Blogs > May 25, 2009

May 28, 2009

May 25, 2009

HISTORY BUZZ:

POLITICAL HIGHLIGHTS:

BIGGEST NEWS STORIES:

  • Caroline E. Janney: Historian remembers Memorial Day holiday's beginnings: "Credit really goes to thousands of Southern white women who were honoring Confederate soldiers a year after the Civil War ended," says Caroline E. Janney, an assistant professor of history."The women led these celebrations because if Confederate men would have organized memorials in 1866, just after the war ended, their actions would have been considered treason.""Instead, women planned each event, and the men were figuratively hiding behind the skirts of these women. What many people didn't realize is that these women, who are often portrayed as politically indifferent, were keeping politics in mind while planning these events." - KPCnews.com, 5-21-09

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY:

IN THE NEWS:

  • Antony Beevor: Historian has been accused of trying to get publicity for his new book, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy Allies bombing on D-Day 'close to war crime', claims historian The Allied bombing of the French city of Caen on D-Day was" close to a war crime", according to leading historian Antony Beevor - Telegraph UK, 5-24-09

  • Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: Creates History Commission - WSJ, 5-21-09

  • Professor Marco Maiorino, a Vatican historian of papal diplomacy: Vatican discloses Henry VIII's annulment appeal"The schism came later," he said."They were loyal to the sovereign, but at this point the spiritual supremacy of Rome was not in question." - Times UK Online, 5-22-09

  • Oklahoma History Center to close two days of week - Source: http://www.newsok.com (5-21-09)

  • National Security Archive Testifies to House Oversight Committee About Challenges Facing National Archives: At a hearing today focusing on the National Archives and Records Administration and the selection of a new Archivist, National Security Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs said:"[The new Archivist] should have a vision for an Archives 2.0."... - Source: Press Release (5-21-09)

  • James Lowen, James McPherson: Scholars Ask Obama Not to Send a Wreath to Confederate Memorial - Source: Press Release by James Loewen (5-19-09)

  • Frederick Clarkson: Will Obama Honor the Confederacy This Year?: Presidents since Woodrow Wilson have annually sent a commemorative wreath to the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. Up until the presidency of George H.W. Bush, the wreath was sent on or near the birthday of Confederate president, Jefferson Davis. Since then, the wreath has been sent on Memorial Day. One might think that this is a practice birthed in a generosity of spirit and healing of the war that had so deeply divided the nation. Unfortunately the truth is that the monument commemorates not the dead so much as the cause of the confederacy, and stands to this day as a rallying point for white supremacy. This is why scholars Edward Sebestaco-editor of"Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction," University of Texas Press, and James Loewen, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Vermont, joined by some 65 others (including me) sent a letter to president Obama asking him to end the practice.... - Daily Kos, 5-22-09

OP-EDs & BLOGS:

  • Daniel Pipes: A History of Muslim Terrorism against Jews in the United States: The arrest yesterday of four would-be jihadis before they could attack two synagogues in New York City brings to mind a long list of terrorist assaults in the United States by Muslims on Jews. These began in 1977 and have continued regularly since, as suggested by the following list of major incidents (ignoring lesser ones that did damage only to property, such a series of attacks on Chicago-area synagogues)... - Source: Daniel Pipes website (5-21-09)

  • Julian E. Zelizer: Democrats play defense on security - Source: CNN (5-20-09)

  • John Steele Gordon: Why Government Can't Run a Business - Source: WSJ (5-20-09)

REVIEWS & FIRST CHAPTERS:

  • Simon Schama: Mirror on America THE AMERICAN FUTURE A History - NYT, 5-22-09

  • Simon Schama: THE AMERICAN FUTURE A History, First Chapter - NYT, 5-22-09

  • Simon Schama: Looking to America's past to find a path for the future THE AMERICAN FUTURE A History - Boston Globe, 5-24-09

  • Simon Schama: Schama Looks At History For 'American Future' THE AMERICAN FUTURE A History - NPR, 5-20-09

  • Benny Morris: No Common Ground ONE STATE, TWO STATES Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict - NYT, 5-24-09

  • Benny Morris:ONE STATE, TWO STATES Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, First Chapter - NYT, 5-24-09

  • T.J. Stiles: The Man Who Owned America THE FIRST TYCOON The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt - WaPo, 5-24-09

  • T.J. Stiles:THE FIRST TYCOON The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Excerpt - WaPo, 5-24-09

  • Edith B. Gelles: Abigail & John Portrait of a Marriage: Gelles'"Abigail & John" does something different, bringing the two strands together in a dual biography that shows how their lives connected, diverged and reconnected over time.... - San Francisco Chronicle, 5-24-09

  • Dr. Richard Hull: Historian Publishes latest book on Jews in African history Jews and Judaism in African History - Straus News, 5-22-09

  • Paramour of Kennedy Is Writing a Book - Mimi Beardsley Alford, a retired New York church administrator who had an affair with John F. Kennedy while she was an intern in the White House, is breaking a silence of more than 40 years to tell her story in a memoir to be published by Random House. NYT, 5-22-09

  • Eugene D. Genovese: In a new book, Genovese describes a devoted and intellectually stimulating partnership with his late wife, also a historian of note Miss Betsey: A Memoir of Marriage - Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed (5-22-09)

  • Ronald C. White Jr.: BOOKS: A. Lincoln - Valdosta Daily Times, 5-18-09

  • Elliott West: 'As big as the land' UA professor writes book on Nez Perce war of 1877 The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story - Northwest Arkansas Times, 5-10-09

QUOTES:

  • John Allswang"California voters exercise their power -- and that's the problem Residents relish their role in the lawmaking process, but they share the blame for the state's severe dysfunction": Together, voters' piecemeal decisions since the 1970s have effectively"emasculated the Legislature," said John Allswang, a retired Cal State L.A. history professor."They're looking for cheap answers -- throw the guys out of power and put somebody else in, or just blame the politicians and pretend you don't have to raise taxes when you need money," he said."This is what the public wants, and they deceive themselves constantly. They're not realistic."... - LAT, 5-22-09

PROFILES & FEATURES:

  • Rodney Davis: In Civil War, Woman Fought Like A Man For Freedom - NPR, 5-23-09

  • Mary Witkowski: In the Region, Connecticut A Crumbling Piece of History: Historians are concerned about the fate of structures on Main Street in Bridgeport that are said to be the only remnants of an antebellum community of free blacks and runaway slaves. - NYT, 5-24-09

  • Max Boot, Paul Collier, Simon Schama: Civil Wars: The Fights That Do Not Want to End - NYT, 5-24-09

  • Annette Gordon-Reed for the US Supreme Court?: Is New York Law School's Annette Gordon-Reed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning law professor/historian, on President Obama's Supreme Court"short list"?... Probably not. But they appear on the short lists of more than a dozen constitutional law and Supreme Court scholars asked by The National Law Journal to step into Obama's shoes to pick a nominee to succeed retiring Justice David Souter.... Source: National Law Journal (5-18-09)

INTERVIEWS:

HONORS, AWARDED &APPOINTED:

  • Historian Jack Greene Honored by National Humanities Center: Jack P. Greene, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emeritus in the Humanities in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins, has been selected as one of 33 fellows at the National Humanities Center for the 2009-2010 academic year. - The JHU Gazette, 5-18-09

SPOTTED:

  • The Mormon History Association's annual conference: MHA opening session: A religious backdrop to the Civil War - Mormon Times, 5-22-09

  • Ken Burns tells Boston College grads to revisit history: "History is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts, and events that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known truth," Burns said."It is an inscrutable and mysterious and malleable thing. Each generation rediscovers and reexamines that part of its past that gives its present - and, most important, its future - new meaning and new possibilities."... - Source: Boston Globe (5-19-09)

EVENTS CALENDAR:

  • June 11-14, 2009: The ninth annual"Reacting to the Past" Institute at Barnard College (New York), Annual summer history institute at Barnard College - Source: Press Release (4-21-09)

  • August 1, 2009: An Evening with Ken Burns: Kens Burns has been making documentary films for more than 30 years. Since the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, he has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made. The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of Burns' films,"More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source." This evening will afford Chautauqua an opportunity to hear one of the most influential documentary makers of all time. Chautauqua Institutition. For more info 716-357-6200. - Jamestown Post-Journal, 5-21-09

ON TV:

  • C-SPAN2:BOOK TV Weekend Schedule

  • PBS American Experience: Mondays at 9pm

  • History Channel: Weekly Schedule

  • History Channel: "MonsterQuest" Marathon - Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 8-11pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "MonsterQuest" Marathon - Monday, May 25, 2009 at 2-8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Decoding The Past: Mayan Doomsday Prophecy" - Monday, May 25, 2009 at 8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "The Link" - Monday, May 25, 2009 at 9pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Life After People" Marathon - Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 2-7pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Angels & Demons Decoded" - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Life After People: Bound and Buried" - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 10pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "MonsterQuest" Marathon - Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 2-7pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Beyond The Da Vinci Code" - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 2pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Angels & Demons Decoded" - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 4pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Behind The Da Vinci Code" - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 6pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Battles BC" Marathon - Friday, May 22, 2009 at 2-7pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "The Link" - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 9pm ET/PT

  • History Channel: "Ice Road Truckers" Marathon - Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 12-11pm ET/PT

BEST SELLERS (NYT):

COMING SOON BOOKS:

  • Geoffrey Blainey, Sea of Dangers: Captain Cook and His Rivals in the South Pacific, May 25, 2009

  • Richard Ben-Veniste: Emperor's New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Watergate To 9/11, May 26, 2009

  • Robert Jacobs: Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts, June 1, 2009

  • Vincent J. Cannato: American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, June 9, 2009

  • Larry Tye: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, June 9, 2009

  • Matthew Aid: The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency, June 9, 2009

  • Douglas Brinkley, Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 1858-1919, June 30, 2009

  • Caroline Moorehead: Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era, June 30, 2009

  • William A. DeGregorio: The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, Seventh Edition, August 15, 2009

  • Douglas Hunter: Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World, September 1, 2009

DEPARTED:

  • David Herbert Donald: Famed Lincoln Scholar David Herbert Donald Dies:"He was not only one of the best historians of our era but he was also one of the classiest and most generous scholars I have ever met," said Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals, a best-selling Lincoln biography. - NPR, 5-19-09

  • David Herbert Donald: Writer on Lincoln, Dies at 88 - NYT, 5-19-09


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