Recently Published

The Neglected Art of Diplomacy

by Kenneth Weisbrode

It has become a commonplace that the post-Bush era is one of the unclenched fist. Gone are the days of military “cakewalks,” shock and awe. G

Why Homicide Declined in American Cities during the First Six Months of 2009

by Randolph Roth

            The Washington Post reported in late July that the crime rate fell sharply in most American cities during the first six months of 2009. Rates were

Slavery and Sectional Strife in the Early American Republic: An Interview with Gary Kornblith

by Seth Binder

Gary Kornblith is a professor of history at Oberlin College, where he has taught since 1981. His publications include The Industrial Revolution in America and, with Carol Lasser, Teaching America

Iraq: Your Next Holiday Destination

by Scott Laderman

Craving warm weather? Looking for somewhere a little different to take the family next year? Iraq, it turns out, is once again open to tourists. Technically, it was never closed. But as unfortunate traveler

65 Years Later: The Malmedy Massacre, December 17, 1944

by Joseph Cummins

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The Nixon Quartet

by Tom Shachtman

When president-elect Richard M. Nixon chose Harvard professor Henry A. Kissinger as his national security adviser, he had no idea that he was also bringing into his circle, for better or worse, Kissinger’s mentor Fritz A. G

Who Lewis Henry Morgan Was and Why We Should Care

by Daniel Noah Moses

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After Maine: Can Houston Provide a Much-Needed Victory for the Gay Rights Movement?

by Blake A. Ellis

“Our founding fathers did not intend for people’s constitutional rights to be determined in a political campaign.” That’s how gay activist Chad Griffin responded to news that Maine voters had overturned the state’s gay marriage law in November. As Griffin noted, more than 70 percent of Americans disapproved of interracial marriages when Loving vs. Virginia ruled that states must allow them in 1967. Although support for gay marriage has increased significant

Obama and Health Care: Confronted by Critics, Haunted by History

by Gil Troy

In pushing health care reform, President Barack Obama is confronted by contemporary critics and haunted by history. Americans are ambivalent about big government, not just since Ronald Reagan but since the American Revolution. A review of American attitudes toward government since the Revolution demonstrates this tension between Americans’ desire for government help and their fear of government intrusiveness. Obama also must learn from Bill Clinton’s health care reform failures.

In Praise of “Happy Holidays”

by Edward T. O'Donnell

Here we go again. If it’s December then it must be time for that annual Christmas tradition established a few years ago—the outrage mongering by conservatives over an alleged “War on Christmas” being waged by a cadre of secularists who employ the phrase, “Happy Holidays.” Particularly galling to these self-appointed defenders of tradition are retailers that avoid the word Christmas in their advertising and in-store decorations. In recent years groups like

Thinking Outside the Box: What Obama Could Have Said

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Much of the American public is skeptical about the value of Obama's plan, announced in his address of December 1, to send another 30,000 U.S. troops to fight an apparently endless war in Afghanistan, and with good reason.  If, after eight years of sending U.S. and NATO soldiers to wage this war, al Qaeda maintains its foothold

Post-Islamophobia: How Cultural Integration Can Prevent Terrorism and Build Peace

by Antony Adolf

The Swiss are usually characterized as among the most hospitable people in the world, especially when it comes to keeping foreign coff

Fred Hampton, Barack Obama, and the American Urban Poor

by Simon Balto

 I remember moving to Chicago in the summer of 2007, a city and moment charged by the excitement of the presidential candidacy of one of its own—a young, intelligent, and handsome African-American man committed to organizing for the improvement of the social conditions facing the Black community.  For reasons that many of us within the progressive community may recall, it was an invigorating time and atmosphere.  While living in the city, and in what now strikes me as a fort

How the Vice President Can Serve as the President's Most Unbiased Adviser

by Joel K. Goldstein

There's a common perception that Vice President Joe Biden lost the administration's debate over Afghanistan policy because President Obama did not adopt the course Biden favored. Nothing could be farther from the truth. On the contrary, Biden played the distinctive vice-presidential role that Walter Mondale proposed 33 years ago. In so doing, Biden helped shape Obama's policy toward Afghanistan and offered a model for a constructive role vice presidents can play in presidential decision-

The Obama Non-Doctrine

by Emily S. Rosenberg

In September, 2002, George W. Bush addressed cadets at West Point and advanced his “Bush Doctrine.” Elaborated over the next year, it had two critical features:  The United States would wage preventative war tied to future imagined attacks. The United States was engaged in nothing less than global transformation. Many commentators, noting President Bush’s lofty rhetoric about using military force to end war and to spread American-style democracy globally, labeled hi

Obama’s Contributions to a Dying Empire

by Francis Shor

Old habits die hard, especially imperialist ones. Imperial imperatives, whether economic, geopolitical, or ideological, persist because the ruling elites are dependent on them. In order to conceal imperialist objectives, presidents and other leaders of the US political

“He Knew How to Die”: John Brown on the Gallows, December 2, 1859

by David W. Blight

One hundred fifty years ago this week, John Brown, the radical abolitionist, walked out of the Charlestown, Virginia jail to a wagon containing his simple wood

Darfur: Time To Let The People Speak

by Linda Bishai

Located in the heart of a poverty-stricken region of Africa, with no history of tourism or known exports, Darfur has nonetheless become a familiar name in American and European households.  Numerous rallies, c

Were Early Islamic Historians the First to Embrace Post-Modernism?

by Lesley Hazleton

    I love early Islamic historians. They're much more fun to read than modern ones.  Long before the self-congratulatory concept of mode

What's Modern About the Early Modern Period?

by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Names are rarely convincingly descriptive. Ugly women are called Bella or Linda, and ugly men Beau.  I know a Nigel who is tall and fair, a