What Prohibition History Tells Us about Returning Abortion to the States
By Richard F. Hamm
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50 Years Ago, a SCOTUS Decision Placed a Moratorium on Executions. It's Time to Revive it, Permanently
Rick Halperin
Fifty years ago this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty violated the Constitution, opening a de facto moratorium as states legislated new capital punishment statutes. It's time to make this brief victory for human rights permanent.
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"Oh, We Knowed What Was Goin’ On": The Myths (and Lies) of Juneteenth
Clyde W. Ford
After the myths of Juneteenth are stripped away, the day symbolizes the incompleteness of the promise of emancipation.
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Clearing the Name of a Horse Blamed for Near-Defeat at Waterloo
Stephen Dando-Collins
A failed cavalry attack nearly doomed Wellington at Waterloo. For years, Major General William Ponsonby's Irish horse was blamed to deflect from the tactical mistakes of human officers.
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Russia's Justifications for Invasion Don't Hold Up Any Better Now than in February
Lawrence Wittner
The alleged threat of Ukraine's NATO membership, supposed "denazification" and claims of cultural unity all fall flat; none excuse Russia's violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.
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Will Artificial Intelligence be the Agent of Capitalism's (and Humanity's) Creative Destruction?
Jim Castagnera
Between science fiction and the political economy of the present, the author wonders if artificial intelligence will constitute humanity's successor species.
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Watergate at 50: Did Kennedy Loyalists Squelch a 1968 "October Surprise" that Could Have Beaten Nixon?
James H. Barron
Did Democratic party insiders bury the story of Richard Nixon receiving campaign funds from the Greek military junta because they disliked the Greek exile journalist who broke the news?
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The Roundup Top Ten for June 17, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Florida's Divisive Concepts Bill Mistakes What Historians Do, with Dire Implications
Jessica L. Adler
The legislation would make it difficult – and even legally risky – for professors to perform the kinds of source-driven teaching that underlies the pedagogical goals of the discipline.
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Should the USPS Honor the Sabbath, or Amazon?
Rebecca Brenner Graham
A Pennsylvania postal worker's lawsuit claims religious discrimination because he was scheduled to deliver Amazon packages on Sunday. The history of Sunday mail service shows the case is about anxiety over power in society as much as religious obligation.
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Why Andrew Jackson Believed in Gun Control
Anders Walker
Andrew Jackson loved guns, but his correspondence with John C. Calhoun from 1818 shows that he believed that the Second Amendment didn't guarantee an individual right to own them and that regulation was key to public safety.
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Top-Gunning for Empire
Scott Laderman
"Top Gun: Maverick" is ressurecting the theatergoing experience. Will it do the same for American enthusiasm for the imperial ambitions it represents?
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"Our Best Memorial to the Dead Would be Our Service to the Living"
Allison S. Finkelstein
An overlooked cohort of American women who served in the first world war worked to establish service, instead of statuary, as a mode of memorialization. Their example offers a path out of the heated politics of commemoration.
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As an Island, Britain Became a Stage for Roman Politicians
Richard Hingley
The conquest of Britain mattered to Roman emperors not for the island's strategic significance, but because it signaled a ruler's mastery of the ancient deity Oceanus and thus his worthiness in domestic politics.
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Excerpt: The Fires of Stavishche, 1919
Lisa Brahin
Between 1917 and 1921, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Jews were murdered in pogroms across Ukraine. The author has worked to reconstruct this history, including her ancestors' escape from the town of Stavishche.
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Lindsey Fitzharris on Visionary Surgeon Harold Gillies
Robin Lindley
In "The Facemaker," Lindsey Fitzharris tells the story of the British surgeon Harold Gillies, who pioneered reconstructive surgeries for the horrific facial wounds suffered by soldiers in...
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Trump’s Involvement in the January 6 Conspiracy Is Easy to Prove
James D. Zirin
A veteran prosecutor explains that the legal standards for conspiracy put Trump in the crosshairs. Whether he faces consequences for the attempted coup, however, is a question of politics.
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The Roundup Top Ten for June 10, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Discarding Legal Precedent to Control Women's Reproductive Rights is Rooted in Colonial Slavery
Clyde W. Ford
The colonial Virginia lawsuit of Elizabeth Key, who won freedom in 1656, pushed colonial authorities to reverse precedent to ensure that the law would be a tool for maintaining hierarchies of race, gender, and class, and Black women's bodies would be the battleground of those conflicts.
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Regimes Around the World are Manipulating History and Threatening Historians
Ruben Zeeman
Official attempts to hinder bona fide historical research and debate through legislation or other means, are the first signals that history is at risk of abuse – such efforts abroad are also a warning to historians in America.
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Jonathan Katz on Smedley Butler and American Empire
Robin Lindley
The author of "Gangsters of Capitalism" discusses Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, who manned the front lines of American imperialism but also blew the whistle on an alleged coup plot...
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The Dobbs Decision Punctures the Supreme Court's Sacred Mythology
Alan J. Singer
The Supreme Court uses a myth of its own impartiality to justify a legacy of judicial review that is tainted by its service to slavery and Jim Crow.
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What Would Madison Think of Originalism? Depends When You Asked Him
Don Fraser
James Madison moved away from a strict constructionist position based on public necessity and acceptance of legislation based in implied powers. Whatever one can say about the originalist legal theory behind the leaked Dobbs opinion, it's not Madisonian.
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The Environmental and Humanistic Sensibility of Pasternak and Lessons from Dr. Zhivago for Today
Walter G. Moss
Boris Pasternak's masterwork exhibited a profound awareness of the onenness of creation – human and natural alike – that should guide the projects of peace and environmental protection.
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There Oughtta Be a Law
Jim Zirin
A veteran prosecutor weighs in on how American law must erase the distinction between "fully automatic" and "semiautomatic" weapons and ban the weapons that are used in massacre after massacre.
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Can Ukraine Harness the Power of the Small to Survive Russia's Attack?
Paul J. Croce
While Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance, its greatest strengths, like those of lowly insects and microscopic pathogens, rests with its readiness to use the strengths of the small.
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Is the Republican Party Willing to Purge its Extremists?
Jeff Kolnick
Beginning in the 1920s, the Democratic Party began the long, difficult, and politically costly process of dissociation from white supremacy. Do today's Republicans who claim to reject extremism have the courage to do the same?
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How Should We Rate Presidents?
Stone Age Brain – Rick Shenkman
New polls indicate Trump is more popular than Biden. What this suggests is that people have no idea how to rate presidents.
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The Roundup Top Ten for June 3, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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