Recently Published

For God or for Fame? The Making of a Teenage Bomber

by Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

On November 26, Mohamed Mohamud was arrested for allegedly attempting to trigger a bomb at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Or

Remembering the Jewish Massacres in Mandate Palestine

by Edwin Black

As Israelis and Palestinians struggle with a twenty-first century peace process, the world must face the forgotten history that was so pivotal in determining the present crisis.  In many ways, a turning point was the

Channelling George Washington: The Presidency Imperiled?

by Thomas Fleming

“I haven’t been this upset in a century.”“What’s troubling you, Mr. President?”“The White House news that I—and millions of Americans—watched on TV and read about in the papers.  It’s prompted

Death, Taxes, and the American Founders

by Andrew M. Schocket

The proposed tax deal between President Obama and Congressional Republican leaders includes a revision of the federal estate (inheritance) tax.  At stake are issues as old as the nation:  individual property rights versus the democratic ethos, and the need for savings versus the need for resources for the common good.  For many of today's issues—such as Internet neutrality or nuclear disarmament—appealing to the founders seems clearly inappropriate.  But in t

What Did the Tories Want in the American Revolution?

by Thomas B. Allen

The grand story of the American Revolution forms the backdrop of today’s Tea Party, whose members tell us to look to our nation’s origin, when p

Slavery and Climate Change: Lessons to be Learned

by Jean-François Mouhot

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancunconcludes on Friday, December 10, history can teach us a few things about the surest and quickest way to achieve progress in tackling global warming.  In an interview last year about the previous UN summit, NASA's Jim Hansen suggested that only radical change would work, and that it would be better for the planet if the conference ended in collapse, rather than a flawed deal.  Hansen claimed that dealing with clima

WikiLeaks “Speaking and Writing the Truth”

by Alan Singer

Congressman Peter King (R-New York), the ranking Republican on the House of Representatives Homeland Security committee, has called the release of classified government documents by the website WikiLeaks "extremely damaging to U.S. interests" and is demanding that the attorney general prosecute WikiLeaks and its founder for violating the Espionage Act.  He also wants Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to brand WikiLeaks, whose founder is an Australian citizen, a foreign terr

The American Revolution Does Not Loom Large in the British Imagination

by Robert J. Allison

In the great sweep of British history, the rebellion of the American colonies did not cause severe damage. After the thirteen American colonies became independent, the British Empire experienced its greatest triumphs—defeating Napoleon, absorbing

Reading Other People's Mail with Wikileaks

by Lloyd C. Gardner

In 1929, Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson shut down an ongoing code-breaking operation saying, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”  Stimson has come

The Texas Past and the National Future

by John Willingham

This fading year has provided even more evidence that many Texans remain loyal to the defiance and extreme individualism that have characterized much of the state’s past.  But the year has also witnessed a convergence of Texas attitudes with those of angry people across the nation.The year 2010 gave not only the state but all of America the “history wars” of the Texas State Board of Education.  That running gunfight between moderates and social conservatives gained the attention

Channelling George Washington: The Polarization Problem

by Thomas Fleming

“Polarization, polarization!  That’s all I hear coming out of my namesake town.  If it gets any worse, I’ll start thinking everyone in Congress is planning to become Arctic or Antarctic explorers!”“

WikiLeaks Reveals a Professionalism of Recent Vintage in the History of American Diplomacy

by Stephen Chambers

The leak of a quarter million State Department dispatches has, curiously, revealed the high level of professionalism in the United States diplomatic corps.  Though embarrassing to American diplomats, the cables are valuable precisely because are filled with astute, well-informed assessments of world leaders and geopolitics.  Yet, a qualified diplomatic corps did not always exist in the United States. For the first century of U.S. history, the consular service wa

Students Need to Stop Trying to 'Catch' Experts

by Margaret MacMillan

Do you remember when you were in school and wanted to aspire to a gold star on an assignment?  In my days that meant cutting pretty pictures out of NationalGeographic, tracing a map, or ge

Wikileaks on North Korea Reveals Nothing New

by Mitch Lerner

From the perspective of the diplomatic historian, the recent Wikileaks release of confidential embassy cables is like Christmas coming early, except

Islamist Turkey vs. Secular Iran?

by Daniel Pipes

Early in the sixteenth century, as the Ottoman and Safavid empires fought for control of the Middle East, Selim the Grim ruling from Istanbul indulged his artistic side by composing distinguished poetry in Persian, then the Middle East's language of high culture. Simultaneously, Ismail I ruling from Isfahan wrote poetry in Turkish, his ancestral language.Selim the

Indians in South Africa: A Proud Tradition

by James McEnteer

Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa—South Africans of Indian descent are commemorating the arrival of the first indentured Indian workers here one hundred fifty years ago.  In November 1860, two ships brought nearly 700 laborers from India to Durban.  By 1911 more than 150,000 indentured Indian workers had landed in South Africa.   Most came to what is now the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where more than half of them worked in the sugar cane field

Humiliation in Afghanistan

by Deepak Tripathi

Never underestimate the cost of humiliation.  For in war victory is never clean—it empowers the vanquished, or their successors, to struggle in the fut

WikiLeaks and the Historical Community

by K.C. Johnson

Good historians sift through mounds of documents, identifying the critical ones and providing context for the rest. So the latest Wikileaks document dump might ha

Channelling George Washington: The Return of the Anti-Federalists

by Thomas Fleming

“What do you think of the 2010 elections?”I sensed a wry humor in our first president’s voice. “I get the feeling you’ve already formed an opinion.”“Of course.  I always enjoy elections.  It’s

Will Senate Republicans Produce Another International Disaster?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote this December on ratification of the New START Treaty, Republican legislators appear on the verge of producing a