Historians/History

Channelling George Washington: Democrats in Revolt

by Thomas Fleming

“I think this is a waste of time!”“Nonsense. The fellow was born a Democrat, wasn’t he?”“An Irish-Ame

Postmortem: Pulitzer-Prize Winning Journalist Chris Hedges on Death of the Liberal Class

by Robin Lindley

The mainstream media largely ignored a recent story: On Thursday, December 16, 2010, police arrested 131 anti-war activists outside the White House at

Channelling George Washington: A Valentine for the Revolutionary Ladies

by Thomas Fleming

“I’ve been told by a certain person with whom I have long been acquainted that it would be nice if I paid some attention to a group of people who had

On Going Viral: Reflections on Why the South Really Seceded

by James W. Loewen

1865 cartoon.On Sunday, January 9 [2011], the Washington Post published my op-ed article, "5 Myths about Why the South Seceded."  Even before it appeared in print, I knew it had touched a nerve. At its website, the Post dates the article at the stroke of midnight Saturday, but by 7:00pm that evening I had received at least thirty emails about it, a portent of the torrent to come. By Monday, the piece had received more than half a million hits, more than any other Post story. During the next week, almost four thousand other sites, from Forbes to The Times of India, linked to it or discussed it. Still other sites simply reprinted the article, which now appears at, for example, the Black Pride Network and the South Carolina Agricultural Trade News. 

The Nine Lives of Ronald Reagan

by Gil Troy

As we mark the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, the tug of war over his legacy continues.  Reagan’s popular image—and popul

Celebrating Reaganomics

by Joseph A. Palermo

The overstated celebrations and commemorations of the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birth, with their razzle-dazzle of Super Bowl tributes and marathon deifying in Simi Valley, are fitting tributes to a president whose public relations guru, Michael Deaver, was a pioneer of this same kind of flim-flammery.  But the Reagan centennial’s flashy hagiography masks a far more complicated reality.  He set the nation’s economic agenda, imitated by Democrats Bill Clinton and Ba

George Edwin Taylor, American Hero

by Bruce L. Mouser

Certainly the oldest and most inconvenient question asked of an historian—at whatever level—is either “Does History repeat itself?” or “Why should I have to read this?”  Those are heady questions, and I do not supp

Historical Fiction and the ‘Gaps’ in Academic History

by John Willingham

Governed by evidence and logic in their specialized work, some academic historians have lost their interest in literary and historical fiction, especially in the face of arduous teaching and research duties.  Often scholars initially had to put this interest aside during graduate school while they burrowed into the scholarly literat

Channelling George Washington: First in Their Hearts

by Thomas Fleming

“Johnny Adams is in his usual February funk.”“Why does he get that way, Mr. President?”“He can’t stand the way people like to celebrate my birthday.  It tormented him all through his preside

Remembering the Courage of Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Michael K. Honey

At this time of year we remember King’s positive messages of hope:  the best thing to make of an enemy is a friend; love is at the center of the universe; follow the nonviolence of Jesus and Gandhi.  The current moment also

The Pentagon and the King Legacy

by William Loren Katz

This January 13 the Pentagon commemorated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with an address by Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel.In the final year of his life, King became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, Johnson told a packed auditorium.  However, he added, today’s wars are not out of line with the iconic Nobel Peace Prize winner’s teachings.  “I believe tha

Puncturing Betty Friedan, but Not the Mystique: An Interview with Stephanie Coontz

In your introduction, you wrote that the book still draws visceral reactions fifty years after its publication. Why? The book was such a giant bestseller in its day, and the t

Author and Oncologist Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee on the History of Cancer

by Robin Lindley

“Medicine is storytelling,” writes acclaimed cancer specialist and now bestselling medical historian Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of

Teaching Huckleberry Finn in Historical Context

by Ron Briley

On January 16, 2011, author Lorrie Moore published an opinion piece in the New York Times suggesting that Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be excluded from the high school curriculum as adolescents lack the knowledge and experience to place this controversial text within proper context.  Moore’ piece, along with the decision of NewSouth Books to publish an edition of the Twain classic with slave replacing the word “nigger” in the text (leading to a qui

Mass Consumption Isn't Just All-American—The Nazis Had It, Too

by S. Jonathan Wiesen

Today, no one can deny the importance of consumption to the American economy.  By some counts, consumer spending constitutes over seventy perc

The Firebombing of Tokyo and Its Legacy

by Bret Fisk and Cary Karacas

More than sixty-five years after the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945, and the subsequent firebombing and destruction of Japan’s cities by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, a cursory examination of the relevant English-language literature, both popular and academic, reveals a striking lacuna.  Researchers have covered substantial ground in analyzing various historical aspects of the U.S. bombing campaign against Japan.  Specifically, much has been done to situate

The Mafia and Me: Reflections on Being Italian

by Michael Parenti

Like many others of  Italian-American heritage, I experienced some discomfort when in 1951 Senator Estes Kefauver, a Democrat from Tennessee, launched his highly publicized investigation into the organized rackets, uncovering scores of thugs with Italian surnames.  Subsequent decades produced an endless parade of such rogues whose mugs were repeatedly splashed across the print and broadcast media. I must admit that when it came to names, the mafia operatives really had them:  

The Faith of—and Our Faith in—George Washington

by Thomas S. Kidd

No historical subject is more debated in the popular media today than the role of faith in the American founding.  These debates often focus on the fai

History is a Real Business on the Web

by Caitlin Aber

History is now at our fingertips.  Literally.  Electronic databases, e-books, and online collections provide instant access to archival and scholarly sources.  The collaborative initiative http://historypin.com enables users to browse and post photos to a communal archive by “pinning” pictures to a Google-powered world map.  Even the iPhone is becoming a historian’s weapon, able to retrieve local antique maps and photos using GPS technology. T

Beware the Military-Industrial Complex

by David Greenberg

Fifty years ago, Dwight Eisenhower delivered what has become, with the possible exception of George Washington's departing speech, the best-known presidential farewell address in U.S. history. In his valedictory, Ike famously warned against"unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."