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HNN
12/5/2021

To our Readers: To Keep HNN Publishing Original Stories Like These, Contribute to Our Reader Fund Drive

Dear Readers,

As December progresses, we are continuing our annual reader fund drive. I'll get right to the point: HNN needs your support to keep bringing you historical perspective on current events and informed commentary by historians. Without your contributions, there won't be an HNN. 

I hope you agree that HNN is a valuable resource and a unique presence on the web. There isn't another site that does what we do. 

Beginning with the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the news didn't take a break in 2021 and neither did HNN. 

All year, HNN has been working to bring you original opinion essays by historians and other scholars offering historical perspective on the most urgent issues of the day. Just as a reminder, here are some of the top original opinion essays we published in the past year:

Memo From Irish History: Welcome to Your Future, American Women (9/12)

by Laura Weinstein

After sustained public outcry, the Republic of Ireland looked to its history of horrific treatment and preventable death of girls and women under its draconian abortion laws and said "enough." Will this example change the course American states like Texas are poised to follow? 

The Free Press and Democracy in a "Murder the Media" Age (1/17)

by Wendy Melillo

Journalism as a profession needs to embrace its historical role as a guardian of democracy and refuse to let objectivity work as a shield for authoritarianism; authoritarians won't accept a free press anyway.

What Comes Next? (4/4)

by Stephanie Hinnershitz

In 1979, Asian American leaders testified to Congress about problems of discrimination, opportunity and hostility facing their communities. The official response largely enshrined a "model minority" myth that obscured ongoing problems behind a celebratory narrative of inclusion. Waves of anti-Asian violence in the 1980s belied that story, and warn us not to minimize the climate of hostility Asian Americans face today.

A Modern Day Lynch Mob Invaded the Capitol on January 6 (1/10)

by Guy Lancaster

When the Capitol rioters took selfies and posted their exploits on social media, they worked from the same expectation of impunity as drove participants in Jim Crow lynch mobs. 

Drug Prohibition and the Political Roots of Cartel Violence in Mexico (8/8)

by Benjamin T. Smith

Violence is not so much in the DNA of the drug trade as the DNA of drug prohibition. And until both American and Mexican police forces stop treating it like a war, the violence won’t stop.

Time to Revisit the History of School Integration in the North (8/1)

by Zoë Burkholder

The history of school integration in the North shows that Black northerners have viewed quality education and democracy as core goals, while disagreeing about which educational policies serve those goals best.

The Legacies of Un-critical Race Theory at Berkeley (7/25)

by Tony Platt

For most of its history, the University of California has been a bastion of un-critical race theory from Manifest Destiny to The Bell Curve. 

Escape as Resistance for Enslaved Women during the American Revolution (6/27)

by Karen Cook Bell

Historians have, for too long, failed to recognize how Black women imagined and pursued freedom by escape from slavery during the American Revolution. 

Has the One World Idea's Time Come Again? (3/21)

by Samuel Zipp

Can remembering the “one world” vision for America’s global role—largely forgotten today ­–­ help us get beyond both America First and the “liberal world order”? 

Hidden Stories of Jewish Resistance in Poland (4/4)

by Judy Batalion

I was fascinated by the widespread resistance efforts of Polish Jews, but equally by their absence from current understandings of the war. Of all the legions of Holocaust tales, what had happened to this one?

HNN also gathers stories from around the web in our news sections and our Roundup of opinion writing by historians and other scholars. We cover the web and social media to give our readers a one-stop shop for news about historians, historical discoveries, and the uses and abuses of history in the political arena. 

As the year closes, we need your help to support our work for 2022. 

You can visit our donations page to make a secure contribution to HNN. 

If you value what you read on HNN, and the unique historical perspective we provide on the news, please make a contribution. 

 – Michan Connor, PhD

Editor