Recently Published

More Torture, Please

by Steve Hendricks

Seventy percent of Americans believe we should commit crimes against humanity.  Not that they would put it that way.  They would say something like, in the words of a Pew poll

Remembering Generosity and Commitment this Veterans Day

by William Astore

Let's remember that America's veterans have often exhibited remarkable generosity of spirit and awe-inspiring levels of commitment.

The Lessons of the Tet Offensive for Iraq and Afghanistan

by James S. Robbins

The 1968 Tet Offensive is remembered as a critical turning point in the Vietnam War, the watershed in which major U.S. military victories on the ground were neg

The Lies of Islamophobia

by John Feffer

The Muslims were bloodthirsty and treacherous.  They conducted a sneak attack against the French army and slaughtered every single soldier, twenty thousand in all.  More than one thousand years ago, in the mountain passes of Spain, the Muslim horde cut down the finest soldiers in Charlemagne’s command, including his brave nephew Roland.  Then, according to the famous poem that immortalized the tragedy, Charlemagne exacted his revenge by routing the entire Muslim army.

More Effective Government Would Neutralize Tea Party

by Colin Gordon

What do historians make of the Tea Party movement?  Certainly, popular outrage at political and economic elites is nothing new.  The Tea Party shares common elements with the populist outbursts of the 1890s and the 1930s&mdas

Remembering John Galsworthy: International Advocate for Soldiers Disabled in War

by Jeffrey S. Reznick

This Veterans Day, media outlets of every kind will feature stories about medical care and philanthropic support provided to men and women who have sustained permanent injury through military service in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  As these stories appear and calls for remembrance make headlines, the humanitarianism of John Galsworthy—one of the most prolific and best-selling authors of the twentieth century—deserves attention.  His advocacy for soldiers disabled in World War I shoul

Should Academic Free Speech Accommodate Holocaust Denial?

by Richard L. Cravatts

If you scratch a Holocaust denier long enough, you may reveal an anti-Semite, but not always.  You will, however, probably find someone like the morally repellant Kaukab Siddique, a Pakistani-born, tenured associate professor of English and journalism at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, who seemingly puts great faith in conspiratorial dramas in which a crafty and all-powerful enemy—in this case, Jews—weaves an oft-repeated claim that six million of their people were exterminated jus

Party Like It's 1892!

by Steven Conn

After these mid-term elections, the Tea Party populists are claiming victory.  Their anger and insurgency fired up the conservative base, and the base turned out, giving Republicans control of the House and victories in state and local races across the land.  Many pundits are comparing this election to the election of 1994, when anger at Bill Clinton gave Republicans control of Congress. Like all analogies, this one isn't perfect.  But if it fits at all, it does not porte

2010 vs. 1938—Obama and FDR

by Burton Folsom

“I don’t believe that generations which so far haven’t a chance to vote or to get born should be paying off our headaches.”  Thus spoke Robert Doughton, chairman of t

Why Do the French Keep Striking?

by Robert Gildea

On 14 July 1789 Louis XVI was brought news of the fall of the Bastille. “Is it a revolt?” he asked. “No Sire,” his adviser replied, “it is a revolution.” This autumn

The Whys of Pre-Revolutionary America with Jon Butler

by Neda Raeker

Jon Butler is Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History and Religious Studies at Yale University. His books include Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the America

Honoring Indian Veterans This Veterans Day

by Ed Hooper

More than 44,000 Indians served in World War II.

Obama 2.0 Must Lead from the Center Humbly and Substantively

by Gil Troy

The American voters gave President Barack Obama a good, old-fashioned political whupping on Tuesday.  It was a stunning political reversal as Mr

Resolving the China-Japan Conflict Over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands

by Wada Haruki

On September 7 Japanese patrol boats intercepted a Chinese fishing trawler near Kubashima, one of the Senkaku [Chinese: Diaoyu] Islands in the East China Sea. After it repeatedly rammed the patrol boats in attempting to escape, the fishing boat was detained and its captain arrested and charged with interference in the execution of official duties. The incident would come to have enormous repercussions, shaking up Sino-Japanese relations.The Senkaku Islands are claimed by Japan a

What Did Jefferson Mean By "Wall of Separation"?

by Thomas S. Kidd

The media cannot seem to get enough of Delaware’s Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell.  For better or worse, she embodies an energized popu

In Defense of Public School Teachers

by Mark Naison

There are few jobs in this country more challenging than that of a public school teacher.  In a country with one of the highest rates of poverty in the industrialized world, with almost no social safety net to help struggling families, our teachers have to create a positive learning atmosphere in classrooms filled with young people under stress.  The teacher not only has to be someone who can transmit knowledge and skills, he or she has to be a diplomat, a counselor, a surrogate parent

History Lesson 101: The Grand Old Myth of Fiscal Conservatism

by Todd Holmes

Few myths have proven as pervasive in post-World War II politics than that of fiscal conservatism and the GOP.  As the Tea Party has heightened the myth this election cycle, pundits and proponents such as Peggy Noonan and Stanford University’s Peter Berkowitz have bestowed the falsehood with renewed credibility.  Just last week, for instance, Berkowitz argued in the Wall Street Journal that the lack of political history in U.S. universities underpinned the misrepresentation of t

George Washington's Late Fines: An Interview with Tom Fleming

by Neda Raeker

Mr. Fleming is a former president of the Society of American Historians and a historian of the American Revolution. This interview was conducted via telephone.Could you tell a little about your beginning as an histor

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell [and Don't Tell Harry Truman]

by Rawn James, Jr.

By deciding against a lawsuit filed by Republican activists who otherwise would decry judicial activism, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips accomplished wh

The Emotional Power of the "Culture of Poverty"

by Patricia Cohen

I am a longtime admirer of Mr. Patterson’s work, so I am particularly distressed that he found my Oct. 17 article off base. In this case, however, I think he misread or misinterpreted what I wrote about the Moynihan report and poverty studies.I was very careful to write that Moynihan’s report popularized the idea of the culture of poverty—not that he made up the term or specifically used