Recently Published

An Illiberal Education and Southern Politics

by Randal Jelks

Most of you will not remember or read Dinesh D’Souza’s book, An Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus.  D’Souza charged, p

General McChrystal and the Wages of Hypocrisy

by Mark A. LeVine

Of the many questions surrounding the sudden career implosion of General Stanley McChrystal, the one to which no one has yet been able to offer a satisfactory answer is why. Could it really be that one of the gurus of twenty-first-ce

Ten Disgraced Generals

by Steven Lomazow

In view of the recent highly publicized firing of General Stanley McChrystal, here is a retrospective list of the top ten American disgraced military leaders.  In descending order:Benedict ArnoldArnold is the epitome of the word "traitor," the

The Presidents and the McGenerals

by Kenneth Weisbrode

The furor over comments made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his aides to a writer for Rolling Stone brings to mind earlier, infamous clashes between presidents and wartime commanders, both of them, curiously, of similar prefixes—Generals George McClellan and Douglas MacArthur. Both were forced to stand down, but at great political cost to their presidents.  McClellan, after Abraham Lincoln cashiered him, opposed Lincoln in the election of 1864—unsuccessfully in the ev

A History of Insubordinate Generals

by John C. McManus

Stanley McChrystal is not alone.  Nor is he unique.  In fact, I would argue that he is only the latest in a long line of generals who have run afoul of their presidential bosses because of the inherent, and

The Past is No Foreign Country

by Randall Stephens

“I don’t believe in change over time.”  I wish Glenn Beck would come out and say just that.I’ve watched quite a few of Beck’s 5:00 p.m. dispatches from disturbia.  I’ve seen his maniacal chalkboard talks on fascism and communism, with brisk arrows drawn to “progressivism,” “social justice,” and “unions.”  I’ve heard him tar the labor movement with the brush of nineteenth century racism, conveniently ignoring the Knights of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.  I’v

Graham Opinion Reflects Justice Kennedy's Moral Foundation

by Frank J. Colucci

This spring, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in Graham v. Florida that sentencing a juvenile whose offense does not result in homicid

Myths from the Right about the Disaster in the Gulf

by Tyler Priest

A new narrative reverberating in right-wing political circles blames the Deepwater Horizon disaster on a favorite scapegoat:  the federal government.But this n

A Response to Jonathan Israel

by Samuel Moyn

I’ve answered Jonathan Israel’s first reply to my review-essay in the

What Samuel Moyn Got Wrong in His Nation Article

by Jonathan Israel

In his recent article “Mind the Enlightenment,” published on May 20 on The Nation’s website, Sa

We Need More General Wedemeyers

by John J. McLaughlin

General Albert C. Wedemeyer died in 1992 at the age of 92.  In the obituary of the New York Times on December 18, noted military historian John Keegan labeled Wedemeyer "one of the most intellectual and farsighted military minds America has ever produced."  He praised Wedemeyer for his efforts as chief strategist in formulating an overall war plan for the United States shortly before its entry into World War II, as well as his major role in planning the Norm

How to Rebuild the Special Relationship

by Lee P. Ruddin

Barack Obama is the first American president since the Second World War not to be touched in any way by the triumph over fascism which forged the so-called special relationship.  Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had fathers who fought alongside Brits in the 1940s and both went on to become pillars in the Atlantic alliance as commander-in-chief.  Unlike the 42nd President of the United States—a Rhodes scholar, no less—Obama grew up in the Pacific and his memoir,

Back to the (Mahdist) Future?

by Timothy R. Furnish

Ayatollah Mohammed Bagher Kharrazi's recent call for a Greater Iran encompassing "the entire Middle East and Central Asia" has caused a veritable epidemic of Internet hyperventilating among the armchair alarmist eschatologists, many of whom are living proof that "a little learning is a

Gender Apartheid Online

by Ruth Rosen

Forty years ago, feminists demanded that special "women's pages," which featured fashion, society and cooking, be banished from newspapers. 

Michael Tomasky's Despairing Take on American History

by Joseph A. Palermo

In a recent piece in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, titled "Against Despair: How Our Misreading of History Harms Progressivism Today," Michael Tomasky notes how The Huffington Post sometimes evokes Franklin D. Roosevelt in its assessment of President Barack Obama, which tells him something about "the way liberals interpret and talk about history."  (3)  Tomasky writes:We grew up with a set of assumptions.  If you were born in the U

A Message to the G-8 Summit: Remember June, 1946

by William Lambers

When President Obama and other world leaders gather this week in Canada at the G-8 summit, they can make history.  To do so they can draw some ins

Portrait or Postcard? The Controversy over a “Rare” Photograph of Slave Children

by Mary Niall Mitchell

For those of us who work with historical photographs (particularly images from the nineteenth century, when the medium was still in its infancy) there a

BP's Other Gifts to America—and to the World

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The offshore oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico brought to us by BP has overshadowed its central role over the past century in fostering

Henry Luce: The Master of a Changing Media Landscape

by Alan Brinkley

It is no secret that journalism—and especially magazine journalism—is facing hard and dangerous times.  Local newspapers are closing at an a

The Missing Key to the Texas History Textbook Debate

by Kyle Ward

In 1826, Joseph Worcester published his high school history textbook titled Elements of History and began trying to get it adopted in schools throughout the United States.  This rather insignificant historical fact i