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: Eric Alterman in the Nation
May 5, 2008
If you spent your pre-Passover Saturday morning, as I did, in synagogue reading Leviticus 14:1, you may have heard that Midrashic preachers used to enjoy creating puns on the word metzora, which means leper, and motzira, which means gossip or slander. Talmudic sage Rabbi Yosi ben Zimra has God addressing the tongue itself: "What else could I have done to rein you in, O tongue of deceit?" He asks.
One need not look far in our culture to grasp the relevance. In a recent New
Source: Kevin Phillips in the WaPo review of Wilentz's new book, The Age of Reagan
May 4, 2008
[Kevin Phillips is the author, most recently, of "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism."]
Despite its heft, this book is too short. That is because the subject matter -- U.S. political history -- is so sweeping and the period dealt with -- nearly four decades -- is so long.
The title of Sean Wilentz's book grandly proclaims 1974 to 2008 as the Age of Reagan. But he notes right away that, absent Watergate, th
Source: John Mearsheimer, writing at Mondoweiss (blog)
May 4, 2008
Make sure you read David Margolick's review of the new Benny Morris book in the NYT Book Review section today. It is another shocking piece, given how much we now know about 1948.
First, he talks about "the dramaticall
Source: NYT Book Review
May 4, 2008
Jonathan Spence has been a familiar figure on the Yale campus since the university granted his doctoral degree in 1965. He began teaching there the following year and still offers one of the most popular undergraduate courses, on the history of modern China.
A prolific author and reviewer, recognized as a leading Western authority on China, Spence has written books on significant figures in its history from the K’ang-Hsi emperor to Chairman Mao, as well as studies of less prominent
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
May 3, 2008
Robert Goldberg, a 28-year member of the University of Utah's history faculty and one of the school's most popular professors, has been named the winner of the [$40,000] Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence, the U.'s most prestigious honor.
The author of nine books on history, Goldberg directs the Tanner Humanities Center and has already garnered plenty of teaching accolades, including being a three-time winner of the U.'s students choice award. ...
His scholarly intere
Source: Toronto Star
May 3, 2008
Not long ago, Dick Cheney took time out from his U.S. vice-presidential duties to school the media on the lessons of history.
The determination of George W. Bush and his administration to invade Iraq, Cheney told a network TV reporter, will one day be vindicated by historians, in the same way that former president Gerald Ford's decision to pardon his Watergate-plagued predecessor, Richard Nixon, is now favourably regarded.
Hmm. Even if we concede there is a possibility,
Source: Independent (UK)
May 3, 2008
In the small world of the history of science and mathematics, D.T. Whiteside, Emeritus Professor of the History of Mathematics and the Exact Sciences at Cambridge University, was a towering figure. He was one of the most profound and exacting scholars produced by Britain in the second half of the 20th century. Tom Whiteside's central work – and what would have been for anyone else a lifetime's labour – was the publication of an edition of the mathematical papers of Isaac Newton.
New
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 3, 2008
Foreign libel judgments against American authors may not be enforced in New York, under legislation signed on Thursday, The New York Sun reports.
The new law, the Libel Terrorism Reform Act, was introduced in response to a $225,000 judgment in Britain against Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy.
Ms. Ehrenfeld’s book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It (Bonus Books) accuses Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker, of channel
Source: Ben Fenton in the Financial Times
May 3, 2008
... The e-mail I received from a colleague in June 2005 should not have come as a surprise. He was asking me to investigate allegations that a British intelligence agent had, on the orders of Winston Churchill, murdered Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, in 1945.
The claims, which besmirched the reputation of Britain and its wartime prime minister, were made in a book called Himmler's Secret War by Martin Allen. It was his third book about Britain's relationship with the Naz
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
May 2, 2008
On April 30, 2008, the National Coalition for History (NCH) submitted testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government on the fiscal year 2009 budgets for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). NCH urged that the NHPRC be funded at the fully authorized level of $10 million, plus an additional $2 million for administrative costs. NCH also called for any funding
Source: http://bupipedream.com
May 2, 2008
New York City is the ideal example of how humans respond to urbanization, said a professor from Columbia University yesterday during a lecture at Binghamton University.
On Thursday evening about 70 students and community members attended “Empire City,” a lecture by Kenneth T. Jackson, Ph.D., a professor of history and the social sciences, Jackson spoke about what makes New York City different from the rest of the United States.
Although all major American cities are div
Source: NYT
May 2, 2008
Charles Tilly, a social scientist who combined historical interpretation and quantitative analysis in a voluminous outpouring of work to forge often novel intellectual interpretations — as when he compared nation states to protection rackets — died on Tuesday in the Bronx. He was 78
The cause was lymphoma, said John H. Tucker, a spokesman for Columbia University, where Dr. Tilly was the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science.
Dr. Tilly mined immense piles of
Source: http://www.starexponent.com
May 2, 2008
Inside a peaked white tent on the grounds of President James Madison’s vast green plantation, all eyes were on premier historian David McCullough, an award-winning writer, a commanding public speaker and host of The American Experience on PBS.
The warm air did not move as a captivated crowd of more than 100 hung on his every word, absorbing a message that history is not just politics, war or social issues.
History is also about music and literature, laws and finance, M
Source: LAT
May 2, 2008
When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.
But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to “defend” the U.S. and
Source: Benny Morris in a letter to the Irish Times
May 1, 2008
ISRAEL-HATERS are fond of citing my work in support of their arguments.
Let me offer some corrections. In defiance of the will of the
international community, as embodied in the UN General Assembly resolution
of November 29, 1947, (Palestinian Arabs) launched hostilities against the
Jewish community in Palestine in the hope of aborting the emergence of the
Jewish state and perhaps destroying that community. But they lost; and one
of the results was the displacement of 700,000 of them from
Source: Scott Horton IN Harpers
May 1, 2008
Sidney Blumenthal has written for The New Republic, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and most recently served as Washington editor to Salon.com and as a contributor to The Guardian. He is one of America’s foremost political commentators, and also has a noteworthy track-record of political engagement. He served as an assistant and senior advisor to President Bill Clinton and is currently a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton. He was also executive producer for the Oscar Award-wi
Source: Daniel Pipes Blog
May 1, 2008
Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute began a debate with me on the subject of lawful Islamists in a June 2007 piece titled"Pipes v. Gershman," to which I responded on July 6, 2007 at"When Conservatives Argue about Islam." Muravchik initiated a second round in February 2008 with an article (co-authored with Charles P. Szrom),"
Source: Press Release--American Enterprise Institute
May 1, 2008
The limitations of America's land forces is the most pressing defense issue
facing the next administration. In Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power
(AEI Press, May 2008), defense and security policy scholars Thomas Donnelly and
Frederick W. Kagan call for a new and significantly different land force--not
only larger, but restructured, retrained, and reequipped.
After closely analyzing U.S. security interests and strategy, and carefully
examining the emerging nature of land warf
Source: Efraim Karsh at the website of NY Sun
May 1, 2008
[Mr. Karsh is head of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Studies at King’s College, University of London, and author of “Fabricating Israeli History: The ‘New Historians.’”]
Benny Morris, the Israeli “new historian,” probably doesn’t know it, but it was his book on “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem” (1987) that led me more than a decade ago to temporarily shelve my research into the history of Islam and the Middle East and join the debate on the origin of the Israeli-Pales
Source: Ross Douthat in the Atlantic Monthly
May 1, 2008
[HNN Editor: Rick Perlstein's Nixonland is the HNN Book of the Month for April 2008.]
Seven years ago, Rick Perlstein, a young and decidedly left-wing historian, accomplished a daring feat: he imagined his way into the hearts and minds of the right-wing idealists who made Goldwaterite conservatism one of the most successful mass movements of the 1960s. The result was Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consens
