Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith
By Philip Jenkins
The Latest 
-
India's COVID Crisis Has Roots in its Colonial-Era Tax Structure
Roderick Matthews
India's COVID crisis is being exacerbated by a health system that uses an anemic 3.5% of GDP. Continuities from the era of the British Raj, when powerful rural landowners went untaxed, are a big part of the problem.
-
Reflections on Russia's "Victory Day"
Nadya Williams
Russia's observance of Victory Day prompts reflection on the ways Holocaust survivors and their descendants lived lives shaped by this trauma.
-
A CIA Historian’s Photos of the Afghan War Tell the Story of Those Being Left Behind in Afghanistan
Brian Glyn Williams
A historian who advised the US military in Afghanistan and traveled extensively in the country warns that America's Afghan allies may pay a terrible price from Biden's proposed troop withdrawal.
-
Are Campus Bookstores Undermining Student Learning?
Elizabeth Stice
Today’s undergraduates are increasingly being cornered into ongoing financial commitments for everything, while they never take possession of anything. Rejecting digital book programs run by campus bookstores outsourced to third parties could help reverse this trend.
-
Mudlarking: Searching for Lost Treasure – and History – on the Banks of the Thames
Jason Sandy and Nick Stevens
The Thames River's silty bottom and tidal patterns make its banks a repository of historical artifacts. Today's "mudlarks" have turned the old tradition of scavenging the banks for subsistence into a public archaeology project.
-
Experiments With Reality: New Histories of the Magical
Ed Simon
A history of magic as a way of seeing the world offers perspective on the urgent need to reconsider humanity's relationship to the natural world.
-
The Roundup Top Ten for May 7, 2021
HNN Staff
The top opinion essays by historians and about history from around the web this week.
-
Remember The Essential Workers After COVID: They Deserve Better
Joshua B. Freeman
All of us literally owe our lives to our essential workers. Let’s not forget it. Giving them a fair shake is not only a moral obligation, it will make a better city for all of us.
-
Another Bite at the Apple: Isaac Newton's Time as a Man of Politics and Economics
Patricia Fara
Isaac Newton's life has been retold according to the values of successive historians. Until now, most have shied away from Newton's second career at the Royal Mint, during which he was part of the growth of a British prosperity that was rooted in colonialism and slavery.
-
Locating the Present in the Past: a World History Teaching Challenge
Peter N. Stearns
I have always believed that the primary goal of world history teaching was to help students place the world around them today in context of the past.
-
Aidez Madrid!
Andy Robinson
The embrace of the far-right Vox party by Madrid's conservative coalition promises to drive the region's politics toward nativism, climate denialism, and reckless COVID policies.
-
Elijah Lovejoy Faced Down Violent Mobs to Champion Abolition and the Free Press
Ken Ellingwood
In 1837, Elijah Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob in Illinois, and the press he used to publish his abolitionist newsletter was thrown into the Mississippi River. Lovejoy's championing of both abolition and the free press should inspire us today.
-
The 1940s Fight Against the Equal Rights Amendment Was Bipartisan and Crossed Ideological Lines
Rebecca De Wolf
Discussion of the ERA often focuses on the way the New Right stopped ratification by the states in the 1970s. But earlier opposition to the proposed amendment involved a bipartisan and ideologically diverse coalition in Congress.
-
The Fateful Choice: Nuclear Arms Race or Nuclear Weapons-Free World
Lawrence Wittner
Nuclear-armed nations face a choice: to push ahead with a wasteful course that raises the risk of nuclear war, or to lead toward a world without nuclear weapons.
-
FDR's Court Packing Plan Backfired in the South. Will Biden Repeat The Error?
James C. Cobb
FDR's court packing efforts were based in a miscalculation of the president's political capital, especially with southern Democrats. It seems like Joe Biden is working to avoid similar overreach.
-
The Roundup Top Ten for April 30, 2021
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
-
Lights, Camera... Survey! Americans Give History a Screen Test
Pete Burkholder
Americans access knowledge about the past through screens and especially moving images. What does this mean for the practice and teaching of history? New survey research suggests potential and pitfalls.
-
Walter F. Mondale and the Creation of the New Vice Presidency
Joel K. Goldstein
Walter Mondale worked with Jimmy Carter to redefine the vice presidency from a stepping stone to a key public servant, and infused this new role with compassion.
-
Blog
The Bloody Handkerchief
Ann Banks' Confederates in My Closet
Leroy Pope Walker first claimed my attention not from The Pile of documents in my closet but from my silverware drawer, where his name is engraved on a silver serving spoon: “L.P. Walker to E...
-
Whither Germany? Historiography and Public Reckoning with the National Past
Samuel Miner
Hedwig Richter's book "Democracy: A German Affair" has sparked controversy for its rejection of the idea that Germany has followed a "special path" to liberal democracy and catalyzed a broad debate about the role of historians in public reckoning with the crimes of the past.
-
Russia vs. Ukraine Redux? Mapping the Way Forward from the Recent Past
Walter G. Moss
Historical context suggests that Vladimir Putin's intentions toward Ukraine are pragmatic and comprehensible (whether one favors Russian objectives or not); a broader imagination and diplomatic engagement can do more to prevent open war than saber-rattling.
-
Is the Presidency a License to Kill? War Powers and the Constitution
Paul W. Lovinger
The Framers' failure to defend war powers from the presidency has given us endless war. It's time to admit that failure.
-
“Not Your Fetish”: Protesting Racism and Misogyny Against Asian American Women
Hao Zou
The Atlanta massage parlor killings reflect a century and a half of history in which racist and misogynistic stereotypes of Asian women have been normalized in American culture. Protests are demanding change.
-
"The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III" by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
James Thornton Harris
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's biography of the influential Republican political dealmaker at the heart of the Reagan-Bush era offers a compelling account of James A. Baker's career, but shows him to have been more motivated by power than by a vision of its uses.
-
Mars Perseverance and the King's Bay Plowshares: A Study in Priorities
Mike McQuillan
The Kings Bay Plowshares group deserve a parade for protesting a nuclear submarine base. Instead seven of them are in jail as the United States spends billions of dollars a day on weaponry.
-
The "Doughboys" Made their Biggest Contribution Fighting Postwar Hunger
William Lambers
At the anniversary of American entry into the first World War, we should remember the role of American troops in distributing food as part of the American Relief Administration.
-
The Roundup Top Ten for April 23, 2021
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
