Historians/History

Disrespecting the Federalist Papers

by Michael I. Meyerson

The Federalist Papers occupy a strangely contradictory position in today’s intellectual environment. This collection of essays, written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (with a small assist from John Jay) to encourage ratification of the Constitution, is required reading for high school and college students, as well as those arguing before the Supreme Court. The essays have been cited in over 300 Supreme Court decisions, with the number of citations increasing every decade. Non

Ted Sorensen's Fallible Memory of the Cuban Missile Crisis

by Sheldon M. Stern

Ted Sorensen’s new memoir, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, is, as expected, beautifully written and unfailingly engaging. His story demonstrates that “the best and the brightest” can serve loyally in the White House without sacrificing their integrity or compromising their intelligence and idealism.The prologue to Sorensen’s 531 page personal story begins with his role in the Cuban missile crisis—which he rightly regards as the most unfo

The Fourteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women

by Anne M. Boylan

Last weekend, about 1,500 scholars gathered at the University of Minnesota (“The U” in local parlance), for the Fourteenth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women (“the Berks”).  The theme was “Continuities and Changes,” and the program committee had put together a packed program of sessions – 204 in all – encompassing papers, roundtables, seminars, and plenary sessions.   So pack

Bobby Kennedy in The Sixties: A Photographer's Reminiscence

by Bill Eppridge

Supplanting Societies: A New View of the Past

by David Day

One of the most popular ways in which to view the history of the modern world is through the prism of colonialism. It seems to explain so much about the origins and development of different nations and regions. The history of the American continents, for instance, was changed dramatically by the arrival of Columbus in 1492 and the forces unleashed by his arrival and by that of subsequent European conquerors. But similarly dramatic changes, at least to central America, had been unleashed by the

What Manner of Man Was RFK?

by Thurston Clarke

On June 8, 1968, the most dramatic display of public grief for an American who had never been elected to the presidency unfolded as a twenty-one-car train, its engine draped in black, carried 1100 mourners and the body

Historians and Facebook: In the Halls of an Electronic AHA

by Jesse Lemisch

Hobbling along with my cane, I have only recently arrived on Facebook, where I have found great numbers of youth already there, moshing, banging their heads together, high-fiving and dapping each other, singing their distinctive songs, giving new meaning to the term “friends with benefits,” and engaging in other rituals of youth. At 71, I may be the oldest person on Facebook. From the number of “friends” my Facebook friends a

How Americans in the Civil War Dealt with Death: One Historian's View

by Mark S. Schantz

Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America’s Culture of Death takes a fresh look at some old historical questions: Why did so many men—some 620,000—perish in the American Civil War? And how were Americans able to sustain and to comprehend the war in light of those astonishingly high losses? At its core, this book argues that cultural understandings of death and dying in antebellum America shaped in profound ways our willingness to make a war of catastr

The Challenge of the Absolute

by Thomas Fleming

There is no more intriguing or more important question in the world of history and the arts than the role of the absolute. Modernism, pragmatism, deconstructionism—all these supposed varieties of recent wisdom have supposedly banished the absolute from our concerns. There is no such thing as objective truth—which means objectivity is also an impossibility and an illusion. Anyone who claims to be writing the absolute truth is a candidate for psychiatric treatment at worst and con

Who's Being Partisan?

by Kevin Mattson Vs. Sean Wilentz

Sean Wilentz's ResponseKevin MattsonMr. Mattson is Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History at Ohio University.I've admired Sean Wilentz for years. I read Chants Democratic in graduate school and found his merging of labor and political history inspiring. His next major book, The Rise of American Democracy, was magisterial. Though I disagree with some his interpretations, Wilentz showed how 19th century

Robert F. Kennedy and the 82 Days That Inspired America

by Thurston Clarke

 In 1968, America was a wounded nation.

Historians and the Dumbing Down of Public Discourse

by Susan Jacoby

In the early 1990's, a brouhaha over an attempt to develop national standards for the teaching of history offered an exemplary and depressing demonstration of the politically motivated pigheadedness shared by many hard-line c

The Congress Celebrates the Birth of Lyndon Johnson

by Caryne Eskridge

This past week the Congress paused to take notice of one of their own on what would have been his 100th birthday: Lyndon Johnson, congressman, senator, majority leader, and president of the United States. Excerpts from the tributes follow. Here is the link to the Senate proceedings. Here is the

The Limits of Cosmopolitanism in Early America

by John Fea

We live in an age of globalization. Cheap air travel, international markets, and technology have made us into world citizens. The benefits of a cosmopolitan life are available to more people today than they have been in any other era of human history. The great eighteenth-century defenders of world citizenship—Voltaire, Hume, Kant, Paine, and Franklin—would be pleased with our ever-increasing ability to free ourselves from parochial concerns. Indeed, as Thomas Friedman has remind

Memorial Day, the Great War, and America’s Last Surviving World War I Veteran

by Jeffrey S. Reznick

Americans today are rightly concerned about the health and safety of our troops engaged in the Global War on Terrorism. We are equally interested in preserving the legacy of our World War II “greatest generation.” But as we focus on our soldiers of today and yester

RFK Assassination: New Revelations from the FBI’s ‘Kensalt’ Files

by Mel Ayton

As the American people look back 40 years to the tragic assassination of one of its most gifted leaders conspiracy advocates have once again attempted to prove a conspiracy was behind Robert Kennedy’s murder. Internet sites and blogs are awash with bogus revelations and the repetition of long abandoned myths which imply there is proof that RFK’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, had been aided in his crime. In the years following the assassination various official investigative b

Mystery of Lost Confederate Gold

by Wesley Millett and Gerald White

In April 1865, the Civil War ended for most Americans. The war, and its various aspects, continues to capture the interest and imagination of many Americans who are fascinated by the battles, leaders, and strategy displayed during that conflict. Mysteries endure, too, including the ultimate disposition of the Confederate treasury.Much of the mystery was engendered by Union officials, who greatly inflated the value of the Confederacy’s treasury to several million dollars. This was probably done to increase the incentive to Union soldiers combing the villages and roads of the Carolinas and Georgia for the treasury, and for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had fled Richmond. The actual value of the treasury was probably not much more than $500,000.

How Many Presidents Have Lied About Their Medical History?

by Rick Shenkman

Once again a president has been caught misleading the public about their health. In this Donald Trump is not unique.

Statement in Defense of Philip Zelikow

by Christopher A. Kojm, Daniel Marcus, Steven M. Dunne, John J. Farmer, Jr., Alvin S. Felzenberg, Susan Ginsburg, Barbara A. Grewe, L. Christine Healey, C. Michael Hurley, Douglas J. MacEachin, John Roth, Kevin J. Scheid, Dietrich L. Snell

A new book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, by Philip Shenon, purports to describe the inner workings of the 9/11 Commission. The book levels an assortment of charges at the Commission’s Executive Director Philip Zelikow. The book’s clear implication is that Zelikow, because of his links to the Bush Administration, used his position to try to distort the findings of the Commission in order to protect the Administration from blame for fai

Why It's Time to Give Joseph Kennedy a Break

by Will Swift

In his magisterial biography Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Conrad Black points out that Joseph P. Kennedy, President Roosevelt’s ambassador to Great Britain from 1938 to 1940 was “ultimately widely reckoned to be one of the worst diplomatic appointments in the history of the United States.”