Recently Published

Why Senji Yamaguchi--A Survivor of Nagasaki--Should Win the Nobel Peace Prize

by Irwin Abrams

This year is the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, as well as of the coming five-year review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it is good that several nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2005 have been made with the threat of nuclear weapons in mind, whose use could result in the extinction of human life on this planet. The American Friends Service Committee has nominated Nihon Hidankyo, the international confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Suffer

Interview with Sam Tanenhaus, Editor of the New York Times Book Review

by Samantha Funk

Sam Tanenhaus took over the NYT Book Review last April. He is the author of a biography of Whittaker Chambers, which received rave reviews--from William F. Buckley, Jr., no less, who called it"masterful." Some liberal historians greeted Tanenhaus's appointment with suspicion. What Buckley had considered a strength--Tanenhaus's broad sympathy with Chambers--they

The Danger in President's Bush's Conviction He's Right

by Tom Palaima

President Lyndon Johnson once told us,"Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact." What did these simple words mean for us during LBJ's Vietnam War presidency? What might they mean for us now during President Bush's"war for democracy" in the Middle East? President Johnson had a superb grasp of the gritty realities of democratic government. He was the quintessential self-made man of power. His own

Why Tokyo's Adoption of a Rightwing Textbook Is Alarming

by Chung Chinsung (Translated from Korean by Emanuel Pastreich)

The Tokyo metropolitan board of education decided Thursday to adopt a controversial history textbook and will put it into use next spring at a secondary school run by the metropolitan government. The decision could pave the way for the popularization of the textbook widely regarded as a whitewash and distortion of Japan's invasion history in the World War II. -- China View (Aug.

Errors Still Afflict the Transcripts of the Kennedy Presidential Recordings

by Sheldon M. Stern

Everything has a history including the writing of history itself.

Calvin Coolidge: The Disabled Chief Executive

by Robert E. Gilbert

Scholars often speak of Calvin Coolidge in unflattering terms. He is referred to as "a figurehead president," as having had "no drive," as having been a "do nothing president," as a president "almost totally deficient in powers of leadership," as a "spectator president" and as "lackadaisical." However, a closer analysis of Coolidge reveals that he is perhaps the most misunderstood chief executive in American history.

How a Single Video Tape Would End the Debate over “Deep Throat”

by Joan Hoff

John Dean has done it again. In two short references in a February 6 op ed piece in the LA Times, he suggested that Deep Throat might be ill and so we would soon learn his identity. He also said that an unidentified source had told him Woodward informed Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post, of this and that Bradlee had proceeded to write an obituary about this most famous character to emerge from Watergate outside of President Nixon himself. Bob Woodward

The North Korean Holocaust. Yes. Holocaust.

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Did you know that the South Korean government is involved in a willful cover-up of evidence both of the true extent of the atrocities perpetrated in North Korea’s Gulag and also of any signs of internal opposition to its Stalinist government? Well, here goes: “There is no shortage of stories these days suggesting that the North Korean regime is coming apart at the seams. There's even talk of the "A" word - not "assassination", but rather "asyl

Should the OAH Consider Moving Its 2005 Convention to San Jose on Account of Labor Problems in San Francisco?

by HNN Staff

HNN NEWS FLASH 2-15-05: The OAH executive board has decided to move the 2005 annual meeting from San Francisco to San Jose in response to the ongoing union boycott of the Hilton Hotel, where the meeting was originally scheduled. A poll of some 900 people who registered for the meeting indicated that 3/4ths would refuse to cross a picket line. The move to San Jose could cost the OAH $450,000. But going ahead with the

Years After We Got Nixon's Papers, We Finally Get the Papers of the 2 Key Reporters Who Got Him

by David Greenberg

The Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin, one of the world’s leading manuscript archives, paid $5 million in 2003 for the Watergate papers of reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein -- 74 boxes, 6 oversize boxes, 3 oversize folders, 3 galley folders, and 21 bound volumes (so far) of interview notes and memos as they pursued the Watergate s

The Tragedy of American Diplomacy in Iraq*

by Carl Mirra

During the summer of 2004, the Historians against the War sponsored a Town Hall Meeting in New York City to discuss how far to the right the Bush administration has moved. The historians group invited West Point graduate and eminent scholar of international relations, Andrew Bacevich. The former colonel surprised the crowd by announcing that he voted for Bush in 2000, but was distressed by the administration’s “stupidity” and “arrogance” as well as its muscular u

Why Some PR Professionals Are Furious with the Bush Administration

by Bob Batchelor

George W. Bush earned an MBA from Harvard University. He then ran several organizations and sat on the boards of directors of others before becoming the nation’s chief executive. With decades of management experience, it is reasonable to expect that along the way Bush would have learned the value of public relations and a little about the ethical questions central to the field. Instead, over the course of about a week, several investigations revealed that the administration eithe

Is Evolution "Just a Theory"?

by Edward J. Larson

"Evolution is just a theory," is the refrain heard in countless conservative Christian churches. "It is guesses strung together," orator William Jennings Bryan liked to say during America's first anti-evolution crusade in the 1920s. The refrain continues today. Within America's growing conservative Christian subculture, best selling authors on scientific topics repeat the refrain. Creationist Henry Morris revived it with co-author John Whitcomb in their still popular 1961

Woodrow Wilson's Burden, Bush's--And Ours

by Robert S. McElvaine

Much has been written about the echoes of Woodrow Wilson’s idealism in George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, and echoes there certainly are. At least as significant, however, are critical differences between these two presidents and their visions of worldwide democracy. . Their similar overreaching is neither sustainable nor in the best interests of the United States, and the differences make Bush’s vision more dangerous. First, the important similarities: Like W.W., W

How Germans Remember World War II

by Max Hastings

A cultural collision took place in Germany in 1945, between societies whose experience of the Second World War was light years apart. What the Soviet and German peoples did, as well as what was done to them, bore scant resemblance to the war the America

The Good News for Democrats About 2004 Was that Lots of Small Donors Gave Money. The Bad News Was Why They Gave

by Robert Mutch

In last year’s campaign, people who gave less than $200 were bigger news than the $2,000 donors and the Rangers, Pioneers, and Trustees who rounded them up. Is the rising number of small donors just a blip? Or does it mean long-term change in the way we pay for election campaigns? Nearly everyone agrees that small contributions would be the best way to pay for campaigns. But no presidential campaign -- no winning campaign, anyway -- has ever been funded this wa

Ward Churchill's Comments--And the General's

by Ron Briley

Right-wing pundits are flexing their political muscles and publicly calling for the firing of University of Colorado professor Wade Churchill. (Click here and here.) The attacks have already taken their toll. Churchill’s speaking engagement was cancelled at Hamilton College in New York State, he has resigned as chairman of the university’s ethnic studies department, and Colora

Allen Weinstein: The Overlooked Controversy in His Career

by Rick Shenkman

Allen Weinstein's Statement in Response to This News Article Allen Weinstein moved one step closer to becoming the next national archivist on Monday night, when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved his nomination and forwarded it to the full Senate.--Chronicle of Higher Education 2-8-05On the

Shouldn't a President Concerned About Nuclear Proliferation Support the Treaty Controlling Nuclear Weapons?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

According to recent news reports and as hinted in the president's State of the Union Address, the neocons who dominate the Bush administration are gearing up for another pre-emptive military attack, this time upon Iran. The ostensible reason for such an attack is that the Iranian government is developing nuclear weapons.In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which regularly inspects Iran's nuclear operations, has not found any signs of nuclear w

What You Should Know About the Author of the NYT Bestseller, Politically Incorrect Guide to American History

by Eric Muller

Regnery Publishing has a bestseller in Thomas E. Woods's Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.Regnery was the publisher of Michelle Malkin's In Defense of Internment, which, you'll recall, was an effort to demonstrate that everything most people know about one tragic episode in American history—the Japanese American inte