Recently Published

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

Feeding Popular Hunger for Good History and Good Journalism

by David Nord

The Texas State Board of Education, God's gift to op-ed writers everywhere, recently announced that there is a creeping Muslimization of world history textbooks.  They warned of the rising influence of Middle Eastern interests in the U.S. textbook publishing business.Liberal commentators and religious libertarians denounced the board's resolution as misinformed in fact and offensive in principle.  But this latest skirmish in the culture wars in Texas got me thinking about someth

The President and Religious Pluralism

by Ian Reifowitz

America is at war with Islam.  At least that’s what some have declared.  President Obama has countered that in fact we are at war with a specific group of radical fundamentalist Muslims.  More profoundly, however, he has repeatedly defined Americanness itself as the antithesis of a fundamentalism that feeds on a clash of civilizations and cultures.At Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan on March 28, Obama contrasted the concept of a pluralistic democracy represented by the U.S. with al-

The Travails of Modern Islam

by Daniel Pipes

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.It occurred to me that I should try and fit what I know into the mission of this organization, so I will try something new.  It will be a certain level of abstraction and I invite you in the Q&A to become far more specific.I am a historian of the Muslim world and, in addition to the day-to-day issues that come up, I look at this civilizational unit as a whole.  That's what I'll do now.To start with, the Islam

Does the First Amendment Separate Church and State?

by Jon Butler

Delaware Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell's recent comment—wondering whether "separation of church and state" is "in the First Amendment"—raises a serious point that has escaped both O'Donnell and her many critics:  that Thomas Jefferson's use of the phrase "separation between Church & State" in an 1802 letter was actually a narrowly focused explanation of the Amendment, whose full breadth probably would displease O'Donnell even

Misrepresenting the Moynihan Report—Will It Ever Stop?

by James T. Patterson

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” reached the White House in March 1965, it sparked great enthusiasm among

How Many Nuclear Weapons Does the U.S. Government Need?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

A good case can be made that the U.S. government, the first to develop nuclear weapons, would be much better off today without them.  They fail to de

Veiling Shari`a in a Judeo-Christian Cloak: Imam Ra'uf's and Muqtedar Khan's Latest Ruse

by Timothy R. Furnish

A current tactic favored by Muslim apologists is to posit perfect harmony between Islam and Western (particularly American) civilization,  or between Islam and the other two monotheistic faiths.  In an example of the former, last month Imam Feisal Abdul Ra’uf, mastermind of the Ground Zero/Cordoba/Park 51 mosque, gave a

Channelling George Washington: The General and Alexander Hamilton

by Thomas Fleming

“You’ve been very patient with this old coot, as he unburdens his mind of his worries about our unpredictable country.  Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” “Alexander Hamilton. I’ve been fasci

Mr. President, Tear Down This Wall

by Lisa Szefel

With the public outcry surrounding the suicides of six young gay Americans in the span of one month, we are in the midst of a Richard Wright moment.  In 1940 Wright published Native Son, which traced the story of twenty-year-old Bigger Thomas, a good black man who embarks on a crime spree, playing into stereotypes that connect race to violence.  The novel suggests the invisible yet debilitating effects of growing up black in a society fringed with racial hatred during Jim C

The New Dark Financial Ages

by James Livingston

It’s been two months since Timothy Geithner welcomed us to what he called economic recovery in a New York Times op-ed. It’s been about that long since I argued here that the so-called recov

John Buchanan Documents

To see the documents, either scroll down or click here.

The Dangers of Politicized Conservative History

by Ron Radosh

Having spent a good deal of time writing about the crude left-wing history of our country by charlatans like Howard Zinn and Oliver Stone, I have become wary of politicized history in general, whether it comes from the precincts of the far Left or the far Right.This time the culprits are on the Right, one of the biggest examples being Glenn Beck.  On this website, some time ago, I

On Elena Kagan’s Senior Thesis: Sound Anti-Communist Labor History

by Ron Radosh

Some conservatives have been criticizing Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan for her 1981 Princeton senior thesis in history, “To The Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933.”  Not me. As a historian who has read widely in socialist and communist history, and written about the topic myself, I found her thesis to be academically first-rate, based on a wide-ranging use of primary