Historians/History

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• 11/17/19
  

  The Used Bookstore Find that Inspired A History of Dress and Fashion

  by Erik Moshe

  Linda Przybyszewski on her work as a historian--including her history of women's fashion and dressmaking. 

• 
• 11/17/19
  

  Benjamin Franklin, Religious Revolutionary

  by J.D. Dickey

  Surprisingly, however, during America’s first major evangelical revival — the Great Awakening of the 1730s and ’40s — one of its most important figures had little use for religious conservatism. In fact, he wasn’t a preacher at all, but the reform-minded, freethinking Philadelphia printer Benjamin Franklin.

• 
• 11/17/19
  

  The History of Personal Hygiene: An Interview with Peter Ward

  by Aleisha Smith

  "The history of the unremarkable and the ordinary have an importance of their own, one that can easily surpass the history of greatness in any of its many forms."

• 
• 11/17/19
  

  Robert E. Lee Wasn't a Hero, He Was a Traitor

  by Michael McLean

  Lee was no hero. He was neither noble nor wise. Lee was a traitor who killed United States soldiers, fought for human enslavement, vastly increased the bloodshed of the Civil War, and made embarrassing tactical mistakes. 

• 
• 11/17/19
  

  The Princess and the Press

  by Georgie Blalock

  The more details people craved about the Princess, the more the press found ways to provide them, revealing both the good and bad about Princess Margaret's life and fame. 

• 
• 11/12/19
  

  The 7 Wonders of the World – Digitally Reconstructed

  by John Cole

  A team of researchers and 3D artists over at Budget Direct have worked with the existing sources we have for the missing wonders, and created digital reconstructions of how they would have looked like.

• 
• 11/10/19
  

  The Boer War: The Opening Act in a Violent Century

  by David Carlin

  There is something darkly poetic in the timing of the Boer War. It offered a grim preview of warfare and the social conditions that would shake the world during the 20th century.

• 
• 11/10/19
  

  Echoes of the 1969 Vietnam War Protests 50 Years Later

  by Jim Castagnera

  "As I watch events unfolding in Washington today, I recall the river of candles flowing up Fifth Avenue fifty years ago. The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

• 
• 11/10/19
  

  The Overlooked Aftermath of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

  by Robin Lindley

  A Conversation with Acclaimed History Professor Kate Brown on Her Groundbreaking Book Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future

• 
• 11/3/19
  

  The Age of the Commando: How a Group of WWII Heroes Rewrote the Rules of War

  by Saul David

  The history behind today's Special Operations Forces. 

• 
• 11/3/19
  

  A Holocaust Survivor Tells His Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz

  by Max Eisen

  "Once I put on these striped prisoner’s clothes, I felt like I was no longer a human being, only a number."

• 
• 11/3/19
  

  Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms during World War Two

  by Geoffrey Roberts

  Neither the formation of what Churchill later called the Grand Alliance nor its collapse was inevitable. The Grand Alliance was willed into existence by its leaders and then sustained through four years of total war. It was one the most successful alliances in history. 

• 
• 11/3/19
  

  The First World War through a camera lens: from the soldier’s snapshot to the memorial photograph

  by Caroline Scott

  While professional lenses had captured scenes from the Crimean and the American Civil War, this was the first time that large numbers of serving men took cameras into the frontlines and made a visual record of their own experiences. 

• 
• 11/3/19
  

  Congressional Courage, the D.C. Slave Trade, and Moral Politics in Washington

  by Jeff Forret

  Political cynics may argue that moral bankruptcy is a long-time fixture in Washington, but at a crucial moment of national division, congressional leadership confronted the ethical embarrassment of the D.C. slave trade and eradicated it.

• 
• 10/31/19
  

  William Loren Katz: Teacher, Author, Editor and Activist (1927-2019)

  by Alan Singer

  William Loren Katz, historian who championed the marginalized, died on October 25, 2019. He was 92 years old.

• 
• 10/29/19
  

  Native Americans, government authorities, and reproductive politics

  In her new book, assistant professor of history Brianna Theobald traces the long history of efforts by federal and local authorities to manage the reproductive lives of Native families, and the response from Native Americans themselves.

• 
• 10/29/19
  

  The Internet at 50: The Night the Internet Was Born

  by Harlan Lebo

  If there was a single moment that would define the start of the technology that would become the internet – this was it: the future was born. 

• 
• 10/27/2019
  

  Did Jefferson Think Humans Occupied a Privileged Position in the Cosmos?

  by M. Andrew Holowchak

  Just where did humans fit in the wondrous and gargantuan cosmos for Thomas Jefferson?

• 
• 10/27/19
  

  A Brief History of the Fox

  by Adele Brand

  In a flash of geological time, we have rewritten the fox’s wildwood, in ways both graphic and subtle. We have added, taken away, replanted and concreted.

• 
• 10/27/19
  

  The Total Eclipse That Helped Prove Einstein's Theory of Relativity

  by Sylvester James “Jim” Gates, Jr. and Cathie Pelletier

   2019 marks the 100 year anniversary of the eclipse that proved Einstein’s theory and ultimately catapulted him to fame.