Roundup

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• 
• SOURCE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
  4-23-14
  

  Why We Should Study the History of Western Civilization

  by Donald Kagan

  We need to examine the older traditions of the West that came before the modern era and to take seriously the possibility that useful wisdom can be found there, especially among the Greeks who began it all.

• 
• SOURCE: Informed Comment
  1-29-15
  

  How Israel Went from Being a Democratic to a Republican Project

  by Juan Cole

  "The audacity of Speaker of the House John Boehner colluding with the prime minister of a foreign country to undermine a sitting president is, I think, still not entirely appreciated."

• 
• 1-30-15
  

  Roundup Top 10!

  This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  7-30-13
  

  Cuba wants Guantanamo back. How did it lose it?

  by Paul Kramer

  Raul Castro is demanding the return of Guantanamo.  Paul Kramer explains how the United States came to occupy it. 

• 
• SOURCE: ESPN website
  1-20-15
  

  New generation of activist-athletes

  by Jelani Cobb

  Is the cultural march toward equality now in the hands of athletes, not artists?

• 
• SOURCE: Yad Vashem
  1-29-15 (accessed)
  

  The Japanese diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust

  He disobeyed orders. Today he’s a hero in Japan.

• 
• SOURCE: YouTube--Pathe
  1-29-15 (accessed)
  

  The Holocaust Confirmed (Video)

  From the moment the news of the Holocaust was revealed, there were doubters. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  1-29-15
  

  Save Us From Washington’s Visionaries

  by Andrew J. Bacevich

  In (Modest) Praise of a Comforting Mediocrity

• 
• SOURCE: YouTube
  1-24-15
  

  Here's Proof Hollywood's Idea of Archery Is Bunk (Video)

  by Lars Andersen

  Watch the greatest archer in the world put Hollywood's idea of archery to the test. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  1-27-15
  

  Is It Possible to Accidentally Plagiarize?

  by Melissa Dahl

  We're most likely to unintentionally plagiarize when we're trying to multitask; doing one thing at a time might help keep us from stealing without realizing.

• 
• 1-25-15
  

  Why We Shouldn’t Declare War on “Radical Islam"

  by Andrew Meyer

  If the U.S. is at war with "radical Islam," is it at war with Iran? With Hezbollah? With Hamas? Unless one can come up with a coherent explanation as to why these groups fall outside of the ambit of radical Islam, the category loses all strategic value.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1-26-15
  

  How the Germans invented gay rights—more than a century ago

  by Alex Ross

  It was a German immigrant, Henry Gerber, who first brought the fight for gay rights to America, in the nineteen-twenties.

• 
• SOURCE: Gizmodo
  1-21-15
  

  Oregon Was Founded As a Racist Utopia

  by Matt Novak

  When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1-27-15
  

  Why doesn’t Russia make a big deal about its role in liberating Nazi Holocaust death camps?

  by Jeremy Hicks

  The problem is that it’s quite easy to whitewash this particular history, because Russia doesn’t actually seem to be that concerned with remembering its role.

• 
• SOURCE: Aeon
  1-27-15 (accessed)
  

  Bonfire of the humanities

  by David Armitage and Jo Guldi

  Public debate is afflicted by short-term thinking – how did history abdicate its role of inspiring the longer view?

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  1-26-15
  

  Can the Internet be archived?

  by Jill Lepore

  What happens when your evidence vanishes by dinnertime?

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1-26-15
  

  Blizzards and the Birth of the Modern Mayor

  by Yoni Appelbaum

  The Blizzard of 1888 demonstrated the vulnerability of urban life, and led voters to demand greater protection.

• 
• SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herlad
  1-25-15
  

  China must confront and learn from its postwar history

  by Jonathan Zimmerman

  China focuses on Japan's willful blindness to its WW II history, but China itself ignores its own. 

• 
• SOURCE: Atlantic
  1-21-15
  

  This is how the French monarchy changed people's minds about the necessity of smallpox vaccinations

  by KIMBERLY CHRISMAN-CAMPBELL

  Today parents are reluctant to give their kids shots for measles. What we could learn from the French experience. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Chronicle of Higher Education
  1-26-15
  

  The Day the Purpose of College Changed

  by Dan Berrett

  After February 28, 1967, the main reason to go was to get a job