The Latest 
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HNN Turned 20 This Week! Revisit the First Edition
HNN Staff
HNN turned 20 this week! Help us celebrate by checking out our inaugural issue through the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
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Powerline Politics in the 1970s and Today
Tyler Priest
Environmental activists have forged anti-pipeline alliances with rural landowners using the issue of eminent domain. History shows that this might boomerang if farmers oppose the new electric transmission lines that will be needed to implement green electrification.
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Powerline Politics in the 1970s and Today
Tyler Priest
Environmental activists have forged anti-pipeline alliances with rural landowners using the issue of eminent domain. History shows that this might boomerang if farmers oppose the new electric transmission lines that will be needed to implement green electrification.
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Recovering the Stories of Pioneering Frenchwomen of Science
Nina Gelbart
The stories of six French women of science show that women have been part of the scientific revolution from the beginning, and that moving toward gender parity in professional science is imperative.
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"Juke": Bluesman Bobby Rush on the Roots of Rock and Roll
Bobby Rush with Herb Powell
Blues musician Bobby Rush's new autobiography chronicles his life and career, and the way that the appropriation of Black music into American popular culture often left Black entertainers behind. Read here how he remembers the roots of rock and roll.
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Keep History Teachers Free to Teach, in Iowa and the Nation
Wallace Hettle
"I’m not a lawyer, but it appears that the legislature has just passed a law against hurt feelings."
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Blog
How to Change History
Ann Banks' Confederates in My Closet
It’s more than likely that in the audience in Montgomery on the day Stephen Douglas spoke on the statehouse steps was John Wilkes Booth. Booth would have cheered Douglas, as he put bef...
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50 Years Later, the Pentagon Papers Remain an Historic Landmark for Freedom of the Press
Jared Schroeder
While democratic norms have, at times, seemed paper thin in recent years, the Court’s terse decision in the Pentagon Papers decision persists as a bulwark against government efforts to halt publication.
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Liberty, Freedom, and Whiteness: Reviewing Tyler Stovall's "White Freedom"
Alan J. Singer
Tyler Stovall's book is a searching examination of the historical connections between a developing white identity, the Enlightenment concepts of liberty, and the political practice of racial hierarchy.
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The Roundup Top Ten for June 18, 2021
HNN Staff
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Experts Beware: Is America Headed for a Scopes Moment over Critical Race Theory?
Charles J. Holden
William Jennings Bryan wasn't trying to win a debate in the Scopes Trial. He tried – successfully – to draw cultural battle lines. The fact that today's opponents of "Critical Race Theory" are often poorly informed is similarly beside the point.
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It's Time for a "Don't Trust, Do Verify" US-Russia Cybersecurity Treaty
Glenn C. Altschuler and Justin Lifflander
The Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetings that yielded the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and established mutual weapons monitoring weren't expected to succeed, but offer hope that negotiations between Biden and Putin could advance progress toward needed mutual cybersecurity action.
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The Night Vietnam Veterans Stormed Bunker Hill
Elise Lemire
The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775 was a military defeat for the Continental Army but a coup for morale. In 1971, Vietnam Veterans Against the War won a nonviolent battle at the site for the allegiance of the working class residents of Charlestown.
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Valor Roll: American Newsies in the Great War and the Flu Pandemic
Vincent DiGirolamo
Newsies were a critical labor force in the early 20th century, connecting Americans to information. The author of a history of Newsies shows that their service drew praise in the First World War but suspicion in the ensuing influenza pandemic.
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A Celebrity Apology and the Reality of Taiwan
Evan Dawley
Actor John Cena's blunder into the Taiwan-China controversy should be an opportunity for Americans to learn more about the history of this conflict and of an independent Taiwanese identity that has been shaped by Japanese colonization, Chinese nationalism, war, and the Communist revolution.
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American Conference for Irish Studies Connects the Past, Future of Irish-American Relations
Mark Holan
The recent virtual American Conference for Irish Studies meeting convened scholars and diplomats to discuss challenges posed by Brexit and opportunities for cooperation between the United States, Northern Ireland, and the Republic.
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The Roundup Top Ten for June 11, 2021
HNN Staff
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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America's First Peaceful (Just Barely!) Transfer of Power
Akhil Reed Amar
While the selection of Thomas Jefferson as the third president in 1801 (after an electoral college deadlock) is touted as a crucial peaceful transfer of presidential power from one party to another, the transition was far more fraught with peril than most realize.
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Why a Culture War Over Critical Race Theory? Consider the Pro-Slavery Congressional "Gag Rule"
Frank Palmeri and Ted Wendelin
Like the Southern delegations who opposed discussion of slavery, opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”
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The Legacy of Same-Sex Love in Ancient Thebes
James Romm
The story of the Sacred Band of Thebes – a fighting force of pairs of male lovers – was discovered in time to provide inspiration to gay rights struggles from the Victorian era to the present. James Romm's new book tells the story.
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Paying People to Get Vaccines is an Old Idea Whose Time has Come Again
Margaret DeLacy
John Haygarth devised a system for rewarding working-class residents of Chester for receiving the risky smallpox inoculation and maintaining social distance afterward. The effort was largely superseded by the more effective and safer Jenner vaccination, but was a foundational public health experiment that pays dividends today.
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Understanding Gun and Police Violence Lies Between History and Power
Kwasi Konadu
Dealing effectively with gun violence and police violence requires recognizing they are connected by the long history of America's culture of force in defense of the social order. The National Gun Violence Awareness Day observed today should reflect this connection.
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The New Meaning of "The Loyal Opposition"
Glenn C. Altschuler
The concept of a loyal opposition depends on the deference of non-governing parties to the authority of democratic institutions and the normative framework in which they operate. That deference seems to be collapsing.
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John Cena's Taiwan Controversy Recalls Richard Nixon's Biggest Mistake
Justin Coffey
John Cena's recent social media kerfuffle over Taiwan reflects the legacy of Richard Nixon's acquiescence to a "One China" policy advanced by the People's Republic, in hindsight the worst error of his presidency.
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Whataboutism Didn't Get Nixon Off the Hook. It Shouldn't Stop Investigation of the Capitol Riots
James Robenalt
There's a long and ignominious tradition of playing "whatabout" to thwart investigations into official misconduct, so it's no surprise the move was part of Republicans' rejection of a January 6 commission.
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Two Films Show the Historical Toll and Present Danger of Ethnic Violence
Walter G. Moss
Two films show the dire consequences of ethnic antagonism during and after the second world war, and the potential for ideology to incite and justify violence.
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Blog
Governing With an Evenly Divided Senate is a Rare Tightrope Act
Ronald L. Feinman
The current US Senate, monkeywrenched by the filibuster and unified Republican obstruction, is unlike any of the three prior Senates with even partisan representation. It appears Biden will need ev...
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The Roundup Top Ten for June 4, 2021
HNN Staff
The best opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
News
- Critical Race Theory Battle Invades School Boards — with Help from Conservative Groups
- The Rise and Fall of an American Tech Giant
- ‘Cynical and Illegitimate’: Higher-Ed Groups Assail Legislative Efforts to Restrict Teaching of Racism
- Congress Is Poised To Take Back Some Of Its War Powers From The President
- Racist Mural Puts Tate Galleries in a Bind
- Capitalism American-Style: A Financial History of the United States
- Event: History Matters with Annette Gordon-Reed, Historian & Author, “On Juneteenth” (Friday, June 18)
- The Freeing of the American Mind
- Lost Cause: 50 Years of the Drug War in Latin America
- Amazon’s Greatest Weapon Against Unions: Worker Turnover
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