Historians in the News

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. pays homage to John Hope Franklin

For decades, John Hope Franklin railed against the often segregated academic field of ‘black studies,’ deriding it as intellectual Jim Crow. But there would be no black studies without him, and for that, I am eternally grateful. ### When I was 20, I decided to hitchhike across the African continent, more or less following the line of the equator, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. I packed only one pair of sandals and one pair of jeans to make room for the three hef

The War of 1812 Revisited at Conference

The Fort La Présentation Association of Ogdensburg, NY is sponsoring a War of 1812 War College Saturday, May 2, 2009. The daylong series of five seminars will examine aspects of the war affecting Sackets Harbor and Ogdensburg, NY and Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. “We have lecturers from New York and Ontario who are experts in their own right on the history and archaeology of the War of 1812,” said Project Director Doug Cubbison. “Thei

UCSB Historian Wins Bancroft Book Prize

Pekka Hämäläinen, associate professor of history at UC Santa Barbara, has won the coveted Bancroft Prize for his book "The Comanche Empire" (Yale University Press, 2008). He is one of three scholars to receive 2009 awards. The others are Thomas G. Andrews, assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado, Denver; and Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard University and the Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Bancrof

Historian, Army officer hired to teach military history at UW-Madison

[HNN: The delay in filling this post has drawn considerable Internet chatter for several years.] John Hall, a gifted historian and an active-duty career U.S. Army officer, has been named the Ambrose-Hesseltine Professor in U.S. Military History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Wisconsin native, Hall holds the rank of major and currently works in the Future Warfare Division of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command in Virginia. He received his doctorate from

David McCullough Opposes Tower Near Brooklyn Bridge

In the latest chapter of a hot dispute over the building of a proposed tower near the Brooklyn Bridge, the historian and Brooklyn Bridge expert David McCullough is voicing his opposition to the plan. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. McCullough spoke to a crowd of more than 50 local advocates and politicians about why he opposed plans by the developer Two Trees Management to construct a tower called Dock Street Dumbo so close to the Brooklyn Bridge. Mr. McCullough

Martin J. Klein, Historian of Physics, Dies at 84

Martin J. Klein, a historian of modern physics and the editor of a vast collection of papers that documented the years in which Albert Einstein completed his revolutionary work on the general theory of relativity, died Saturday in Chapel Hill, N.C. He was 84 and lived in Chapel Hill. His death was confirmed by his daughter Rona. Dr. Klein, originally a physicist, was editor of “The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein” (Princeton University Press) from 1988 to 1998. The

Fox News hounds Alan Brinkley

This morning, Fox and Friends praised producer Griff Jenkins for stalking and ambushing Columbia University professor Alan Brinkley to grill him on portions of his book Jenkins found objectionable. Jenkins — who perfected his harassment

How a mild-mannered historian forced the Oldest City to grapple with a history it would sooner forget

David Nolan has the perfect disguise. A white, middle- aged man, dressed in dark slacks and a buttondown shirt — his unvarying uniform — he moves at an unhurried, deliberate pace. His speech is modulated and good-natured, even when discussing the boneheaded decision of some former official or the brutal repression that once defined race relations in historic St. Augustine. It’s a demeanor more neighborhood hardware salesman than revolutionary, a camouflage that has served him well.

John Hope Franklin: 2 surprising stories about a great historian

Related Links HNN: In Memory of John Hope Franklin (1915-2009) John Hope Franklin, the black historian whose towering intellect was matched only by his dedication to his craft, was one of those people whose passing makes me sigh and feel this gut-remorse that I never made the time to call or write to say something like: "Professor Franklin, I've read your stuff, and, well, I love you,

History has been 'feminised' says David Starkey as he launches Henry VIII series

British history has become "feminised" by female authors who concentrate on subjects like the six wives of Henry VIII rather than the king himself, Dr David Starkey has said. Speaking shortly before the launch of a new Channel 4 series to mark the 500th anniversary of the Tudor monarch's accession to the throne, Dr Starkey said he found it "bizarre" that so much historical effort was now focused on the monarch's wives. But he warned that the "s

NYT singles out John Hope Franklin for front-page treatment in Week in Review

When he was a boy in segregated Oklahoma, where he was born in 1915, John Hope Franklin used to indulge in a subversive bit of wordplay like a small act of public and private theater. “My mother and I used to have a game we’d play on our public,” Dr. Franklin said not long ago, his voice full of artful pauses, words pulled out like taffy. “She would say if anyone asks you what you want to be when you grow up, tell them you want to be the first Negro president of the United States. A

OAH Awards Go To Joyce Appleby, Susan Armeny, Stan Katz, and Brian Lamb

On Saturday March 28, 2009 OAH President Elaine Tyler May announced that the 2009 winner of the Friend of History award is C-SPAN's Brian Lamb. Mr. Lamb accepted the award in person. She also announced the winners of the Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award: Joyce Appleby, Susan Armeny, and Stan Katz.

OAH Finances Take a Slide and Convention Attracts Fewer Attendees

Money was on peoples' minds at this year's OAH in addition to history. Eating cheap was on the menu for many. One sign of the times. C-SPAN, nearing the end of its fiscal year, wanted to cover the convention but couldn't afford to send a crew.* Some 1800 people registered for this year's OAH annual meeting in Seattle, a lower number than would normally be expected for a convention on the West coast. (In 2007 1900 showed up for the out-of-the way Minneapolis convention.) There wasn't

Ward Churchill's and David Irving's self-generated problems

[Walter Plywaski lives in Boulder.] The self-generated problems of ex-professor Ward Churchill carry an interesting parallel to those of David Irving. In 1996 British Holocaust denier David Irving sued Professor Deborah Lipstadt for alleged libel. Three courts found for Lipstadt, concluding that Irving was a Holocaust denier, an anti-Semite and a racist. Irving, a British writer, specialized in military history of World War II, but proved to be highly controversial, due

Treaty on antiquities hinders access for museums, says past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors

James Cuno, a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, has spent years investigating implications of a United Nations treaty: the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. It prohibits museums and other research centers from acquiring objects unearthed after 1970 without permission from the country of origin. Such permission is seldom granted, Cuno notes in his new book, Who Owns Antiquity? L

Greece: Historian cleared over holocaust denial

Court officials say judges have overturned a far-right Greek historian's conviction for inciting racial hatred with a book that denies the Holocaust took place. A five-member panel of appeals court judges has voted 4-1 to overturn a lower court's decision that sentenced historian Costas Plevris to 14 months in prison for his book "The Jews: The whole truth." Court officials say the Athens appeals court ruled Friday that Plevris was entitled to express his view

Archie Green, 91, Union Activist and Folklorist, Dies

Archie Green, a shipwright turned folklorist whose interest in union workers and their culture transformed the study of American folklore and who single-handedly persuaded Congress to create the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, died last Sunday at his home in San Francisco. He was 91. The cause was kidney failure, his son Derek said. Mr. Green, a shipwright and carpenter by trade, drew on a childhood enthusiasm for cowboy songs and a devotion to the

Burmese history teacher released

Dear colleagues, Good news. Amnesty International reports that on 21 February 2009 history teacher Ma Khin Khin Leh was released, together with 23 other prisoners. In July 1999, she was arrested instead of her husband. Later, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. In December 2000, the Network of Concerned Historians launched a campaign on her behalf. Thank you for your efforts. With best wishes, Antoon De Baets (Network of Concerned Historians)

Katrina vanden Heuvel: William Polk on Afghanistan

With reports that the Obama Administration will unveil its Afghanistan strategy as early as Friday--and one senior Senate staffer telling me that Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, will hold a Senators-only briefing on Afghanistan/Pakistan today--it was good timing that yesterday the Congressional Progressive Caucus kicked-off its six-part forum, Afghanistan: A Road Map for Progress. In his opening remarks, Caucus Co-Chair Raul Grijalva described the significan

Rick Perlstein assesses Obama's performance so far