oral history projects with their students; they realized how much of the grassroots history of civil rights struggle in the state could be lost if it weren't recorded. 

NYT Magazine's Silverstein: 1619 Is Part of Long Battle over Telling the Nation's Story

by Jake Silverstein

The continuing debate over the 1619 project shows that what we call "history" is inseparable from the process of historiography, which has never been free of bitter conflict and disagreement.

What "Structural Racism" Means

by Jamelle Bouie

The writings of Oliver Cromwell Cox challenged the midcentury liberal conception of racism as a caste problem by linking it to capitalist exploitation and material inequality. He profoundly influenced Martin Luther King Jr.'s social critique and offers a way out of the dead end of "wokeness" and "identity politics."

Mt. Vernon Historian Bruce Ragsdale: Washington Faced Slavery and Blinked

While the sources do show Washington's personal repugnance at slavery, he never made a principled, public statement opposing it or a practical plan to end it.

Paid Family Leave was Invented in the US, But We Still Don't Have It

The International Congress of Working Women met in Washington in 1919 and developed the blueprint for a paid parental leave after another international workers' organization punted on the idea. The proposal has undergirded paid leave programs throughout the industrialized world – except the United States.

The Deal of the Convert: What Public Figures Lose and Gain by Switching Religions

Celebrity religious conversions link the public politics of religious affiliation and the internal motivations of faith. Historian Rebecca L. Davis's new book examines three prominent celebrity conversions and how they shed light on 20th century America. 

Cal State Fullerton Students Develop Public History Archive of Confederate Monuments

The recent movement to reconsider Confederate monuments represents a kind of synthesis of public and academic histories with a moral component, which Benjamin Cawthra encourages his public history students to investigate. 

Will Texas Legislature Repeat 1962 Hearings on What Schoolkids Read?

Texas’ House Textbook Investigating Committee held hearings across the state in 1962, which were suddenly halted after they became so rancorous and the lawmakers received threats.