With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

On Other Websites: The Latest

This page is updated continuously. It includes a list of articles published in the media related to history and current events. The list below includes articles published recently. Click here for articles published earlier. Descriptions of articles frequently come from the articles themselves.

The descriptions of articles listed on this page are often copied directly from the websites on which they appear.

Wilfred M. McClay: Do Ideas Matter in American History? (Wilson Quarterly)
The abandonment of the general educated reader as a cultural ideal over the course of the century was, in fact, an intellectual, cultural, and moral calamity, and a betrayal of the nation’s democratic hopes. The situation at century’s end bore an uncomfortably close resemblance to what Santayana and Brooks had described nearly 100 years before. The split in the American mind still existed (as sharply etched as ever), and it still divided highbrows and lowbrows. But the highbrows became ponderous, impenetrable, professionalized academics.
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=32774

James Fallows: Blind Into Baghdad
The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully ignored by the people in charge. The inside story of a historic failure.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/media-preview/fallows.htm

Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong, By Kenneth M. Pollack
OOps. Pollack, author of The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, admits he was wrong to argue before the war with Iraq that Saddam possessed WMD. His mea culpa.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/pollack.htm

An Audiovisual Review of the History of U.S.-Saddam Relationship
An Internet video featuring stills and music that traces the history of American support for Saddam Hussein. (Note: It takes time to load.)
http://www.ericblumrich.com/thanks.html

Bill Clinton's Jokemeister
Mirth of a Nation: How Bill Clinton learned to tell jokes on himself--and get the last laugh. By Clinton's jokemeister, Mark Katz.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.katz.html

High Noon in the Nuclear West
In the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower instituted an"Atoms for Peace" program, emphasizing"the miraculous inventiveness of man," that was meant to put a happier face on the apocalypse. If you were growing up in those years, you surely remember the TV programs on atomic power in which one of those deep, portentous male voices invariably said something like:"Humanity has a choice, either hell on earth (doom/you fill in the appropriate word) or a paradise of eternal power and well-being." As the"or," after the"either" of Hiroshima and superpower atomic cataclysm, the"peaceful atom" was plugged as a cure-all for everything. In a classic 1957 Disneyland TV show,"Our Friend, the Atom," the science lesson was at one point illustrated by an animated vision of irradiated plants and animals sparkling like so many charming Tinkerbells after their encounter with that peaceful atom. As it turns out, atomic power, whether for war or peace, leaves a legacy behind.
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1130

W.E.B. DuBois Photographic Collection: Depicts Life for Blacks 35 Years After Civil War (NPR)
"Some foreigners will think we have nothing for the Negro but the bludgeon and revolver; we shall convince them otherwise." These are the words of B.D. Woodward, the assistant commissioner-general for the U.S.'s delegation to the 1900 Paris Exposition. He was referring to the"American Negro Exhibit," pulled together for the Paris Exposition by the young sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois.
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1522978.html

Divide Iraq into 3 (London Times)
Those who try to do the undoable must also think the unthinkable. American strategists in Iraq are contemplating what they have always denied, the search for a"strong man with a moustache" to stop the present rot. If the result is not democracy, so be it. If the result is the dismemberment of Iraq, so be it. Iraq has become a mess. There is only one priority, to"get out with dignity."
http://hnn.us/comments/25280.html

Molly Ivins: What Makes Bush Tick (Mother Jones)
Bush's lies now fill volumes. He lied us into two hideously unfair tax cuts; he lied us into an unnecessary war with disastrous consequences; he lied us into the Patriot Act, eviscerating our freedoms. But when it comes to dealing with those less privileged, Bush's real problem is not deception, but self-deception.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/11/ma_559_01.html

Should the Pulitzer for the NYT's Duranty be Revoked? (Columbia Journalism Review)
Seventy years after a government-engineered famine killed millions in Ukraine, a New York Times correspondent who failed to sound the alarm is under attack.
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/6/pulitzer-mccollam.asp

How 2 Columbus Circle Saved the World (Wall Street Journal)
When it comes to designating architectural landmarks, there should be a special criterion, quite apart from artistic merit, for buildings that express the political zeitgeist. We may not especially like these buildings, but they stand as remnants of the ideas that shaped their age. In New York, one such structure was the World Trade Center. Another is 2 Columbus Circle.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107032906134199500,00.html?mod=opinion

Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI's Use of Murderers as Informants
The FBI's use of murderers as informants in Boston beginning in the 1960s was explored in a blistering report from the House Committee on Government Reform last month, which also criticized the Bush Administration for impeding its investigation. Because of the FBI's indiscriminate reliance on known killers,"men died in prison -- and spent their lives in prison -- for crimes they did not commit," the House Committee report found. Published by the House Committee on Government Reform, November 21.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_rpt/index.html#fbi

Orville Schell: The Mess that Is Iraq
"Before our own triumphant age of euphemism and spin-doctoring, we called such an ending by its rightful name -- defeat. One emphatically does not wish defeat on the US, even for such a gargantuan blunder. Nonetheless, a full measure of our leadership's ineptness in this war may be gauged by the fact that, just at the moment when failure forces the administration to consider alternative scenarios to belligerent unilateralism, there may be no hopeful options left open."
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1081

The Making of Modern Iraq (Wilson Quarterly)
In the early spring of 2003, a quarter of the British army was based in Kuwait, advancing north into familiar territory. In 1916, these soldiers’ great-grandfathers had first advanced up the river Tigris, to defeat and humiliation at Turkish hands. The following year the British returned, advancing to Baghdad and beyond.
http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.print&essay_id=32217&stoplayout=true

Jim Sleeper:"Liberalism Is Living on Borrowed Time"
It's taking for granted the spiritual and cultural resources that liberals depend on but do nothing to replenish," writes historian David L. Chappell, revivifying an old argument in his stunning reinterpretation of the American civil rights movement as a profoundly illiberal undertaking.
http://hometown.aol.com/jimsleep/myhomepage/index.html

General Clark's Military Career (New Yorker)
Peter Boyer: The candidate’s celebrated—and controversial—military career.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031117fa_fact

The Crimes of the Media: Not What You Think
Bernard Goldberg, author of the best-selling book Bias, is right that the media sometimes mistreats conservatives. What he and his supporters don't recognize is that's only one part of a much larger story. Article by Jonathan Chait in the New Republic.
http://www.tnr.com/thisweek.mhtml?i=20020318

Who Is General Clark?
Elizabeth Drew profile of Clark (NY Review of Books).
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16795

Victor Davis Hanson: The End of History?
Writing as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Francis Fukuyama famously announced the “End of History.” How naive all this sounds today.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10607

What Has Become of the Israeli Left? (Guardian)
Israel was founded by Europeans with socialist ideals and utopian dreams. Now the embattled country is dominated by the right and religious fanaticism is on the rise. What went wrong? Ian Buruma heads for the cafes of Schenken Street in search of the answer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1068681,00.html

The Last Bear
Teddy Roosevelt, race suicide and the killing of Orange County's last grizzly.
http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/04/07/cover-brennan.php

C. Boyden Gray and Karl Rove
A profile in the New Republic that shows what it takes for an old-shoe Republican like C. Boyden Gray to survive in a GOP dominated by conservatives like Karl Rove.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031013&s=foer101303

Dean Baker: Reflections on Economic Reporting
Why do so many people hae such distorted ideas about matters of substance like the estate tax, the impact of the Bush tax cuts, and other complicated subjects? Because the media do a bad job reporting economics, says economist Dean Baker.
http://www.cepr.net/ERR_reflections.htm

Juan Cole: The Iraqi Shiites
The history of America's would-be allies.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR28.5/cole.html

Mike Davis: What the California Recall Vote Means
The mobs howled again in California, rattling windows on the Potomac.
http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1001

Where the British and French Went Wrong Invading Egypt (Guardian)
The French sought enlightenment in Egypt, the British wanted power. But neither could extract the country's riches, says Jonathan Jones.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1053846,00.html

St. Peter's Tomb (Atlantic Monthly)
Below the high altar of St. Peter's, investigators have found sheep bones, ox bones, pig bones, and the complete skeleton of a mouse. Was Peter himself ever there?
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/10/mueller.htm

Richard Miniter: Clinton's Neglect of Terrorism
An excerpt from Richard Miniter Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror (Regnery, 2003).
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004081

Martin Kramer: About Edward Said
Martin Kramer's chapter on Edward Said in Ivory Towers on Sand.
http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/SaidSplash.htm

Why Do Liberals Hate George W. Bush?
Jonathan Chait in the New Republic:"I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history."
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030929&s=chait092903

General Clark for President? (Slate)
David Greenberg reviews the history of campaigns which resulted in the election of generals to the presidency.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2088306/#sb2088307

Project Censored: List of Stories the Media Neglected in 2003
The reminder that the media often reports the 'news" as fed to it by those in power, and skips past the real news – the reasons for the behaviors and policies – is good reason for the continued existence of Project Censored, a program in its 27th year that collects under-reported stories from around the country and compiles a list of the top 10" censored stories" as well as 15 runner-ups.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16784

Symposium: Anti-Semitism (frontpagemag.com)
Why is hatred of Jews the new call of the Left? Jamie Glazov talks to Sol Stern, Phyllis Chesler, Roger S. Gottlieb and David Rosen.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9926

The Ten Commandments and American Law
Why some Christians' claims to legal hegemony are not consistent with the historical record.(findlaw.com).
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20030911.html

Did the Beatles Kill the Soviet Union?
Mikhail Safonov argues that the Beatles did more for the break up of totalitarianism in the USSR than Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. (Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1013952,00.html

David Greenberg: Bush and Other Presidents Who Have Lied
David Greenberg:"The record shows that Bush, although hardly a liar of Nixonian proportions, is no more truthful than any other recent chief executive. Whether the issue of Bush's credibility gap waxes or wanes, it's worth asking why the press sometimes seizes on a lie while at other times passes it by." (Columbia Journalism Review)
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/5/lie-greenberg.asp

Saudi Arabia: Oligarchy
From the Middle East Review of International Affairs, an assessment of Saudi Arabia.
http://hnn.us/comments/17618.html

Gerald Posner: Saudi Arabian Leaders Were Close to 9-11 Hijackers
Author Gerald Posner claims an al-Qaeda leader made explosive allegations while under interrogation, linking a Saudi prince to Abu Zubaydah, a leading member of Osama bin Laden's brain trust (Time).
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

Germany: Responses to Wartime Bombing (London Review of Books)
In the final phase of the second world war, Germany suffered destruction by bombing on an unprecedented scale. Yet, in the 50 years since the bombing raids, little has been spoken or written of that era of terror and degradation. What was behind this individual and collective amnesia?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/lrb/articles/0,6109,1030343,00.html

Australia's History Wars
Jenny Hocking, director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University, provides a refreshing review of the history wars in Australia. She concludes:"there is something primeval in the rush to reaction in the history wars, the perceived threat to national unity and cohesion, the fear of threatened supremacy."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/27/1061663846149.html

The March on Washington, 40 Years Later (NPR)
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the civil rights March on Washington, which featured the Rev. Martin Luther King's famous"I Have a Dream" speech before an unexpectedly large crowd of at least 250,000 people.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/march40th/index.html

Slavery in the 21st Century (NPR)
It's a word many read about only in history books. But slavery and human trafficking exist today in great numbers. By one estimate, more than 27 million people live in slavery around the world. Most are trying to pay off debts that can span generations.
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1408233.html

Are Republicans Trying to Subvert Democracy?
Chatterbox in Slate takes on the question of whether Republicans have been trying over the past decade to subvert democracy by overturning the election of Democrats.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2087297/

We'll Makeup with France
Richard Brookhiser: The French helped us win our Revolution. A few years later we were at war with Napoleon’s navy. The two countries have been falling in and out of love ever since. Why? (American Heritage)
http://www.americanheritage.com/AMHER/2003/04/france.shtml

Freud and the Bloomsburg Set
Condemned as 'pornography' in the British Medical Journal, Freudian ideas found some early supporters among intellectuals. Daniel Pick on the unwritten history of psychoanalysis in England (Guardian).
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1019560,00.html

Is Our Economy Really a Model for the World?
Will Hutton, writing in the Nation:"The American Prosperity Myth."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030901&s=hutton

Frontpagemag/RAND Symposium on Terrorism
What exactly is al Qaeda? What is the nature of its threat? What must America do to win? In a co-ordinated symposium with RAND, Frontpage Magazine`s Jamie Glazov talks to five RAND experts on terrorism: Brian Jenkins, Bruce Hoffman, John Parachini, William Rosenau and Greg Treverton.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9416

Genocide in Gujarat: The International Community Looks Away
Martha C. Nussbaum, writing in Dissent: The events of March 2002 emerged from a long history of deliberate construction of hate. For some time, a lot of money has been poured into the creation of camps for young Hindu men, where they are taught hatred and fear of Muslims and partisan fervor is cultivated.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/

George Chauncey: The Historian's Historian
Rick Perlstein's wide-ranging profile of George Chauncey, the historian who wrote the brief reviewing the history of gay rights for the Supreme Court in the case of Lawrence v. Texas.
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0308/features/index.shtml

President Reagan's Ban on Assassinations
U.S. policy as set forth in President Reagan's 1982 Executive Order 12333 formally prohibits assassination. But exactly what does that mean? An introduction is provided in"Assassination Ban and E.O. 12333: A Brief Summary" by Elizabeth B. Bazan, Congressional Research Service, January 4, 2002, newly available online.
http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS21037.pdf

NPR's History of the Wright Brothers
You've heard of Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, but how about Glenn Curtiss or Albert Santos-Dumont? In this hour -- the first part of our series on the 100th anniversary of the flight at Kitty Hawk -- we'll take a look at what was happening in aviation leading up to the Wright Brothers' famous flight. (Audio)
http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/segment.jhtml?wfId=1382674

Caesar, the Good Democrat?
A new interpretation of Caesar claims he was a democrat. (Audio)
http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/07/20030721_b_main.asp

Symposium: A Guerrilla War in Iraq?
Frontpagemag.com symposium featuring David Kaiser, Jacob Heilbrunn, and James Woolsey.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9213

The On-going Dispute About David Hockney's Theory
David Hockney's startling claim about the use of mirror lenses by certain Old Masters has sparked an increasingly heated debate. Sebastian Smee reports on a new assault on the artist's controversial views.
http://hnn.us/comments/15976.html

Spoils of War: Iraq
Neil Brodie: The plundering of Iraq's cultural institutions demonstrates yet again how warfare fuels the global trade in looted antiquities.
http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=0307/etc/war

George Washington's Distillery
At Mount Vernon they're digging up the ground to discover evidence of Washington's distillery business, begun in 1797.
http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/mtvernon/index.html

Garry Wills: Review of Hillary's Memoir
Garry Wills:"I tried a high-minded approach to Ms. H.R. Clinton's book, which was a great mistake."
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16510

Why Is Africa So Poor?
Stephen Haber, Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast, three senior fellows at the Hoover Institution explain that Africa is worse off now than 20 years ago because market-based initiatives did not accompany government and political reform.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9157

Seymour Hersh: Profile
Is he the greatest reporter of our time?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16484

Korea: NPR's History of the War
To fully grasp the ongoing tensions between the United States and North Korea, it is important to understand the war that ended fifty years ago this summer. John Biewen and Stephen Smith of American RadioWorks examine the often-overlooked war that helped define global politics and American life for the second half of the 20th century.
http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/korea/index.html

Washington DC's Patent Office Building
Feature story on the history of the Patent Office Building, which is now undergoing reconstruction.
http://hnn.us/comments/15633.html

Walter Cronkite: Remembering the Coverage of World War II (NPR)
Commentator and former CBS-TV anchor Walter Cronkite recalls the United Press World War II radio drama that used actors to portray its reporters in the field.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/cronkite/index.html

A Historian on the Job Market
A historian at a regional state university reprises his attempts to find a tenure-track position at a better university (Chronicle of Higher Education).
http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/07/2003072301c.htm

James Ceaser: Anti-Americanism in Europe
America's rise to the status of the world's premier power, while inspiring much admiration, has also provoked widespread feelings of suspicion and hostility (Public Interest).
http://www.thepublicinterest.com/current/article1.html

Rick Perlstein: Howard Dean's Youth Corps
Howard Dean has tapped into youth to give his campaign energy, the first Democrat to do so in years (Mother Jones).
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2003/29/we_480_01.html

A Black Woman Comes Face to Face with Her White Ancestors (Village Voice)
Some years ago, when my grandmother died at 94, she was writing a novel based on her life. She left only a few pages and an outline, but her life was indeed novel material. The daughter of Chloe Curry, a cook and tenant farmer who had been enslaved in Alabama, and Will Campbell, a white Mississippi Delta cotton farmer, she was born at the end of Reconstruction and was raised by this pair, who stayed together until his death early in the 20th century.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0329/davis.php

Will History Repeat Itself in Pakistan?
Is Pakistan following the same patterns that existed before the genocide of 1971?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8931

What Really Happened at Cam Ne?
Although described as one of the top works of 20th-century journalism, the CBS Morley Safer report presented only one side of the story.
http://www.historynet.com/vn/blwhathappenedatcamne/index.html

Interview with Historian Thomas Clark (NPR)
Host Bob Edwards talks to the historian laureate of Kentucky, Dr. Thomas Clark, on his 100th birthday. Dr. Clark came out with his 32nd book last year and he has inspired hundreds more.
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1335841

How Stalin Bugged FDR
Gary Kern,"How 'Uncle Joe' Bugged FDR," Studies in Intelligence.
http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/vol47no1/article02.html

Magna Carta and Liberty in the 21st Century
Its most far-reaching provisions aren’t the ones we remember. Historian Peter Linebaugh.
http://bostonreview.net/BR28.3/linebaugh.nclk

Oil and Latin America
NPR series: The U.S. imports more oil from Latin America than from all Middle Eastern countries combined. Oil wealth has long generated dreams of prosperity but in the lands of production, the reserves have often been a Midas curse of political and economic instability.
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2003/jul/latinoil/index.html

Saddam and the Tribes of Iraq
Professor of History Amatzia Baram:"Because the tribes were a key element of Saddam's power base and because they exercised considerable autonomy under the Baath regime, asserting control over them will send an important message to the rest of Iraq that Saddam's regime is finished."
http://hnn.us/comments/14860.html

Kenneth Pollack: Is Iraq Capable of Democracy?
Pollack and Daniel Byman in a paper promoted by the Brookings Institution consider the alternatives to democracy in Iraq. They conclude that democracy is viable.
http://www.twq.com/03summer/docs/03summer_bymanpollack.pdf

A Historian Comes of Age
Danny Kodmur's coming of age story: how he took refuge in history as he grappled with disability and an emerging gay identity.
http://www.bentvoices.org/bentvoices/kodmur_old.htm

The Air Force Crash in 1948 that Led to the Most Important Military Secrecy Ruling in Supreme Court History
The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to its landmark 1953 ruling in U.S. v. Reynolds in which the plaintiffs were denied access to an Air Force accident report on grounds that it contained"state secrets." This is the story behind the original ruling.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/statesecrets/m062203a.htm

NPR Reprises the History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
A series of radio reports regarding the history of the Balfour Declaration, Theodor Herzl and the First Zionist Congress, Partition, War and Independence, The 1967 Six Day War, From the 1973 Yom Kippur War to Peace with Egypt, From the First Intifada to the Oslo Peace Agreement, and The Second Intifada and the Death of Oslo.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/index.html

The Ongoing Fight Over the Elgin Marbles
The Elgin Marbles are no longer part of the Parthenon story, Peter Aspden is told (Financial Times).
http://hnn.us/comments/13866.html

Bill Moyers: The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.
A speech by Bill Moyers at a conference sponsored by Campaign for America's Future.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0610-11.htm

The Rosenbergs: 50 Years After Their Deaths
What happened to their son Robert. (Guardian)
http://hnn.us/comments/13176.html

Attempts of the Confederacy to Terrorize Washington DC During the Civil War
The Washington Post reports how the desperate government of the Confederacy considered resorting to biological and chemical warfare and terrorism to defeat the North.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50445-2003May28.html

Canada and Jews
About Canada's history of allowing Nazi war criminals to settle in Ontario and other places.
http://hnn.us/comments/12933.html

Why Societies Collapse
A geographer explains why societies do themselves in.
http://hnn.us/comments/12919.html

Hitchens Versus Hobsbawm
A debate between the journalist and the historian.
http://hnn.us/comments/12674.html

Interview With Gore Vidal
Vidal suggests Bush shoiuld be impeached for 9-11 and lies about Iraq.
http://www.democracynow.org/transcripts/gorevidal.shtml

Interview With Sidney Blumenthal
The author of The Clinton Wars is interviewed by Barnes and Noble.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780374125028&displayonly=ITV#ITV

David Mccullough: NEH Jefferson Lecture
http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/mccullough/lecture.html

What Happens Next In Iraq (PBS)
PBS Newshour debate about the US record on nation-building, featuring interviews with Gaddis Smith, Margaret MacMillan , and Diane Kunz.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/history_04-15.html

The Unanswered Questions About President Bush's Response To 9-11 On 9-11
A detailed timeline of Bush' movements and actions on 9-11. Why did he linger for over 10 minutes in the Sarasoata classroom after learning of the 2nd attack? Why did it take the Air Force 2 hours to scramble fighter jets to protect Air Force One? Were threats made against Bush and Air Force One on 9-11?
http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

Oah Rountable On War In Iraq
Transcripts of the controversial roundtable held at the OAH annual meeting in April in Memohis concerning the war with Iraq: Alan Brinkley; Peter L. Hahn; Marilyn Young; Kevin Gaines; Eric Foner.
http://www.oah.org/meetings/2003/roundtable/index.html

Henry V: Shakespeare Got Him Wrong (Deliberately)
One of their"lessons" from Henry's victory at Agincourt was that good leaders leverage superior technology to defeat their enemies. Henry's troops used the longbow, which helped them overwhelm a vastly more numerous French force. This fact is, of course, historically true. But this technological"fact" is one that Shakespeare deliberately omitted.
http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2003-05-01-henryv.shtml

Princeton University: Scholars Debate The Presidency Of George W. Bush
Scholars including Fred Greenstein and Hugh Heclo delivered papers in April at a conference devoted to a mid-term assessment of the Bush presidency.
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/bushconf/schedule.htm

Interview With Jamin Raskin
Jamin Raskin is a professor of constitutional law at American University. As a public-interest lawyer defending"the right to democracy," he has represented the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Ross Perot, Greenpeace, United Students Against Sweatshops and many others. His latest book, Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court vs. The American People, contends the current court is one of the most activist courts in U.S. history.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7632

Brookings Institution: Is There Another Kind Of Vietnam Quagmire To Fear In Iraq?
There's another type of Vietnam syndrome, less well-known but just as pervasive as the fear that conflict in a foreign country will lead to quagmire. It derives from our relationship with South Vietnam and the political quagmire that resulted from our experience as democratic imperialists there.
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/dalpino/20030423.htm

Did The Left Go Too Far? A Symposium Hosted By Frontpagemag.Com
The symposium features: Judith Klinghoffer, Thomas Spencer, Jeffrey Herf and Ted Glick.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7493

Irish Soldiers In Iraq
The arrival in Iraq of Irish regiments, under the sponsorship of the British government, brings to mind earlier such expeditions to this troubled land.
http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/iriraq.html

Is The Bush Administration Deceiving The Public About The Scope Of Its True Goals In The Middle East?
Joshua Micah Marshall, in the Washington Monthly.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0304.marshall.html

Pope John Paul Ii Has Beatified 1,000 Saints--More Than All The Other Popes Put Together Since 1588
http://hnn.us/comments/11132.html

Sam Tanenhaus On The Demise Of Partisan Review
http://slate.msn.com/id/2081610/

The Fire The Chicago Fire Overshadowed Though It Killed More People
John Steele Gordon on the Wisconsin forest fire that no one ever heard of because urban people write the history books.
http://www.americanheritage.com/AMHER/2003/02/business.shtml

Jonathan Pollack: The United States, North Korea, And The End Of The Agreed Framework
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/Review/2003/Summer/art1-adv-su3.htm

World War Ii Set The Gold Standard For War Reporting
Interviews with some of the surviving stars of WW II journalism: Cronkite, Hottelet, Andy Rooney
http://hnn.us/comments/10777.html

Rules Of War
How did the rules of war develop?
http://hnn.us/comments/10723.html

Britain's Leading Military Historian, Antony Beevor: On War In The Modern Era
Despite new concepts of battle, older methods against despots still have a role.
http://hnn.us/comments/10710.html

Who Is Ahmed Chalabi?
A profile of the leader of the Iraqi National Congress; in the American Prospect
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/21/dreyfuss-r.html

Books That Are Influencing The Bush Administration (NYT)
A review of the select books that have shaped the Bush administration's foreign policy: Kagan, Cohen, et al.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/05/arts/05WARB.html

Why Iraq's Oil Supplies May Be A Burden
John B. Judis in the New Republic notes that only one country with vast oil supplies is a democracy (Norway). Is that a coincidence?
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030331&s=judis033103&c=1

How War Has Inspired Literature Throughout History
Associated Press: War's true legacy, Whitman later observed, was the"mute, subtle, immortal" graves of the victims. But just as war leads to death, it inspires literature.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=529&ncid=529&e=13&u=/ap/20030326/ap_en_ot/wkd_the_literature_of_war

Betting The Presidency
A journalist's account: Bush is betting his presidency on what Joe Biden calls the greatest gamble of any president in 30 years.
http://hnn.us/comments/9962.html

Impact Of Sugar On Slavery
It is a commodity so familiar that many of us take it for granted. Not so Matt Preston, who travelled to three continents to research the sweet thing and the impact it has had.
http://hnn.us/comments/9956.html

Camille Paglia: Religion And Politics In The 1960s
The intriguing connections between politics in the 1960s and the experiments with spirtuality, Hinduism and Indian religions.
http://www.bu.edu/arion/paglia_cults00.htm

Facing Up To North Korea
Joshua Muravchik, writing in Commentary, says it's time to face up to the possibility of a confrontation with North Korea.
http://commentarymagazine.com/muravchik.htm

PBS: Historians Debate Bush's Ultimatum
Dallek, Zinn, Mead, Kunz.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june03/historians_3-17.html

Polygamy In Utah: A Short History
The focus on the case of Elizabeth Smart has focused attention once again on Utah polygamy.
http://hnn.us/comments/9648.html

The Man Who Designed The Confederate Flag Embraced Slavery And Secession
A profile of William Porcher Miles, the man who designed the Confederate battle flag.
http://hnn.us/comments/9559.html

Jibes At The French
The history of suspiciousness of the French.
http://hnn.us/comments/9557.html

Glasnost On War's Looted Art
For more than 50 years the Soviet Union hid thousands of paintings, archives and rare books looted b.y Soviet forces in Germany and Eastern Europe during and after World War II. Now, reflecting increased glasnost, Russia's Ministry of Culture is posting images and descriptions of these"displaced cultural treasures" on a new Web site
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/arts/design/12REST.html

Is Islam A Religion Of Peace? Of War?
A four-way debate sponsored by frontpagemag.com.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6431

We Live In The Shadow Of The Ottoman Empire
David Fromkin: How the Ottoman Empire shaped the modern world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/weekinreview/09FROM.html

How The Cia Secretly Financed The Making Of A Cartoon Version Of Orwell's Animal Farm In The 1950's
http://hnn.us/comments/9296.html

Rick Perlstein: On Eric Alterman's Critique Of Media Bias
A review in the Columbia Journalism Review of Alterman's new book, What Liberal Media?
http://www.cjr.org/year/03/2/perlstein.asp

Women's History Month
A list of dozens of relevant sites.
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=49&aid=1142

Stalin: His legacy.
http://hnn.us/comments/9151.html

Slavery's Untold Story In The Northern States
To this day, few people know that slavery was also rampant in the North.
http://hnn.us/comments/9154.html

The Implications Of Two Peace Movements For Jews
The peace movement of the 1930s made the Holocaust inevitable - by accident. The peace movement of today wants no more accidents: Just the death of Jews, argues Sam Schulman.
http://jewishworldreview.com/sam/schulman.html

Talking History
Talking Historyis a thirty-minute weekly radio program produced by OAH that separates fact from fiction and myth from reality through interviews with nationally recognized historians and writers. Tune in to listen to recent and upcoming shows about Cleopatra, the Vietnam War, the history of mass consumption in America, the inaccuracy of U.S. history textbooks and historic sites, and much more.
http://talkinghistory.oah.org/

The Marines: Always Faithful To Their History
While each branch of the military teaches its recruits about its history and heroes, none does so as thoroughly as the Marine Corps. The result is that the Marines may outpace any institution in America -- military or civilian -- in teaching its history to its members.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-history6mar06001435,1,385298.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dworld

Threat of War Spurs US. Soul-Searching
Before launching a military strike against Iraq, Americans should consider their own history to remember how powerful the mix of religion and politics can be, says U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH).
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=73127970327425&Avis=TO&Dato=20030301&Kategori=NEWS10&Lopenr=103010151&Ref=AR

America's Last Mass Lynching (Npr)
NPR's Renee Montagne interviews Laura Wexler, author of Fire in a Canebrake, a book that documents the 1946 Georgia lynching.
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1174520.html

Debate: Did FDR Know About Pearl Harbor In Advance?
A debate between Robert B. Stinnett and Stephen Budiansky; sponsored by the Independent.
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030127StinnettBudiansky.html

Was Stalin Murdered? (NYT)
An exhaustive study of long-secret Soviet records lends new weight to an old theory that Stalin was actually poisoned, perhaps to avert a looming war with the United States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/international/europe/05STAL.html

Michael Barone: Conservative Presidential Heroes
Barone concludes that most presidents can't do much to advance a conservative agenda, not even Bush.
http://hnn.us/comments/9054.html

Michael Wood: Afghanistan In The Days Of Alexander
Not ancient history.
http://hnn.us/comments/8949.html

Protecting Ancient History In Iraq (NPR)
Archaeologists are growing concerned over the fate of ancient monuments in Iraq.
http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_978050.html