Roundup

The Roundup Top Ten for July 14, 2023

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

Why Has Medicine Looked at PCOS Through the Lens of Fertility Instead of Pain?

by Alaina DiSalvo

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome has had a complicated history in medicine. But its path toward recognition has been unfortunately colored by a concern for preserving fertility instead of improving women's quality of life—even in groundbreaking feminist health guides like Our Bodies, Ourselves. 

In Post-Soviet Russia, Children Have Been Propaganda Instruments

by Clementine Fujimura

Russian regimes since the fall of Communism have inherited and created crises of mass orphanage; their policy responses to parentless children have been informed by politics and nationalism at the expense of child welfare. Removal of orphans from Ukraine to Russia is just the latest instance. 

The Body Mass Index Grew out of White Supremacy, Eugenics and Anti-Blackness

by Sabrina Strings

Beneath the statistical and scientific imprimatur of the measurement lie a host of assumptions that the bodies of affluent white people are normal and those of others are deviant and deficient. 

Child Labor Was Essential to Early Capitalism—Don't be Shocked it's Coming Back

by Steve Fraser

As employers seek new possibilities to exploit labor, state legislatures are going back to the future with rollbacks of child labor bans. 

What "Crackhead" Really Meant in 1980s America

by Donovan X. Ramsey

The memories of politicians and police have been allowed to dominate our understanding of the emergence of crack cocaine in the 1980s. A new book seeks to elevate the voices of urban Black Americans and others who experienced it directly and still live with its effects.

Ozempic is the Latest Vain Pursuit of a Scientific Solution to Addiction

by Simon Torracinta

Now that the diabetes drug has been used off-label to suppress appetite, scientists are speculating about its use to suppress neurological aspects of addictive behavior. History suggests this is misguided. 

In Memphis, Tyre Nichols's Killing Echoes 1866 Massacre

by Isaiah Stafford and Kathy Roberts Forde

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Memphis was a city in political upheaval in which policing became a method of reasserting white supremacy. 

Our Amicus Brief Against Florida's Stop WOKE Act

by Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

"The Supreme Court’s rejection of affirmative action in college admissions will provoke widespread debate. But not in the classrooms of Florida’s public colleges and universities, because the Stop WOKE Act prohibits it."

Colleges Must Follow the Law, but they Don't Need to Aid SCOTUS's Resegregation Agenda

by Richard Thompson Ford

From the architects of Jim Crow to William Rehnquist to John Roberts, conservatives have been able to use "color blind" principles to actively defend segregation. Colleges must consider this history in deciding how they adjust their admissions practices in response to SCOTUS's affirmative action ruling. 

The Next Culture War Battle? College Accreditation

by Jeffrey Sachs and Jeremy C. Young

Officials in Florida and elsewhere are seeking to overthrow established relationships with accrediting bodies because those organizations help to shield universities against political censorship and interference with teaching and learning. 

The Entanglement of Art and Slavery in the Work of Juan de Pareja

by Rachel Hunter Himes

Diego Velázquez painted the portrait of Juan de Pareja in 1650. An art historian considers what more we can learn about the painting and the world in which it was made by examining the paradox of a dignified and beatific portrayal of a man painted by another man who enslaved him. 

The Roundup Top Ten for July 7, 2023

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

History Shows Debt Relief is All-American

by Chloe Thurston and Emily Zackin

Throughout American history state legislatures have passed debt relief over the objections of creditors and the courts, responding to the economic needs of the citizenry and defying the idea that indebtedness was a personal failing. 

The Declaration of Independence Sealed a Shotgun Wedding

by Eli Merritt

If the founding is to inspire us today, it should be for the way that the journey from the Declaration to the Constitution reflected the ability to overcome bitter and pervasive division. 

Why We are Still Debating Birthright Citizenship

by Martha S. Jones

Opposition to birthright citizenship has, historically and today, reflected opposition to the idea of equal membership in the political community of the nation and has been inextricable from the idea that white Americans should be privileged citizens, argues the leading historian of the subject. 

Amendments are the Key to Avoiding Constitutional Extinction

by Jill Lepore

Our constitution has essentially been frozen in time since 1971, making it a poor instrument for governing to meet modern challenges. Rescuing the history of the Constitution from the originalists through a comprehensive historical archive of efforts to amend it could help restore its vitality. 

John Roberts's Tragedy is of His Own Making

by Jeff Shesol

John Roberts has the power to arrest the Court's slide into disrepute, extremism, and trollishness. He's chosen not to use it. 

America Broke its Own Military Industrial Complex

by Michael Brenes

Privatization has worked out great for defense contractors who rake in money for big-ticket experimental programs without any expectation of producing basic military hardware. 

SCOTUS's Affirmative Action Ruling no Coincidence; Court Seeks to Preserve Power of Small Elite

by Eddie R. Cole

Long before affirmative action was established, white elites fought to ensure that higher education benefitted themselves and their children. It is this political legacy that the Court has affirmed.