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: New York Times
Jan 23, 2021
Historians disagree whether Trump surpasses the awfulness of Buchanan or Andrew Johnson, but a roster of them consulted by the Times agrees he was terrible.
Source: The Intercept
Jan 23, 2021
Historians Robin D.G. Kelley and Greg Grandin discuss the historical relationship between white supremacy and political violence in the US.
Source: New York Times
Jan 23, 2021
Nicole Hemmer argues that Joe Biden appears more willing to pledge action on racial equity than Barack Obama was; it remains to be seen if Biden can avoid a backlash from conservatives.
Source: The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow
Jan 22, 2021
A discussion of the continued relevance of Confederate Lost Cause mythology in the January 6 Capitol riots.
Source: History
Jan 20, 2021
Alan Osur and Todd Moye help tell the story of the efforts of the Tuskegee Airmen to integrate military recreational facilities in 1944.
Source: Public Books
Jan 20, 2021
A panel of scholars discusses the concept of cross-racial solidarity and the prospects of creating powerful coalitions of the disempowered.
Source: American Historical Association
Jan 20, 2021
“Written hastily in one month after two desultory and tendentious ‘hearings,’” the AHA writes, “without any consultation with professional historians of the United States, the report fails to engage a rich and vibrant body of scholarship that has evolved over the last seven decades."
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Jan 20, 2021
David Blight and Lindsay Stallones Marshall argue that the report's purpose is purely political and will result in further degradation of the public capacity to judge facts and evidence.
Source: The New Republic
Jan 20, 2021
"No figure represents the hollowness of American exceptionalism quite like Donald Trump—which only makes it fitting that his presidency is ending with a pathetic and incoherent effort to rage against the death of American exceptionalism."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Jan 19, 2021
“I’m not sure Collin College has grasped how little control they legally have over faculty speech of private citizens,” L.D. Burnett tweeted. “They will learn.”
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2021
Historians of the Republican Party, US foreign policy, the media, and other specialties predict what Trump's key legacies will be.
Source: New York Times
Jan 19, 2021
Nicole Hemmer, David Blight, Geoffrey Kabaservice, and Adam Laats place the 1776 Commission report in the context of longstanding political and cultural battles over historical narrative.
Source: The Metropole
Jan 19, 2021
A review of Eric Hinderaker's new book "Boston's Massacre" highlights the shifting narrative of the events and their place in the national story, and the perpetually unanswered conflict between limits of authority and those of popular protest.
Source: Washington Post
Jan 19, 2021
by Gillian Brockell
Washington Post "Retropolis" writer Gillian Brockell has a roundup of remarks by historians on the contents of the 1776 Commission document, featuring Jim Grossman, Eric Rauchway, Ibram X. Kendi, Alexis Coe, Kali Nicole Gross, Kevin M. Kruse, Sean Wilentz, Kevin M. Levin, and Adam Rothman.
Source: Keeping Democracy Alive
Jan 19, 2021
Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up" joins Burt Cohen's podcast to discuss the history and future of calls to break up the United States.
Source: The Baffler
Jan 18, 2021
Writer Matt Stieb examines the cultural reaction to the first Gulf War by studying the topical t-shirts of the day. Blithely invoked violence and casual bigotry silkscreened on cheap fabric should be a reminder of the cruelty inherent in war.
Source: Washington Post
Jan 18, 2021
Political historians Joseph Crespino, Matthew Dallek and Douglas Brinkley discuss the implications for democracy of Trump's substantial support and the likelihood that the record of his presidency will be controlled by allies and shaped by unreliable narrators.
Source: New York Times
Jan 18, 2021
Clayborne Carson, the founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute is part of a roundup of scholars and activists who point to King's speeches other than 1963's "I Have a Dream" as guiding lights for our time.
Source: The New Yorker
Jan 18, 2021
Historian Kathleen Belew notes the continuities in far-right and white power culture that have endured since the 1970s and were on display in the Capitol riot.
Source: Salon
Jan 18, 2021
by Mary Louise Wells
Republicans who continued to contest the legitimacy of the election after the Capitol riots should consider the German example, which shows the potential for disaster if people accept authoritarianism out of expediency.
