Roundup: Historians' Take

David A. Bell: The War in Mali is a Reminder of France's Grand Malaise

David A. Bell is Professor of History at Princeton University. Born in New York City in 1961, he received his A.B. from Harvard and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton.It remains to be seen whether France's military intervention in Mali will be considered a military success, but it already seems possible to count it a political one. The war has earned support from across the French political spectrum, President François Hollande has garnered acclaim for his leadership, and the French public broadly supports the country's stated humanitarian mission. The intervention recalls the days when “la grande nation” laid claim to an ambitious international role, particularly within its former colonial empire.But in today's France, this portrait of unity and resolve is actually something of an aberration. Far from expressing a confident sense of mission, the French public has recently been more inclined to a sense of decline, malaise, paralysis and crisis. And it is at least partially justified. 

Julian Zelizer: America Lives Under the Shadow of George W. Bush

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of "Governing America."Although some Democrats are pleased that taxes will now go up on the wealthiest Americans, the recent deal to avert the fiscal cliff entrenches, rather than dismantles, one of Bush's signature legacies -- income tax cuts. Ninety-nine percent of American households were protected from tax increases, aside from the expiration of the reduced rate for the payroll tax.In the final deal, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to preserve most of the Bush tax cuts, including exemptions on the estate tax.When Bush started his term in 2001, many of his critics dismissed him as a lightweight, the son of a former president who won office as result of his family's political fortune and a controversial decision by the Supreme Court on the 2000 election.

Conrad Black: God, the Founders, and George Will

Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, and, most recently, A Matter of Principle. He can be reached at cbletters@gmail.com.

Thomas J. Sugrue: A House Divided

Thomas J. Sugrue is the David Boies Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book is "Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race."In 1973, my parents sold their modest house on Detroit’s West Side to Roosevelt Smith, a Vietnam War veteran and an assembly-line worker at Ford, and his wife, Virginia (not their real names). For the Smiths—African Americans and native Mississippians—the neighborhood was an appealing place to raise their two young children, and the price was within their means: $17,500. The neighborhood’s three-bedroom colonials and Tudors, mostly built between the mid-1920s and the late ’40s, were well maintained, the streets quiet and lined with stately trees. Nearby was a movie theater, a good grocery store, a local department store, and a decent shopping district. Like many first-time home buyers, the Smiths had every reason to expect that their house would be an appreciating investment.

Louis P. Masur: Thenceforward and Forever Free, Mostly

Louis P. Masur is a professor of American studies and history at Rutgers University and the author of "Lincoln's Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union."A couple of years ago, speaking to a bipartisan group of college students about the Emancipation Proclamation, President Barack Obama commented, half jokingly, that if the executive order were signed today, headlines would scream, “Lincoln Sells Out Slaves.” His observation spoke not only to our sensationalist news culture, but also to the rocky reputation of the Proclamation itself, a document that has been both praised and damned by politicians, scholars, and activists on both sides of the ideological aisle since Lincoln announced it in 1862 and then signed it 150 years ago this year, on January 1, 1863.

Rick Perlstein: Remembering Aaron Swartz

Rick Perlstein is the author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history, and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008).I had other plans for how to spend my Saturday. I had other plans for my next blog post here at The Nation. Then I learned my friend Aaron Swartz had committed suicide, facing a baseless, bullying federal indictment that might have sent him to jail for decades, and fate demanded this be a day to remember.I remember him contacting me out of the blue—was it in 2005?—and telling me I needed a website, and did I want him to build one for me? I smelled a hustle, asking him how much it would cost, and he said, no, he wanted to do it for free. I thought, What a loser this guy must be. Someone with nothing better to do.

Ron Radosh: The Desperate Left-Wing Attack Against Chuck Hagel's Opponents

Ron Radosh is a PJ Media columnist and Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute.There is a real not so covert war going on in our nation’s capital. It is not that of the Obama administration to put into the office of Secretary of Defense a man with a questionable record, but that of Chuck Hagel’s supporters to end all opposition—by raising the cry of “McCarthyism.”That old standard bugaboo of the Left is being used again, this time as a mechanism to try and discredit all those who have brought forth very valid reasons as to why Senator Hagel should not get appointed to the position, despite his nomination.  For those who have not been paying attention, here is a brief summary of the various reasons presented by those who oppose Hagel’s nomination1. He has publicly spoken about how the “Jewish lobby” intimidates members of Congress. Of course, there is a pro-Israel lobby that has the support of most of the public in our country, and is composed not only of Jews, but of many evangelical Christians.2. He not only opposed the Iraq war after first supporting it, but later voted against declaring Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups. He also argued on behalf of negotiations with them....

Rachel Beitarie and Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Is Xi Jinping a Reformer? It’s Much Too Early to Tell

Rachel Beitarie is a Mid-East born and long-time Beijing-based freelance writer.  She has published extensively in Israeli publications and has also contributed to venues such as Foreign Policy, Circle of Blue, and the China Digital Times.Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Professor of Chinese History at UC Irvine, the author of books such as China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2010), and co-editor of the forthcoming Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land (to be published in September 2012 by the University of California Press).Last weekend, Nicholas Kristof wrote in the pages of The New York Times that he feels moderately confident China will experience resurgent economic reform and probably political reform as well under the leadership of recently installed Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. Some forecasts about China’s future are easy to dismiss. But Kristof knows the country well and we take his predictions seriously. We don’t, however, find them persuasive. Here’s why:

Robert Zaretsky: A Frenchman Dreams of Russia

Robert Zaretsky, a professor of French history at the University of Houston, is working on a book about Albert Camus.RETURNING home from a visit to Russia in 1774, the philosophe Denis Diderot wrote that in France, he could not “help but think that I’ve the soul of a slave in a country where men are called free,” whereas in Russia he “had the soul of a free man in a country where men are called slaves.”Has Gérard Depardieu had similar thoughts of late?On Sunday, President Vladimir V. Putin welcomed the French actor to Russia with a newly issued Russian passport. Mr. Depardieu, outraged by the French Socialist government’s proposed 75 percent wealth tax, had walked out on his country. A fan of Russia’s low taxes, he also praised its “great democracy”: “I love your country, Russia — its people, its history, its writers. I love your culture, your intelligence.” Mr. Putin’s increasing authoritarianism went unmentioned.

Ira Chernus: The Mideast Surprise of 2013?

Ira Chernus is a TomDispatch regular and professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.  He is the author, among other works, of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin and the online collection “MythicAmerica: Essays.” He blogs at MythicAmerica.us. Here’s the question no one is asking as 2012 ends, especially given the effusive public support the Obama administration offered Israel in its recent conflict with Hamas in Gaza: Will 2013 be a year of confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem? It’s on no one’s agenda for the New Year. But it could happen anyway.

Jonathan Zimmerman: For Mummers, A Strut Forward

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.Men dressed as women - at the Mummers Parade! Can you believe it?In November, parade organizers announced that 10 self-described "drag queens" would accompany the String Bands along Broad Street from Washington Avenue to City Hall today. They're also expected to perform at the Convention Center between the acts of the Fancy Brigades.Philadelphians greeted the news with a collective yawn, because cross-dressing has long been a staple of Mummery. Starting in the 1920s, feminine-attired "wenches" paraded down Broad Street paihttp://hnn.us/node/add/hnnred with tuxedo-clad "dudes." And until the 1970s, when women were finally allowed to participate in the parade, the Comic Division had a separate category for female impersonators.But the wenches and dudes also wore blackface, adding a note of bigotry to the event. And real transvestites - as opposed to people who cross-dress just for the day - have faced extraordinary prejudice in Philadelphia and elsewhere across history, which makes the Mummers' embrace of them all the more remarkable....

Tom Engelhardt: The CIA's Greatest Hits

Tom Engelhardt, cofounder of the American Empire Project and author of "The End of Victory Culture," runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com.We got Osama bin Laden — and now we'll be getting him again on cinema screens across the nation, as "Zero Dark Thirty" hits neighborhood multiplexes. Lauded and criticized, that film's the talk of the town. Is it also the first of a new genre? If so, here are my five nominations for other CIA films.

Robert E. Wright: The NYSE’s Long History of Mergers and Rivalries

Robert E. Wright is the Nef Family Chair of Political Economy at Augustana College in South Dakota and the author of numerous books, including, with David Cowen, “Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich.”The recent announcement that Wall Street’s most iconic institution, the New York Stock Exchange, would be acquired by Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE) seemed weighted with symbolism.For one thing, it represented another marker in the decline of New York City as the center of global finance. It also suggested that the world of trading and exchanges was entering a uniquely modern age of technology-driven consolidation. You may recall, for example, the mergers that the NYSE conducted with Archipelago Holdings Inc. (2006), Euronext NV (2007) and the American Stock Exchange (2008).

Jonathan Zimmerman: NCAA Lawsuit has Dark Logic

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com. OK, Pennsylvanians, let's see a show of hands: How many of you were harmed by the NCAA's sanctions against Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal?Gov. Corbett says you were, so he's suing the NCAA, which slapped a $60 million fine and a four-year bowl ban on Penn State last summer. Corbett initially accepted the sanctions, but he changed his tune last week, arguing that the penalties "irreparably harm the citizens and the general economy of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania." But Corbett's suit doesn't provide a single piece of evidence to support that claim.What the complaint does suggest is something much darker: that a Sandusky-style atrocity could have occurred at any number of football-worshipping universities that make coaches into idols. In an attempt to exculpate Penn State, Corbett has actually indicted us all....

Victor Davis Hanson: Bush Reconsidered

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom. George W. Bush left office in January 2009 with one of the lowest job-approval ratings for a president (34 percent) since Gallup started compiling them — as compared to Harry Truman’s low of 32 percent, Richard Nixon’s of 24 percent, and Jimmy Carter’s of 34 percent — and to the general derision of the media. At times the venom accorded Bush in popular culture reached absurd — and even sick — levels. Alfred A. Knopf, for example, infamously published Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint, a pathetic riff on shooting Bush. Gabriel Range’s unhinged 2006 "docudrama," The Death of a President, focused on an imagined assassination of President Bush (imagine the outcry should any filmmaker today update that topos). A sick Charlie Brooker op-ed in the Guardian called for another John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Bush.

Max Boot: The Risks of an Afghan Drawdown

Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the forthcoming book, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present.The Obama administration appears determined to vacate Afghanistan as fast as possible. If the latest leaks are to be believed, officials are willing to leave as few as 6,000 U.S. troops behind after 2014, concentrated at the Bagram air base and a few other installations around Kabul. The mind boggles at what this would mean in military terms. Consider one simple fact: Kandahar, the city where the Taliban movement started, is 310 miles southwest of Kabul. Imagine that intelligence analysts have identified a “high-value target” — say, a terrorist facilitator with links to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban — in Kandahar. How would the U.S. military capture or kill him without a secure base in Kandahar? This scenario is, on some level, fanciful, because the lack of a U.S. presence on the ground around Kandahar would make it very difficult to generate useful intelligence. How would the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency run agents or even operate drones? Even assuming that the intelligence could be garnered, it would be exceedingly hard to act on the information...

Saul Cornell: Time for the Second Amendment to Meet the First

Saul Cornell is the Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History at Fordham University.In the aftermath of the horrific mass shooting in Newtown, many Americans are wondering when we can begin a calm and rational public discussion of gun policy. Once upon a time in America, even Republicans favored robust regulation of firearms. Richard Nixon supported gun control and the Brady system of checks was enacted during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. In contemporary America, Republicans have rejected this heritage and so have most Democrats. Republican candidates vie with each other to prove their “Second Amendment credentials,” and Democrats either remain mute or mouth their own insipid Second Amendment platitudes. This capitulation to gun rights extremism has pulled public discussion about guns far away from a sensible debate. The time has arrived for an informed discussion about guns in America. Such a discussion must be based on credible research, not ideological manifestos.When faced with demands for new regulations, gun rights advocates have typically responded with two equally distorted claims: gun regulation does not work, and the Second Amendment precludes robust gun regulation. Let’s have a look at each claim.

Saul Cornell: The Second Amendment you don't know

 

David Greenberg: ‘Borking’ Before Bork

David Greenberg is a professor of history and journalism and media studies at Rutgers University.THE death on Wednesday of Robert H. Bork, the conservative judge whose Supreme Court nomination was rejected by the Senate in 1987, has prompted a flood of commentaries describing his confirmation battle as a historic turning point. By opposing Mr. Bork for his right-wing views, it is alleged, Senate Democrats engaged in an unprecedented act of brazen partisanship against Ronald Reagan’s nominee, politicizing a once deferential process.These claims are wrong. Although Mr. Bork’s confirmation certainly represented a major battle of the Reagan years, the campaign to defeat him was neither unprecedented nor illegitimate.

Thomas A. Foster: The Myth of the Vajazzled Orgasm

Thomas A. Foster teaches in the History Department at DePaul University. His new book, Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America, features 72 historical documents that trace the history of sexuality in America from the colonial period to the presentAs you may well be aware, there is a spa in New York City that sells vajazzling. The flash and style of adding sparkling, jewel-like plastic to denim can also be accomplished for the vagina. Is our current, historically unprecedented, public focus on the vagina finally succeeding in creating a female cultural counterpoint to the penis? Are we nearing total equality of the sexes?