Week of July 22, 2013
Up Front
 OAH: Daniels/Zinn Controversy a "Teachable Moment"David Austin Walsh The Indiana-based organization releases a statement on former guv. Mitch Daniels' attempts to ban Howard Zinn's books from the classroom. Tags: Howard Zinn, Indiana, Mitch Daniels, Organization of American Historians |
 David Barton: Only Four Professors Criticized The Jefferson LiesDavid Austin Walsh Actually, Pastor Barton, the number is closer to seven hundred. Tags: David Barton, Jefferson Lies, Least Credible History Book in Print, Warren Throckmorton |
 Walt Whitman: Dreaming of America, On the RoadIra Chernus's MythicAmerica Leave it to the poet to articulate what America really is: a process. Tags: Walt Whitman, America, Martin Luther King, mythologies |
 California's Dark History of Eugenics and Compulsory SterilizationAlexandra Minna Stern and Tony Platt Two California prisons sterilized nearly 150 women in the latest chapter of a long history of eugenics. Tags: sterilization, eugenics, California, history of medicine |
News at Home
 Black People Have a Duty to Bear Witness Racial ViolenceKidada E. Williams Testifying has the power to inspire people to take political action. Tags: George Zimmerman, racial violence, racism, Trayvon Martin |
 How George Zimmerman is Different from '80s Subway Vigilante Bernhard GoetzJim Sleeper Goetz was reacting to a rise in New York street crime; not so with George Zimmerman. Tags: Bernhard Goetz, crime, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin |
 The Roots of White RageCarole Emberton The lynching of blacks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries proved one thing: to be white meant the power of life and death over those deemed a "threat." Tags: white people, African American history, Reconstruction, lynchings |
 Saying No to the Surveillance StateJackson Lears Techno-determinists say the train has already left the station. Here's why they're wrong. Tags: Edward Snowden, NSA, PRISM scandal, surveillance state |
 Why Is Arbitration Legally Binding?Imre Stephen Szalai The Supreme Court ignores the history behind the Federal Arbitration Act. Tags: arbitration, Supreme Court, legal history, conflict resolution |
 How Goldman Sachs Used Warehousing to Manipulate Global Aluminum MarketsDaniel S. Margolies The best part? Warehousing has been an integral part of federal policy for over two centuries. Tags: capitalism, Goldman Sachs, markets, warehousing |
 What Ever Happened to American Regionalism?Ira Chernus's MythicAmerica Now that ordinary Americans can no longer be assumed to be white people, how can we know what norms bind us all together? Tags: regionalism, United States, race, national identity |
News Abroad
 Japan's Prime Minister is a Far-Right NationalistTessa Morris-Suzuki Shinzo Abe wants to amend Japan's constitution by removing language on "respect for the individual." Tags: Japan, Shinzo Abe, nationalism, right wing |
Historians & History
 Marie Arana: Simon Bolivar the "Polar Opposite" of George Washington (INTERVIEW)Robin Lindley The famed general may have been the liberator of Latin America, but he was no democrat. Tags: Simon Bolivar, Marie Arana, Latin America, revolutions |
Culture Watch
 A Scorching History of Rape in AmericaBruce Chadwick Extremities tackles a very difficult issue head-on. Tags: Extremities, play reviews, rape, sexual violence |
 When Does a War End for the Veterans?Bruce Chadwick Heroes is a fine play about French veterans of World War I, but it's curiously lacking in history. Tags: Heroes, Shakespeare and Company, World War I, veterans |
Books
 Review of Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman's American UmpireBernard von Bothmer Why does the U.S. have so many bases overseas? It's because America is an umpire, a guarantor of stability and infinitely preferable to the alternative. Tags: American Umpire, book reviews, diplomatic history, Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman |
 Review of Beyond Home Plate: Jackie Robinson on Life After BaseballRon Briley Jackie Robinson's story didn't end in 1947. Tags: baseball, Beyond Home Plate, civil rights movement, Jackie Robinson |