Recently Published

Channelling George Washington: Don't Let Afghanistan Turn Into Another South Vietnam

by Thomas Fleming

“Here we go again.”        The curt tone, the abrupt remark, got my attention.  “Go where, exactly?”  I asked.“We’re on our way to another betrayal.”“Betrayal of whom?”“Our allies in Afghanistan.  On June 6, the 67th anniversary of D-Day, headlines blossomed in numerous newspapers, reporting the Obama administration had come up with two wonderful reasons why we can look forward to a “steeper pullout” from Afghanistan.”

A Brief History of Opposition to Public-Sector Unionism

by Steve Fraser and Joshua B. Freeman

There is nothing new about opposition to public-sector unionism.  It has been a feature of American life for over one hundred years.  But in some ways, the current wave of anti-unionism is a departure. Three different eras of opposition to public-sector unionism, including the current one, have been distinguished by distinct core arguments against collective bargaining for public employees.

Why President Obama Must Replace Arne Duncan If He Hopes to Win Re-Election

by Mark Naison

Barack Obama's 2008 campaign inspired a spirit of sacrifice and idealism that I had not seen among close friends since the early days of the Civil Right Movement.  My upstairs neighbors, both in their mid-seventies, camped out in Virginia a week before the election to help get out the vote in that state.  My best friend and his wife did the same in Florida.  At least ten people in my circle took regular trips to Pennsylvania and Ohio on weekends to help move those “swing states” into the Democratic camp.

When It Comes to Community History, Charter Schools Are Missing in Action

by Mark Naison

For the last ten years, I have had the privilege of leading one of the most exciting community history projects in the nation, the Bronx African American History Project.  It is a collaboration between faculty in Fordham Department of African and African American Studies and community-based scholars, has, in that short time, conducted more than three hundred oral history interviews.  They have told the story of vibrant black neighborhoods in the Bronx never previously written about,

The Globalization of History

by Rick Shenkman

Two decades ago the internationalization of history was so new a phenomenon that the leader of the American Historical Association thought it worth noting in his presidential address that some 500 members of the organization now had overseas mailing addresses. (Today the number is 1,033.) Since then internationalization has proceeded apace.

The Emptying of Yemen

by Daniel Pipes

For the first time in its exceedingly long history, Yemen now threatens the outside world. It does so in two principal ways.

Lessons From History and From Japan’s March 11 Earthquake and Tsunami

by Gregory Smits

It is my pleasure to introduce the interview with Lori Dengler, “Tracking the Destructive Power Of the Pacific Ocean’s Tsunamis,” conducted by Yale Environment 360 on March 22, 2011, eleven days after the March 11 Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami.

Hating Boomers: America’s Last Acceptable Prejudice

by Leonard Steinhorn

So now we can finally point the finger at those truly responsible for the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. No, it’s not the priests who actually exploited the young children entrusted to them. Nor is it the bishops themselves, many of whom looked the other way and willfully ignored the signs of dysfunction in their church.

War and Intrigue Before the Feast: Author Jennet Conant on Julia Child and Company in the OSS

by Robin Lindley

Remembering the Marshall Plan in the Arab Spring

by William Lambers

It was on June 5th, 1947 when Secretary of State George Marshall took to the podium at Harvard University's graduation ceremonies.  In his speech, Marshall proposed a European recovery program for nations lying in ruin from World War II. He said, "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos.  Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist."

Memorial Day in Mountain View Cemetery

by Vaughn Davis Bornet

We are met in the beautiful open air of Ashland, Oregon on Memorial Day, 2011.  We are gathered for a variety of reasons, but it is safe to say that every person here feels a sense of obligation.It is our duty, every one of us, to remember all who braved danger while wearing the uniform of the armed forces of our Nation.  Especially, we honor those who gave their lives when serving our Country, the missing, and all who were wounded.

Comparing Chernobyl and Fukushima

by Matthew Penney and Mark Selden

On April 12, 2011 the Japanese government officially announced that the severity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster had reached level 7, the highest on the International Nuclear Event Scale.  Before Fukushima, the only level 7 case was the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, whose twenty-fifth anniversary was marked on April 26.  Two and a half months after the 3/11 catastrophe, the first to affect multiple reactors, TEPCO and the Japanese government continue to struggle to bring the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi under control.

Writing History in an Age of Inequality

by Jefferson Cowie

Ass-Backwards in the Middle East

by Ira Chernus

Tuches aufn tish: Buttocks on the table. That’s the colorful way my Yiddish-speaking ancestors said, “Let’s cut the BS and talk about honest truth.”  It seems like a particularly apt expression after a week watching the shadow-boxing between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that brought no tangible progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Channelling George Washington: How Kentucky Stayed in the Union

by Thomas Fleming

The Money Trail in Education Reform Leads to Everyone But Those Who Need It The Most

by Mark Naison

In the last ten years, tens of billions of dollars have been spent to reform America’s schools—some of it coming from the federal Department of Education, some of it from state legislatures, some of it from private foundations.  This money has gone to fund research on Common Core Standards, to close failing schools and open up new ones, to create new protocols for assessing schools and teachers, to create new batteries of tests to evaluate students learning, to bring management consultants into school systems and in some cases into individual schools and to fund charter schools and edu

Preserving History at the U.S. National Library of Medicine

by Kristi Davenport, Peter Gabriele, Stephen Greenberg, Holly Herro, Christie Moffatt, Paul Theerman, and Jeffrey S. Reznick

Memorial Day prompts us to remember and honor those men and women who fought and died in the line of battle.  It is also an occasion to remember that history fades:  that the material which holds and conveys our knowledge, experiences, and memories—printed books and journals, hand-written documents, photographic images, films of various formats—are all subject to the laws of nature.

Thicker than Water: Dr. Holly Tucker on Blood, Medicine and the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s

by Robin Lindley

We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language. Joyce Carol Oates

The Last Cavalry Charge in U.S. History

by Peter F. Stevens

“Mount up!”

How Hate Groups Influenced Racist Killer Joseph Paul Franklin

by Mel Ayton