Historians/History

Why Aren't All the Nixon Tapes Now Available?

by Maarja Krusten

A recent article in the New York Times about the Watergate transcripts focused a spotlight on Richard Nixon’s White House tapes.  Prosecutors used 12-1/2 hours of the 3,700 hours of recordings in the Watergate trials.  Since 1977, when I helped move them out of the White House, all the tapes have been in the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).   Efforts to open the

Arsenic, but No Old Lace—Medical Historian James C. Whorton on the Poisoning of Nineteenth-Century Britain

by Robin Lindley

Arsenic pervaded almost every aspect of life in nineteenth-century Britain, and the poison left a toll of death and illness.  A by-product of an

Glenn Beck’s Christianity and Abraham Lincoln’s Religion

by John Willingham

Whether or not Glenn Beck’s appearance at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28 was an affront to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered at the same site on August 28, 1963, or merely an example of just how surreal our politics—and religion—have become, one thing is clear:  the narrow Christianity Beck touted to the large crowd and to the nation bears little resemblance to the deep religious thought of the man wh

The Failure of Imagination: From Pearl Harbor to 9-11

by John Dower

In all the many volumes of documents, testimony, and commentary about the intelligence failure of 1941, there are no more telling words than an informal confession made by Admiral Kimmel while the congressional hearings o

Historians: Own Your Feelings or Leave Them Out

by Maarja Krusten

Personal reactions.  Own your sources or leave them out of your essays.  That’s my advice to my fellow historians, because mixing facts and feelings can be problematic.“As reality-based members of the American community, we have an obligation toward the truth, even when it isn't particularly convenient.”  That was Jamelle Bouie’s conclusion at the end of a review of Ma

One of the World’s First Diplomats Goes Home

by Amanda H. Podany

On Tuesday, September 7, the United States returned to Iraq hundreds of historic objects that had found their way over here during the past decad

The Renaissance, Born in Switzerland?

by Paul Doolan

It may surprise some readers, but the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries was invented in Switzerland exactly one hundred fifty years ago. Have you ever wondered why English speakers use a French word, “renaissance” to refer to an event that apparently happened in Italy?  Not an English word and not an Italian word but French.  It is, one must surely admit, a question worth contemplating, though for some strange reason seldom raised.  And the answer m

Channelling George Washington: What If ... Lincoln Lived Out His Presidency?

by Thomas Fleming

“What if Lincoln decided to skip Ford’s Theater on Good Friday, 1865?”“There’s a what if that can keep us talking all night.”“I’ve discussed it with Abe

Sacagawea: The Seduction of Mythology, the Paucity of Facts

by Thad Carhart

How much do we know for certain about the life of Sacagawea? The answer is: almost nothing. She was born"around 1788." She was abducted by the Hidatsa"when she was about 12." The date of her death is similarly

Turkey’s Unknown Schindlers

by Arnold Reisman

In a recent article I asked the real historians in our midst what Turkey’s role was in saving Jews during the Holocaust.  I followed by talking about the role of Turkish diplomats in saving close to 3,000 Jews living in France who were able to claim some Turkish connection. No survey of the profession was needed.  An exhaustive bibliographic search gave the

Reflections on My Friend, the Late Diplomatic Historian Norman Graebner

by Vaughn Davis Bornet

Here we have a historian in his early 90s writing appreciatively of one who just departed from us. We think these worthwhile ideas in a time when there is a good deal of verbal finger pointing in our profession rooted in ideology. Like others, historians are somewhere along the pathway to a Lifetime to be spent in the History Profession. Bornet emerged from the Northeast, the South, and the West. Graebner was solidly of the Middle West while ending his career in Virginia. Clearly

Textbooks and History Standards: An Historical Overview

by Robin Lindley

Clashes over what students should learn about American history are not unprecedented.  The debate over social studies standards in the Lone Star State is merely the latest act in this ongoing drama.History defines a nation and its vision for the future, and history is unceasingly controversial.  The taboos of polite conversation—politics and religion—have been at the core of American history textbook controversies for over a century (See Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present by Joseph Moreau [2003]).  As historian Joseph Moreau wrote in 2003:  “For those who would influence textbooks and teaching—Protestant elites in the 1870s, Irish-Americans in the 1920s, and conservative politicians today—the sky has always been falling.”Textbooks have provoked censorship, charges of bias, distortion, omission, and libel, and even burning and community violence.Early American textbook history

The Unmaking of a Company Man

by Andrew J. Bacevich

Worldly ambition inhibits true learning.  Ask me.  I know. A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable:  He knows what h

Channelling George Washington: What If ... Slavery Ended Peacefully?

by Thomas Fleming

“Do you enjoy playing my favorite historical game, what if?”“All historians do.  Do you play it in Elysium?”“All the time.  We can take the long view up here.

Camp Westerbork: The Netherland's Forgotten Concentration Camp

by Paul Doolan

Just a thirty minute drive from the Dutch city of Groningen is the former concentration camp of Westerbork.  Between 1942 and 1945, the German occupying authorities moved over a hundred thousand Dutch Jews, a few hundred Roma and Sinti and dozens of Dutch resistance fighters to this relatively isolated place.  Among them were Anne Frank and her family.  Some stayed for years, most for weeks or months.  All but a few hundred were transported east to be murdered. &nbs

Hiroshima and Nagaski: Two Opinions

by Jeff Tenuth

In the sixty-five years since the twin atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there have been hundred of articles and books written on the consequences of their development and use.  Many scholars consider the development and use of nuclear weapons as among the most important events of the twentieth century.  This view is justifiable because those of us born during the Cold War remember how dangerous the world seemed at times.  Considering that there were more than fifty thousand n

The People’s Historian and the FBI Zinn Files

by Peter N. Kirstein

Howard Zinn was the quintessential scholar activist at the time of his death at age eighty-seven in Santa Monica, California on January 27, 2010.  He had been the target of a quarter-century long FBI surveillance operation.  Just four years after his return from World War II in 1945, the FBI opened its investigatory file on Dr. Zinn (hereafter referred to as the Zinn Files).  The 423-page report monitored his activities as special agents and unscrupulous informants throughout the c

Channelling George Washington

by Thomas Fleming

“To see this country happy is so much the wish of my soul, nothing on this side of Elysium can be placed in competition with it." The deep voice made the hair on the back of my neck tingle. “Huh?&rdquo

Channelling George Washington: Illusions of Victory

by Thomas Fleming

"To see this country happy is so much the wish of my soul, nothing on this side of Elysium can be placed in competition with it.""What's on your mind tonight, Mr. President?"&

Channelling George Washington: Foreign Policy ala Thomas Jefferson

by Thomas Fleming

“To see this country happy is so much the wish of my soul, nothing on this side of Elysium can be placed in competition with it."  “President Washington?  You don’t sound