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: NPR
Dec 6, 2020
Books on investigating crimes of racial terror during the civil rights era, the decline of hitchhiking in American culture, Afghan Islamic extremism, and the importance of Richard Wagner in the world of music are recommended by NPR's Book Concierge.
Source: New York Times
Dec 6, 2020
Times Columnist Charles M. Blow looks to scholars including historian Jim Downs to examine mistrust among Black Americans of a potential COVID vaccine; medical authorities have abused the trust and violated the consent of Black patients too often in the past for those fears to be dismissed out of hand.
Source: New York Labor History
Dec 6, 2020
Historian Michael Koncewicz reviews a new book on the notorious "Hard Hat Riot," when a mob of construction workers and Wall Street traders attacked antiwar protesters; the incident remains a touchstone for thinking about the politics of class and the culture war.
Source: Washington Post
Dec 5, 2020
Rick Perlstein suggests that the Republicans' unwillingness to condemn Trump's wild theories about a stolen election are part of a historical pattern of fear that if the electorate expands Republicans will be lose. The theories won't overturn this election, but they will be used to justify future restrictions on the ballot.
Source: Los Angeles Review of Books
Dec 5, 2020
by Nicholas Utzig
A consideration of Gregory Daddis's book "Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines."
Source: Washington Post
Dec 5, 2020
by Gillian Brockell
The most serious effort to abolish the Electoral College followed George Wallace's third party bid in 1968, when both major parties realized that a spoiler candidate could throw the election to the House of Representatives and extort political concessions for electoral votes. Southern conservatives, happy with the leverage the system gave them, blocked the amendment in the Senate.
Source: USA Today
Dec 5, 2020
Film historians suggest the new Netflix drama overstates Frank Mankiewicz's influence over the final form of "Citizen Kane" and takes some other liberties with the facts.
Source: Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
Dec 5, 2020
A longtime Virginia political observer suggests that there is more to learn by considering Woodrow Wilson's complex social views and political legacy than by taking his clear racism as reason to hide him from sight.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Dec 4, 2020
"Robert J. Ferry, associate professor of history and chair of Boulder’s Faculty Assembly, said that he hadn’t been involved in any discussions about the proposal thus far but that future consideration 'needs to have full involvement of the faculty'."
Source: National Geographic
Dec 4, 2020
Rumors that Donald Trump has considered offering preemptive pardons to his children and inner circle of advisors prompt a consideration of the history of the pardon power.
Source: Christianity Today
Dec 4, 2020
A reviewer of Peter Manseau's new book "The Jefferson Bible" finds it a valuable account of Jefferson's position in the conflict between religious orthodoxy and freedom of conscience and belief, but was less impressed with TJ's editing job, which produced a joyless text.
Source: Montgomery Advertiser
Dec 3, 2020
Edward Ayers and Kevin M. Levin are cited in a discussion of the gradual turn of Alabama's history curriculum away from the Lost Cause mythology and apologetics for slavery.
Source: New York Times
Dec 3, 2020
A new documentary examines the lives of both the great singer and the filmmaker who died suddenly while working on a documentary of Billie Holliday's life.
Source: National History Center and Woodrow Wilson Center
Dec 3, 2020
The Washington History Seminar and the Woodrow Wilson Center host Mira Siegelberg for a discussion of her book "Statelessness: A Modern History" on Monday, Dec. 7 at 4:00 PM.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Dec 3, 2020
A recent eruption of dissention in UCLA's African American Studies department arguably reflects the strains caused by poor institutional support by the university, an issue faced by Black Studies departments on many campuses.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Dec 2, 2020
Books assessing the culpability of ordinary Germans for Nazi crimes, the allied firebombing of Dresden, the battle for Okinawa, and the mind of Adolf Hitler are among the Monitor's choices for the year's best books on World War II.
Source: The New Yorker
Dec 2, 2020
The use of the German film "Downfall" in internet memes points to the danger of treating Hitler's demise as a closure to the murderous ideologies he propagated.
Source: Lexington Courier-Journal
Dec 2, 2020
Professor Bruce Holle of the University of Kentucky was a "student magnet" during his 45-year career. He passed away due to complications of COVID-19 on November 30.
Source: New York Times
Dec 2, 2020
Professor Hackett was noted for translating "The Buchenwald Report," made by German-speaking US military officers who described in detail their findings at the liberated concentration camp, preserving a key document for the fight against Holocaust denialism. He died of complications of the coronavirus.
Source: Jackson Clarion-Ledger
Dec 2, 2020
Contemporary historians look back on the long struggle to unseat the "Lost Cause" myth and other white supremacist ideas from the state's history curriculum that began with the introduction of "Mississippi: Conflict and Change" to state high schools in 1980.
