Historians/History

Big Tobacco and the Historians

by Jon Wiener

Last summer Robert Proctor, a Stanford professor who studies the history of tobacco, was surprised to receive court papers accusing him of witness tampering and witness intimidation, along with a subpoena for his

How Thomas Jefferson's Wartime Record Shaped His Life

by Michael Kranish

“I think one war enough for the life of one man,” Jefferson wrote a friend in 1808, “and you and I have gone through one which at least may lesson our impatience to embark in another.”

The 240th Anniversary of the Boston Massacre

by Richard Archer

We all know the basic facts about the Boston Massacre.  On March 5, 1770, a small contingent of British troops fired on an antagonistic crowd, kill

The Forgotten Washington Race War of 1919

by Rawn James Jr.

For all the ink spilled lamenting Washington, D.C.’s allegedly massive racial divide, it is worth noting that the District of Columbia, perhaps more than any other American city, has come an extraordinarily l

The Importance of Coal in Appalachia

by Jay Luke

Mining coal has been an ongoing process in the United States for nearly three hundred years.  From its humble beginnings in the late 1700s in Northeast P

Interview with Gordon S. Wood

by Jill O'Neill

Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He received his B.A. degree from Tufts Universit

Remembering the Late J.R. Pole

by Joyce Appleby

Jack Pole, whose career as a British historian of the United States spanned more than fifty years, died in Oxford on January 30th.  He was 87 years old.  From his magisterial Political Representation in England and the Origins of the America Republic, published in 1966, to his ambitious Contract and Consent: Representation and the Jury in Anglo-American Legal History which appeared a few weeks before his death, Pole explored with perseverance and perceptivene

The Return of Staughton Lynd

by David Waldstreicher

For the generation that came of age intellectually in the 1970s and 80s, Staughton Lynd’s Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (1968) was one of those tattered Vintage paperback (num

Thank You, Howard Zinn

by Ron Briley

The last week of January 2010 marked important watersheds in recent American history.  The nation’s first African-American president delivered his initial State of the Union message to Congress following a political season in which his poll numbers have declined and his legislative agenda stalled.  The speech, alongside a televised debate with House Republicans, seemed to mark the return of a more activist President Obama willing to fight for health care reform, tighter

The Left's Blind Spot

by Rick Shenkman

Let's start with Howard Zinn and then move on.

Howard Zinn's Disappointing History of the United States

by Michael Kazin

On Thursday March 25, 2004 the Organization of American Historians (OAH) honored the work of Howard Zinn at a Town Meeting held in Boston at the opening of the OAH's annual convention. Click here to read an account. Every work of history, according to Howard Zinn, is a political document. He titled his thick survey A People's History (A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present [NY: Perennial Class

Howard Zinn's Disputed Legacy

by Michael Honey

Rick Shenkman and Michael Kazin, writing six years apart, criticized Howard Zinn's historical method, and there is much to criticize.  It's true we have seen many, many instances of people at the bottom or in the middle, the masses of people, going along with those in power or even leading the charge in the wrong direction.  History is full of people rooting against their own class interests.  We see a lot of that today.So, historians rightly have arguments with A People's History.  It is not nuanced, it is not complex enough, it is wrong in particulars.  Or maybe you think it is leads people in the wrong direction altogether, creating "the left's blind spot."  Presumably, a bottom up view of history is pretty simple and absolves the masses from their culpability in the affairs of the state.

Remembering Howard Zinn

by Joseph A. Palermo

I was deeply saddened to see on the front page of The Huffington Post that Howard Zinn passed away today at 87.  I know that I am not alone among my colleagues in saying that Howard Zinn is the reason I became a historian.  Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was a volunteer writer for a nuclear freeze news monthly in Santa Cruz, I used to send Howard my articles seeking his praise and encouragement.  He was always so generous and gracious and he took t

America the Awful - Howard Zinn's History

by Ron Radosh

Howard Zinn's death yesterday affords us the opportunity to evaluate the remarkable influence he has had on the American public's understanding of our nation's past. His book A People's History of the United States, published in 1980 with a first printing of 5000 copies, went on to sell over two million. To this day some 128,000 new copies are sold each year. That alone made Zinn perhaps the single most influential historian whose works have reached multitudes of Americans. I

Howard Zinn Briefly Recalled

by Sheldon M. Stern

Ever since Howard Zinn’s death last week, there has been an avalanche of articles, letters, editorials, op-eds, and Internet postings justifiably praising him as a courageous activist in the struggles against war, racism, and economic injustice.  However, there have also been repeated claims that he was a great historian.  But, as several historians have pointed out, (e.g. Ron Radosh, History News Network, February

The Howard Zinn I Remember

by Staughton Lynd

Next Christmastime, it will be exactly fifty years since as a graduate student at Columbia University I attended the Columbia "smoker" at the American Historical Association meetings in New York, looking for work.  At about midnight there came toward me across the floor Bill Leuchtenberg, in whose classes both Howard and I had studied, and together with him a tall, skinny man with dark hair, already walking awkwardly because of a back injury sustained (as I understand it) at a

Preserving the Golden Rule as a Piece of Anti-Nuclear History

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The Golden Rule is in danger.  No, not the famed ethical code -- though proponents of selfishness certainly have ignored it -- but a t

Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway: A Story of Two Political Women

by Kristie Miller and Robert McGinnis

On October 11, 2009, historians around the world took note of Eleanor Roosevelt’s 125th birthday with conferences and cake.  The Arizona Historical Society marked the occasion by publishing a boo

Why Knowing More About FDR's Health Matters

by Steven Lomazow

Since publication of our book, perhaps the most frequent question I am asked is “Even if we now know FDR died of cancer, what’s the difference? &nb

Living in the Eighties: Moving Beyond the Gilded Age Versus Golden Age Paradigm

by Gil Troy and Vincent J. Cannato

Once upon a time, back in 1980, when people heard about “AIDS,” they thought of assistants or helpers, not a deadly disease.  An &ldq