Historians/History

How Trauma Shaped Renowned Writing: Interview with Doug Underwood

by Robin Lindley

Ernest Hemingway, the poster child of a literary giant who suffered a traumatic life, on safari in Africa with his wife in 1954. Credit: JFK Library.Like a red thread, themes of violence, suffering, pain and loss run through the greatest works of literature. Many of the most admired writers of American and British literature were also journalists and, for many of them, the experience of physical and emotional trauma in their work and personal lives shaped their most memorable works. 

The Cuban Missile Crisis, According to Harvard

by Max Holland

ExComm meeting, October 29, 1962. Credit: JFK Library.The fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis in October 2012 is being commemorated with documentaries, conferences, and new books. Several educational institutions are also making primary sources and other historical materials available for educators on websites -- among them the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

The Forgotten Los Angeles Race Riot: Interview with Historian Scott Zesch on the Chinatown Massacre of 1871

by Robin Lindley

Downtown Los Angeles in 1869. Credit: Los Angeles Public LibraryWhen Los Angeles and race riot are mentioned in the same breath, the words may conjure for most the jittery newsreel images of fires and looting after the acquittal of the police officers charged with beating Rodney King in 1992 or the devastation of Watts in 1965.

Honoring the Second World War Debt Britons Owe Americans

by Lee Ruddin

American GIs and British women's auxiliaries mingle at a St. Patrick's Day celebration in Northern Ireland, 1942. Credit: U.S. Army Signal Corps.Anglo-American relations are somewhat strained at present. Yes, the UK and U.S. are combined in their efforts to forge an alternative to the Ba'athist regime in Syria and have set aside funds (£5 million and $25 million respectively) for political opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. And yes, security experts have also joined forces with the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta in an operation (codenamed "Pulo Shield") to tackle ex-militants and sea pirates operating on the Nembe and Ogbia waterways in order to prevent economic sabotage caused through pipeline vandalism.

Why Do We Celebrate Labor Day? Interview with Peter Dreier

by David Austin Walsh

Striking Teamsters clashing with police in Minneapolis, 1934. Credit: National ArchivesPeter Dreier is is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College and author of The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century. I talked with Professor Dreier over the phone about his book, the origins of Labor Day, and the future of the labor movement.Why don't we celebrate Labor Day on the first of May, like they do in so many other countries?

When It Comes to First-Person Accounts of Lincoln's Last Days, Who Do You Trust?

by Noah Andre Trudeau

Who Do You Trust? was a television game show perhaps best known for first teaming Johnny Carson with Ed McMahon. It is also something of a cautionary phrase for Civil War historians delving into the world of published primary sources, especially in this sesquicentennial period. One expects a certain fuzziness around facts remembered thirty plus years later, and it’s even standard to handicap the material by its degree of bias or hidden agenda. But what one doesn’t expect, and something that has caught more than one noted historian in its enticing snares, is the faux memoir.There are a handful of such books that slid through the first round of critical reception unchallenged and managed to achieve a reputation as "classics." Only years afterward, when a few skeptical historians dug into their provenance were questions raised, too late for a number of standard works that relied on them to some degree. In Gettysburg studies up through the centennial a favorite source was The Cannoneer by Augustus Buell. In his 1948 book Gettysburg, author/editor Earl Schenck Meirs couldn’t resist Buell’s vivid description of the July 1 combat near the railroad cut:

2012 Politics and William James

by Walter G. Moss

William James, left, and fellow philosopher Josiah Royce, 1910.In the midst of our political season of hype, falsehood, half-truths, and unprecedented spending, the words of Walter Lippmann after the death of William James seem pertinent. In 1910, only two years after the famous Harvard philosopher first met the young man who would become one of the leading journalists of his generation, Lippmann eulogized him in his first signed article after graduation. In "An Open Mind: William James," he wrote:

How Do We Rank Our Presidents? Interview with Robert W. Merry

by David Austin Walsh

Robert W. Merry has been a fixture in Washington, D.C. for over thirty years. He was a congressional correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in the early 1980s, covered Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign for the newspaper and subsequently became the Journal's White House reporter. In 1987, he was named managing editor at Congressional Quarterly, eventually becoming the president and publisher of CQ in 1997. Since 2011, Merry has been the editor of The National Interest, a bi-monthly foreign policy magazine.

Neil Armstrong: A Life in Photographs

by HNN Staff

 Armstrong cut his teeth flying jets for the Navy before joining NASA, seeing action over Korea in 1951 and 1952. He was assigned to VF-51 onboard the USS Essex, where he flew the F9F-2 Panther. Pictured: F9F-2 Panthers taking off from the Essex sometime in 1951. Credit: U.S. Navy.After leaving the Navy, Armstrong became a test pilot for NASA's X-15 program, a high-speed, high-altitude rocket plane. He flew a total of seven flights, reaching an altitude of nearly 63 km and a speed of well over 6,000 km/h. Here, he poses with his aircraft on New Year's Day, 1960.Astronauts during tropical survival training at Albrook Air Force Base in Panama, 1963. Left to right: Unidentified trainer, Armstrong, John Glenn, Gordon Cooper, and Charles "Pete" Conrad.

JFK Was a Legend in His Own Time

by Yoav J. Tenembaum

Official White House portrait of John F. Kennedy. Aaron Shikler, 1970It is said that John F. Kennedy became a legend because of the way he died. Actually, he became a legend because of the way he lived. He turned into a myth due to his tragic death; by then, he had already been a legend for quite a while. As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy's greatest triumph -- his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis -- it's important to keep that in mind.Kennedy was the youngest ever person to be elected president of the United States. He was the first Roman Catholic to assume the highest political post in a country steeped in a Protestant ethos. He was a war hero. He was handsome. When he first entered the White House, after being sworn in, he was accompanied by a beautiful, Hollywood-like wife and two little children. When was the last time the people of the United States have witnessed such a scene? JFK represented a generational change, no less than a political one. Not only was he the youngest person ever to be elected president, but his entourage of advisers was striking for its youth.

Ten Weird Facts About Presidential Conventions (With Pictures!)

by HNN Staff

FACTThe 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, was forced to delay for a day due to an approaching hurricane. This is the second consecutive GOP convention where the opening day was delayed due to an approaching hurricane; in 2008, the convention in St. Paul, Minnesota was delayed due to Hurricane Gustav making landfall in Louisiana. This is, however, the first instance where the threatened city is also the convention host.FACTThe first presidential nominating convention ever was held by the now hilariously-named Anti-Masonic Party in 1831. How bizarre was the Anti-Masonic Party? At one point they tried to convince Henry Clay to join, despite the fact that he was a Freemason himself.FACTThere hasn't been a floor fight for a major-party nomination since 1976, when Ronald Reagan battled Gerald Ford at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City. (This was also roughly the last time a political convention actually mattered.)FACT

Niall Ferguson's "Newsweek/Daily Beast" Cover Story Ignites a Firestorm

by HNN Staff

Table of ContentsThe Original ArticleThe ResponseFerguson's DefenseThe CounterpunchReflectionsRound Six: Ferguson's Second RiposteThe Newsweek/Daily Beast Cover ArticleNiall Ferguson: Obama's Gotta Go

Rome: The Origin of Empire

by Greg Woolf

The Roman Empire at its greatest extent, under Emperor Trajan in 117 AD. Credit: Wikipedia.

Does David Barton's Flameout Make This a Scopes Moment for American History?

by Adam Laats

Entrance to the Oral Roberts University campus, where David Barton received his B.A. in religious education. Credit: Wikipedia.

Middle East Studies Association to Israelis: “Go to the Back of the Bus”

by Alan Luxenberg

A scandalous -- but unreported -- event took place in Washington, D.C. late last year at the Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), a constituent organization of the prestigious American Council of Learned Societies.As is customary at such meetings there were well over 200 panels to discuss a wide range of topics -- historical, political, and cultural -- with four or five scholars presenting different perspectives at each panel. The purpose of such meetings is to provide a forum for these scholars to exchange ideas, present their research findings for critical review by peers, and in general to promote the advance of knowledge. Scholars come from all over the world to participate. All of this is unremarkable but what happened at one particular panel this past December merits public attention.

How a Left-Wing Look at America's "Heroes" Reveals Its Own Ignorance

by Ron Radosh

The Nation magazine is playing a trick on me. I regularly receive a lot of books, since publishers know I review many and they’re hoping I’ll respond by writing up the one they are pushing. Many are conservative books; others histories; others simply by publishers who know I’ve written on a topic that their new book covers.But until now, Nation Books, an imprint of the Perseus Book Group, has never sent me one of the books by any of their left-wing authors. But two days ago, I received a copy of Peter Dreier’s new book, The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame. Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College, and happens to be one of the main characters of Stanley Kurtz’s new book on Obama’s radical redistributionist plans for a second term (he has an entire section).

Hiroshima: Truman’s Choices Revisited

by Stanley Kutler

Credit: HNN Staff/NARA.The historical reconstruction of the decision to use the atomic bomb in August 1945 is an interlocking puzzle, revealing a seemingly inexorable choice to use the weapon. The United States had made a bomb and successfully tested it in July, and the scientists, generals, politicians and civilians caught up in events readily supplied the accelerating momentum to a decision: we must use it. Civilian decision-makers anxious to justify expenditures of unprecedented sums of money to develop a weapon designed to end the war offered no resistance.The historical narrative to use the bomb largely derives from the recollections and rationales of President Harry Truman and his civilian and military advisers. For them, the stark choice came down to drop the bomb or invade the Japanese homeland and sustain a “million” American casualties -- an arbitrary, unsubstantiated figure propelled by its own momentum, with apparently no consideration of the potential for Japanese civilian casualties. A small number of scientists raised ethical and moral considerations, but their influence was of no immediate consequence. 

The Nixon Foundation *Did Not* Delay the Opening of the New Watergate Exhibit at the Nixon Library

by Bob Bostock

Nixon Library and Gardens, Yorba Linda, California. Credit: WikipediaNumerous reports about the obstacles the Richard Nixon Foundation supposedly placed in the way of Nixon Library director Dr. Timothy Naftali over the three years it took him to produce a new Watergate exhibit are entirely unfounded. It is time to correct the record. Quite simply, the Nixon Foundation – the private, non-profit foundation that seeks to work with the National Archives to promote the legacy of the 37th president – did not attempt to delay or derail the new exhibit.When the Richard Nixon Foundation turned the Nixon Library over to the National Archives (NARA) in 2007, both parties agreed that the National Archives would produce a new Watergate exhibit to replace the one that had been in place since the Library opened in 1990. They also agreed that the Nixon Foundation would have the opportunity to review and comment on the exhibit as it was being developed. This is consistent with the practice at every other presidential library in the National Archives system.

Mark Twain's Progressive and Prophetic Political Humor

by Walter G. Moss

Mark Twain in 1907. Photograph taken by A.F. Bradley.In the midst of a presidential campaign, with ads (and money to pay for them) flying left and right, what better time to recall Mark Twain? He was our first major stand-up political humorist. On one lecture tour in 1871-72, this author and public speaker/entertainer gave more than eighty speeches. Not only a humorist, he was also akin to a Jewish prophet criticizing his society for not living up to its principles. Thus, a major study of Twain as a radical social critic (by Maxwell Geismar) is entitled Mark Twain: An American Prophet.

What Can Historians Learn from Neuroscience?

by Christopher U.M. Smith

False color image of a human brain. Credit: Wikipedia.There is a flourishing academic interest in the history of neuroscience. An international society, the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (ISHN) is devoted to its study, publishes a quarterly journal (the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences) and conferences are held each year.But is there a similar interest in the neuroscience of history? Should there be? Can the great accession of knowledge in the neurosciences over the last decades be used to illuminate, to use the words of H.G. Wells, "what happened in history?"