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: Atlas Obscura
Dec 15, 2020
The first cohort of Black women to serve in the US Navy were enlisted as reservists to fill shortages in the service's clerical workforce. At the time, the nation's climate of racism forced them to keep a low profile. A researcher compiling a book about the "Golden Fourteen" mined family history to learn about their service.
Source: NPR
Dec 15, 2020
Historian Robert Dallek interprets Franklin Roosevelt's core challenge at inauguration as producing a program of reform to stabilize the economy without indulging the currents of authoritarianism sweeping Europe.
Source: Mississippi Free Press
Dec 15, 2020
University of Mississippi historian Garrett Felber was notified that his tenure-track position will be terminated in one year. His research addressed the politics of racism and mass incarceration and connected to activism on behalf of incarcerated people. Colleagues suspect that donors to the university pushed for his termination.
Source: The Atlantic
Dec 15, 2020
by Daniel Yergin
The author of a book on the dispute over control of the South China sea examines four critical decisionmakers whose actions shaped the present conflict.
Source: National Council on Public History
Dec 15, 2020
by Nick Sacco
The curtailment of in-person programming at national parks due to COVID is a great occasion for the parks system to undertake deep consideration of the issue of accessibility in its programs and facilities.
Source: The Atlantic
Dec 15, 2020
Facebook isn't exactly like they hypothetical "Doomsday Machine" theorized by Cold War nuclear deterrence experts. But its vast scope and capacity to distribute misinformation faster than in can be detected and corrected mean that lessons from the philosophy of nuclear annihilation are apt for understandign the danger of the social media giants.
Source: The Nation
Dec 14, 2020
Sara Mayeux's history of public defenders shows how the liberal reform movement that established a system to provide counsel to the poor buttressed the systemic slant of the justice system against them.
Source: New York Times
Dec 14, 2020
Times columnist Michelle Goldberg checks on competing evaluations from scholars including Corey Robin, Roger Griffin and Robert O. Paxton – did Trump's lack of command of the machinery of government make him a play-acting authoritarian, or was his rhetoric of national regeneration through his personal leadership exemplary of fascist movements?
Source: New York Times
Dec 14, 2020
As long as there is political hay to be made by politicizing the cultural preferences of different groups of Americans and stoking politics of grievance over them, don't expect the tone and temper of American politics to calm down once Trump is gone; Kevin Kruse an Julian Zelizer's book "Fault Lines" is suggested reading on the subject.
Source: Washington Post
Dec 14, 2020
Julian Zelizer argues that the whole Washington Republican establishment has been involved in a dangerous effort to undermine faith in the election, even after the Electoral College has cast its votes and given Joe Biden a winning total.
Source: The Atlantic
Dec 14, 2020
The anthropologist James Suzman's book evaluates the ravages of modern capitalist civilization – in particular, the institution of work – on individual and collective psychology.
Source: New York Times
Dec 13, 2020
Medical historian Michael Willrich says that the prospect of smartphone-based credentialing to demonstrate an individual has been vaccinated is potentially invasive of privacy and the control of health data by private interests.
Source: Capital Times (Madison, WI)
Dec 13, 2020
The author of "Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago" argues that the police resist reform because they are, in fact, operating in line with their historical mission of protecting a hierarchical society.
Source: Washington Post
Dec 13, 2020
Folklorist Ashley Minner is collecting artifacts and documentation of the Lumbee community in Baltimore, a large and vital community of urban Native Americans that has had its existence obscured and erased.
Source: New York Times
Dec 13, 2020
Times Editor Jesse Wegman examines the unique absence of majoritarian principle in the election of the American president and argues it goes against the most basic understanding of political fairness.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Dec 13, 2020
Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up," argues that calls for secession have been a regular feature of American political life, though they usually amount to criticism instead of action.
Source: JStor Daily
Dec 12, 2020
The revision of myths of Spanish heritage under Franco was rapid and broad, showing how critical those myths were to the goals of fascist rule.
Source: Washington Post
Dec 12, 2020
Abigail Adams had justifiable fears of the primitive smallpox inoculation available in 1776, but larger fears of the disease.
Source: Texas Observer
Dec 11, 2020
Historian Cynthia E. Orozco discusses the life and legacy of the Tejana singer Selena Quintanilla as a new Netflix biographical series launches.
Source: Asheville Citizen-Times
Dec 11, 2020
Historian Tammy Ingram discusses the Dixie Highway, about which she wrote the book, as a rare project of early 20th-century highway building and tourism development that was completed.
