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: Charlotte Allen in the Weekly Standard
Jun 2, 2008
Standing before an audience of about 25 academics, all professors and graduate students specializing in the Middle Ages, in a chilly classroom on the vast campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Jeff Persels, a lanky associate professor of French and director of European studies at the University of South Carolina, was reading aloud a scholarly paper at the 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies. The paper's title was "The Wine in the Urine: Managing Human Waste in Fren
Source: Press Release--Washington College
Jun 2, 2008
MOUNT VERNON, Va. – The fourth annual $50,000 George Washington Book Prize, honoring the most important new book about America’s founding era, was awarded at Mount Vernon on May 29 to Marcus Rediker for The Slave Ship: A Human History (Viking, 2007). In this bicentennial year of the abolition of the slave trade, Rediker – a prize-winning author who chairs the history department at the University of Pittsburgh – was honored for his definitive and painfully evocative account of the floating pri
Source: Seattle Times
Jun 1, 2008
Rick Perlstein’s new book, “Nixonland,” is the “It” history book of this publishing season. The Chicago historian’s 800-plus-page account of how Richard Nixon stoked and exploited the political divisions of the ’60s has struck a nerve, as analysts argue over whether “Nixonland” — a country at war with itself — still resides in the heart of the U.S. of A.
In the New York Times “Nixonland” review, conservative commentator George H. Will protested that “The nation portrayed in Perlstei
Source: Clark Hoyt in the NYT
Jun 1, 2008
ON May 12, The Times published an Op-Ed article by Edward N. Luttwak, a military historian, who argued that any hopes that a President Barack Obama might improve relations with the Muslim world were unrealistic because Muslims would be “horrified” once they learned that Obama had abandoned the Islam of his father and embraced Christianity as a young adult.
Under “Muslim law as it is universally understood,” Luttwak wrote, Obama was born a Muslim, and his “conversion” to Christianity
Source: Thomas Fleming in http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org
May 30, 2008
In his latest book [Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World], Patrick J. Buchanan has confronted one of the dominant historical myths of the 20th century, the myth of “the last good war” and the heroic British Prime Minister who not only rallied his nation to victory but, unlike Franklin Roosevelt, refused to be taken in by the schemes of Joseph Stalin. In describing this consensus of history teachers, editorialists, and History Channel
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 30, 2008
Cambridge classics students have been tested on the best-selling biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, a professor at the prestigious university has disclosed.
Prof Mary Beard said she also made her third-year pupils read tabloid newspapers and transcripts of the notorious "Squidgygate" and "Camillagate" tapes, which revealed intimate details of the princess and the Prince of Wales's extra-marital affairs, for a course about ancient Roman history.
T
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 30, 2008
When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled at a news conference in April 2006, it made headlines around the world — with nearly all of those articles touting the new and improved Judas. "In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal," read the headline in The New York Times. The British paper The Guardian called it "a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history." A documentary that aired a few days later on National Geographic's cable channel also pushed the Juda
Source: Ronald Radosh in the New York Sun
May 29, 2008
In "The Age of Reagan" (HarperCollins, 564 pages, $27.95), Mr. Wilentz seeks to assure his readers that he has strived to lay aside his personal views, and to judge "the past scrupulously" by engaging in "a willing suspension of [his] own beliefs." This reader is glad to report that, in this study of the Reagan presidency and its impact on America, Mr. Wilentz achieves this aim, for the most part — although at times, he does drift into the type of anti-Reagan attack
Source: National Post
May 29, 2008
The weekly seminars on American history at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex have become so popular, the penitentiary has moved the classes to a larger venue.
It might have something to do with the teacher: Conrad Black.
Sources said the former press baron, who began serving a 6 and a half year prison sentence on March 3 at the prison located 85 Kilometres northwest of Orlando, Fla., is said to be teaching to a "full house," which includes prison staff
Source: Ascribe
May 29, 2008
CHARLOTTESVILLE, May 29 (AScribe Newswire) -- Take a headline from today's news, add three prominent American historians, give them each a microphone, and listen to their lively conversation as they provide the context that helps you understand just how we got from there to here. That's the premise of a new public radio show from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, based at the University of Virginia. It's called "BackStory with the American History Guys," and it begins airing
Source: Boston Globe
May 29, 2008
It's like appointing a non-Jewish German to teach Holocaust studies, but Clark University has already done that.
The Worcester school recently named a Turkish historian to be chairman of Armenian genocide studies.
Taner Akçam, who was imprisoned in Turkey in the 1970s for his work on the slaughter of Armenians at the end of the Ottoman period in Turkey, was selected over several candidates of Armenian descent to hold the Armenian genocide studies post and to become an a
Source: Independent (UK)
May 29, 2008
Art history took Peter Tomory all over the world, just as earlier Scots expatriates travelled as engineers and medical men in the service of Empire. Indeed, because his father was in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Tomory was born in Hong Kong and partly brought up in India. He was at school near London, and regular visits to the Tate and British Museum, as well as one to the Alte Pinakothek gallery in Munich while on a skiing trip in 1938, kindled his interest in art history.
The Sec
Source: Steve Plaut at frontpagemag.com
May 29, 2008
HNN EDITOR 6/2/08: A review of the comments posted on this link required that we close the discussion board, which featured numerous statements in violation of our civility rules.
[Steven Plaut is a professor at the Graduate School of the Business Administration at the University of Haifa and is a columnist for the Jewish Press. A collection of his commentaries on the current events in Israel can be found on his "blog" at www.
Source: Bill Steigerwald at Frontpagemag.com
May 29, 2008
Victor Davis Hanson, a former classics professor, is a renowned conservative scholar of ancient history and military affairs who's recently become a nationally syndicated columnist and blogger. The author of 17 books with titles like "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War," "An Autumn of War" and "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming," he is the senior fellow in residence in classics and military history at the Hoover Institutio
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 29, 2008
For the third time in four years, Britain’s main faculty union has passed a resolution questioning the appropriateness of ties between scholars in the United Kingdom and those in Israel. While the measure adopted on a voice vote Wednesday does not formally call for a boycott of Israeli universities — as earlier measures have — it singles out for consideration the idea of isolating Israeli universities, and the measure was pushed by British academics who have previously called for a boycott.
Source: http://www.projo.com
May 29, 2008
A brain disorder drove historian Edward Renehan Jr. to record an album with folk legend Pete Seeger, work with New York publishers and write six books, including one on the Kennedys, the author says.
But that same illness ---- diagnosed last year as bipolar disorder ---- may have pushed Renehan to steal and sell rare letters written by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, a federal crime that could send him to jail or force him to pay up to $250,000 in fines.
In federal cou
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 28, 2008
In the latest sign of scholars’ anxiety about Pentagon-financed social-science research, the president of the American Anthropological Association has sent a letter to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget expressing concern about the “Minerva consortium,” a program announced last month by Robert M. Gates, the secretary of defense.
The Minerva program, which will offer grants to universities to study topics of interest to the Pentagon, has been condemned by some scholars
Source: Donald Keene in Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan, his memoir published by Oxford University Press (2008)
May 28, 2008
The most memorable celebrity I met was undoubtedly Greta Garbo. She was a close friend of Jane Gunther, the wife of the famous journalist John Gunther….
Garbo had been in retirement for many years, but she was still remembered as the greatest of the film actresses. One day I had a telephone call from Jane asking if I would take Garbo to the theatre. Of course I eagerly accepted. The play was “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
Before the play Garbo hardly spoke and during the in
Source: Press Release--Unite Here
May 27, 2008
The Sidney Hillman Foundation Journalism Awards honor journalism that explores the issues of social and economic justice. The award categories for 2008 include: Books (non-fiction), Newspaper Reporting, Magazine Reporting, Broadcast Reporting (television and radio), Photojournalism, and Blogs. The 2008 awards are given for work produced, published or exhibited in 2007.
Each winner is provided travel to the awards presentation, a statuette, and a $5,000 prize.
Submission
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 27, 2008
The news appeared in the blogosphere late last fall: Columbia University had reportedly denied the tenure bid of Joseph A. Massad, a Palestinian-American scholar at the university.
"Raise your cup," Paula Stern, a Jewish American who blogs from Israel, wrote last November. "Joseph Massad will not remain at Columbia University."
But six months later, Mr. Massad—an associate professor of Arab politics in Columbia's embattled department of Middle East a
