Historians/History

Jennifer Polk: "Recent PhDs Need to Have Their Confidence Boosted"

by David Austin Walsh

The academc job market remains in the doldrums. Recent PhDs continue to outstrip new positions, and the adjunctification of higher ed. in general -- and historians in particular -- continues unabated. It's not surprising, then, that a growing contingent of recent PhDs are standing athwart academic history yelling 'stop!'

The Thrilling Untold Saga of Rescue Behind the Lines in World War II Albania (INTERVIEW)

by Robin Lindley

“Cate Lineberry has written a touching, thrilling, completely engrossing story of great courage under harrowing circumstances. This is a World War II story that few people have ever heard, but, after reading this book, no one will forget.”

After Fifty Years, Remember the March on Washington was for JOBS as Well as Freedom

by Jeff Roquen

Martin Luther King: "Why aren't we free? Because we are poor."

Michael Fullilove: FDR the Greatest Statesman of the Twentieth Century (INTERVIEW)

by Robin Lindley

Historian Dr. Michael Fullilove recounts how Roosevelt’s diplomacy relied on personal representatives from 1940 until the Pearl Harbor attack in his new book Rendezvous with Destiny: How Franklin D. Roosevelt and Five Extraordinary Men Took America into the War and into the World.

OAH: Daniels/Zinn Controversy a "Teachable Moment"

by David Austin Walsh

Even among traditionally liberal academe, Howard Zinn has been a lightning rod of controversy.

David Barton: Only Four Professors Criticized "The Jefferson Lies"

by David Austin Walsh

David Barton just can't seem to get his facts straight.

Marie Arana: Simon Bolivar the "Polar Opposite" of George Washington (INTERVIEW)

by Robin Lindley

In Bolivar, Ms. Arana recounts Bolivar’s bloody military campaigns and forays into the turbulent and frustrating politics of the new republics, and she also presents a striking portrait of the times and the many contradictions and foibles of the Great Liberator -- a passionate embodiment of the Enlightenment who was addicted to gambling, glory, and women.

Ray Begovich: How I Found Rare Footage of FDR in a Wheelchair

by David Austin Walsh

Ray Begovich, a journalism professor at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, has announced that he has discovered an eight-second clip of FDR being pushed in his wheelchair aboard the cruiser U.S.S. Baltimore in July 1944.

How Ian Fleming Masterminded the Invasion of Sicily

by Daniel Mandel

The job of coming up with a deception plan fell to a small inter-departmental intelligence team, the Twenty Committee, which specialized in producing double agents (The Twenty Committee was often identified by the symbols XX, standing for double cross).

OAH Committee on Status of LGBTQ Historians and Histories Issues Statement on DOMA Ruling

by HNN Staff

The LGBT movement in the United States has been discussing and debating marriage equality since the 1950s and the committee encourages all students and scholars to deepen their knowledge of the historical developments that culminated in the Supreme Court’s rulings on same-sex marriage.

How Depression Went Mainstream: Interview with Dr. Edward Shorter

by Robin Lindley

Psychiatrists are very interested in the historical perspectives because they can see the obvious power that an understanding of history brings to appreciating the current situation. Historians haven’t been so interested. Psychiatrists are centered on diagnosis and treatment, and those are the two aspects that are central to the practice of medicine.

The Terror of Being Black at Gettysburg

by Kevin M Levin

For the unknown number of African Americans rounded up by the Confederate army, who called Gettysburg and the surrounding region home, Union victory mattered little. For them a new birth of freedom would have to wait just a little longer.

AHA Amicus Brief Ignores Radical Queer History

by Steven Maynard

The perspective on the history and politics of same-sex marriage crystallized in the AHA amicus brief both reflects and helps to reproduce a much broader and worrying process: the narrowing of the queer political field to variants of liberalism such that a left critique becomes increasingly difficult to voice.

Would We Have the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments If Lincoln Had Lived? Maybe Not.

by Alan J. Singer

Credit: Wiki Commons.In recent weeks I have conducted a series of workshops with middle school and high school social studies and English teachers grappling with incorporating new Common Core literacy standards in their classrooms. Two things I have repeatedly stressed are the importance of understanding historical context before students can successfully interpret primary source documents and the role of the historian in providing a critical analysis of text and exploring multiple interpretations or perspectives on historical events.

Charles Marvin, a Nineteenth-Century Edward Snowden?

by Leslie Rogne Schumacher

Credit: Wiki Commons.Meet the Press host David Gregory’s recent insinuation that Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald should possibly be charged with the crime of aiding and abetting whistleblower Edward Snowden in the NSA surveillance scandal is alarming for all who value protecting the principles of investigative journalism. It is made more alarming, though, by considering how closely this exchange matches a landmark case in the history of public secrecy and investigative reportage, namely the 1878 Globe scandal. A consideration of this episode in relation to Greenwald’s (and, indeed, Gregory’s) role in the ongoing NSA imbroglio should be unsettling to those who value and want to protect the freedom of the press.

Committee on LGBT History: We Are Proud Historians Helped Make DOMA/Prop. 8 Decisions Possible

Don Romesburg, associate professor in the Sonoma State University women's and gender studies department, released this statement on behalf of the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History, which he co-chairs:

Historians Played Important Role in DOMA Decision

by David Austin Walsh

Image via Shutterstock.The Supreme Court's decision released Wednesday morning to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act in Windsor v. United States upheld upon arguments made by historians in an amicus brief filed by the American Historical Association.The majority opinion acknowledges that “[b]y history and tradition, the definition and regulation of marriage has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States.”This mirrors language in the brief filed by twenty-three historians of marriage, sexuality, and constitutional law, which stated in its introduction that “[c]ontrol of marital status is reserved to the states in our federal system. Marriage has always been understood as a civil contract embodying a couple’s free consent to join in long-lasting intimate and economic union.”

Eric Foner: VRA Decision "Green Light" to Disenfranchise Voters

by David Austin Walsh

Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act as Martin Luther King, Jr. looks on. Credit: Wiki Commons.The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, has struck down the critical Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 legislation that banned discriminatory practices in federal, state, and local election laws.The Voting Rights Act was formulated to target areas with a history of poll tests and historically low registration and turnout for federal oversight. Jurisdictions that fall under the Act's authority are required to pre-clear changes in local election laws with the federal government,Section 4 determined the mechanism of determining the target areas; Section 5 of the Act, which provides for the actual pre-clearance requirement itself, was not ruled upon by the Court.In his majority opinion Chief Justice John Roberts wrote“today the nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.”

Spotlight on the Digital Humanities at GMU's THATCamp Prime

by Lincoln A. Mullen

Credit: THATCamp.orgOn June 7 and 8, the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media hosted its annual THATCamp Prime, an “unconference” about The Humanities And Technology. THATCamp started at CHNM in 2008 -- hence the name “prime” -- but since then there have been over one hundred fifty around the world. THATCamps draw professors, graduate students, librarians, archivists, and educational technologists for informal discussions (that is, no reading of papers) and hands-on workshops about how the humanities can take advantage of the possibilities of new technologies. THATCamps have been or will be hosted by major academic conferences, including the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association, the American Academy of Religion, and the Organization of American Historians.

What If Robert E. Lee Accepted Command of the Union Army?

by Thomas Fleming

Credit: Wiki Commons/HNN staff.The United States of America trembled on the brink of her greatest tragedy -- a civil war that would kill a million young men. Seven Southern states had seceded after Abraham Lincoln was elected president as an anti-slavery Republican, with scarcely a single Southern vote. They had been unmoved by his inaugural address, in which he warned them that he had taken a solemn oath to preserve the Union -- and reminded them of their shared heritage, witnessed by the numberless patriot graves in every state.