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: Corey Robin in the Nation
Jun 23, 2008
[Corey Robin teaches political science at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea and is writing a book about conservatism and counterrevolution.]"The 1960s are rightly remembered as years of cultural dissent and political upheaval, but they are wrongly remembered as years stirred only from the left," writes George Will in the foreword to a recently reissued edition of Barry Goldwater's The Conscien
Source: Elisabeth Grant at the AHA Blog
Jun 22, 2008
This year’s National History Day centered on the theme “Conflict and Compromise in History.” Events took place Sunday, June 15 through Thursday, June 19, 2008, at the University of Maryland, with students presenting papers, exhibits, performances, documentaries, and even web sites (a new category this year). The winners of this year’s National History Day were presented their awards on Thursday morning of last week, and the ceremony was broadcast live through a webcast on the History Channel’s w
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 22, 2008
Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, said it was a "disgrace and a horror" that the number of postgraduate places in arts and humanities studies was being cut by a third next year.
Professor Skinner, a Fellow of Christ's College whose work has been translated into 23 languages, said: "It is very hard to understand why such a huge and arbitary cut should be made. We always have enough money to fight wars, but we don't seem to hav
Source: NYT
Jun 22, 2008
The Very Rev. Henry Chadwick, an Anglican priest, professor, editor, translator and author whose historical voyages into early Christianity won praise for depth, insight and evenhandedness and helped shed light on modern religious problems, died Tuesday in Oxford, England. He was 87.
His death was announced by Cambridge University, where Professor Chadwick taught and held administrative positions.
In an obituary written for the newspaper The Guardian, Rowan Williams, th
Source: http://www.naplesnews.com
Jun 21, 2008
Doris Reynolds is still the city historian.
But her role now has limits. Term limits to be exact.
Naples City Council voted 4-3 at their recent meeting to limit the historian to two consecutive three-year terms. The decision will not retroactively affect Reynolds’ 2006 appointment, which means her first term will end in June 2011.
Mayor Bill Barnett, Councilman Gary Price and Councilwoman Teresa Heitmann cast the dissenting votes. Both Barnett and Price sai
Source: Times (UK)
Jun 20, 2008
The organisers of the Edinburgh International Book Festival have been accused of “political illiteracy” for marking Israel's 60th anniversary with what is billed as a “special and powerful event” focusing on the enforced exodus of Palestinians in 1948.
The opening day session will feature Ilan Pappé, an historian once dubbed “the most hated Israeli in Israel”, who is scheduled to discuss his project Nakba: Return of the Soul. Nakba means catastrophe and is the word used by Palestini
Source: Financial Times
Jun 20, 2008
It was a damp basement in 1960s London, piled with closely written sheets of thin, crumbling wartime paper. Most people would have found it a forlorn place. Yet for the young Angus Calder, wandering round the room randomly picking out documents, it was an Aladdin’s cave of history. Here was a first-hand account of the London blitz. There were descriptions of what people really felt about rationing, about evacuees, about “Uncle Joe” Stalin.
That dank room contained the hundreds of re
Source: NYT
Jun 20, 2008
The border war over Indian Head Rock, the mossy eight-ton lump of sandstone that has divided Ohio and Kentucky, got serious on Thursday.
For months, Kentucky officials have been angry at Steve Shaffer, the Ohio historian who last year raised the boulder from the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and took it to Portsmouth, Ohio, where it now sits in a city garage. On Thursday, a Kentucky grand jury indicted him.
The state is charging Mr. Shaffer, 51, with the removal of an
Source: NYT
Jun 19, 2008
The centennial milestones of an important author offer an opportunity to look again at a life's work, to observe how well it has fared over the past 100 years and to consider the relevancy it might have as a new century begins. This presentation of "Thomas Fuller at 400" is designed for that purpose. It includes images from 17th-century books courtesy of the New York Public Library.
Source: WaPo
Jun 19, 2008
Every time Elly Kluge's friends and colleagues ask what happened last week at the Advanced Placement European history test grading session in Colorado, the 67-year-old Arlington County history teacher says: "I was sent home early because I am a terrorist."
That is not quite accurate, Kluge acknowledges, but she loves saying it because she wants to make a point.
Kluge is one of the most experienced AP history teachers and graders in the Washington area, but Edu
Source: Lawrence Freedman at the website of the Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH blog)
Jun 19, 2008
This is book is about the trials and tribulations of a superpower trying to operate in an unusually fractious part of the world. It started with a simple aim, which was to try to explain what was going on the Middle East to people who found the situation confusing (in the first instance, my daughter during the 2006 Lebanon war). I soon realized that the trouble with this simple aim was that the story had many distinct but intertwining strands, and that one—Iran, Iraq or Israel—could not be under
Source: HNN Staff
Jun 19, 2008
The conservative NY Sun has published two reviews of Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. The first review, published at the end of May, was glowing:
You don't have to agree with everything in this monumental account of politics in the 1960s and 1970s to find Rick Perlstein's"Nixonland" (Scribner, 896 pages, $37.50) interesting and even engrossing. The book is a masterful retelling of t
Source: Two powerhouse political historians battle it out in The New Republic
Jun 19, 2008
[Sean Wilentz is the author of The Age Of Reagan and contributing editor for The New Republic. Rick Perlstein is the author of Nixonland.]
From: Sean Wilentz
To: Rick Perlstein
Dear Rick,
Congratulations on your fat and sassy new book. Because you thoughtfully sent me a galley, I got to have an advance look--and have been going through it again with renewed pleasure. I'm particularly taken with how the book interweaves events: always with the
Source: Michael Oren in an op ed in the WSJ
Jun 19, 2008
... The Egyptian-brokered cease-fire yields Hamas greater benefits than it might have obtained in direct negotiations. In exchange for giving its word to halt rocket attacks and weapons smuggling, Hamas receives the right to monitor the main border crossings into Gaza and to enforce a truce in the West Bank, where Fatah retains formal control.
If quiet is maintained, then Israel will be required to accept a cease-fire in the West Bank as well. The blockade will be incrementally lift
Source: IHT
Jun 18, 2008
French linguist and historian Tzvetan Todorov has won a social sciences prize in Spain. The Prince of Asturias Foundation says it is honoring Bulgarian-born Todorov for his work on such issues as development of democracy, understanding among cultures and the impact of violence on collective memory.The social sciences award is one of eight that the Prince of Asturias Foundation hands out each year. Others include letters, communication, sports and scientific research.
Source: Linda Mamoun in the Nation
Jun 17, 2008
"It's important not to view history as a mere creature of geopolitical forces. Popular resistance has altered the course of history. The decolonization movement, the antiapartheid movement, the movements to free the peoples of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination are all examples of struggles that seemed to defy the geopolitical structures that existed." --Richard Falk
In the course of a scholarly life that has spanned more than five decades and includes fifty-four books and dozens more a
Source: http://www.af.mil/news
Jun 17, 2008
Air Force History and Museums Program officials annually recognize excellence in history programs, historical publications and heritage projects, and award commendable work by military and civilian personnel for outstanding performance or achievement, both as individuals or teams.
Two Excellence in Wing History Program Awards recognize historians who have provided superior historical services to their units and have submitted an outstanding periodic history during the past calendar
Source: Times (UK)
Jun 17, 2008
For some it was a chance to audition as the President’s ghostwriter after he leaves office. For others it was an opportunity to ponder how future generations might see the 43rd incumbent of the White House. For a minority it was all about the Churchillian menu of beef, trifle and 1934 brandy.
Only the fancy dress was missing from Sunday night’s history-themed party inside 10 Downing Street, thrown as a final send-off for George Bush before he leaves Europe for the final time as Pres
Source: http://news.enquirer.com (Cincinnati)
Jun 17, 2008
Jane Acomb Leake, professor emerita of medieval history at UC's Raymond Walters College, died June 6 at the Alois Alzheimer's Center here.
She was 79.
"She was one of the most intelligent people I've ever known," her husband, Lowell, said. "She loved to teach."
Dr. Leake started out as an instructor of historic literature at UC's College of Design, Art and Architecture in 1959, her husband said. "She taught there for about three yea
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com
Jun 16, 2008
Historian Dr. Rivka Shpak-Lissak has embarked on an ambitious project, detailing the history of Jewish towns in the Land of Israel that are now known as Arab. Seven of her articles in this series have appeared on the Omedia website, and she has many more coming.
The bottom line, Dr. Lissak told Israel National News, is that the Arabs have not been here for thousands of years, as they claim, and that in fact most of the formerly Jewish towns of the Galilee were populated by Arabs on
