Roundup: Historians' Take

Elaine G. Breslaw: How Obamacare Compares To 19th Century Care

Elaine G. Breslaw is the author of “Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic.”What was health care like in the “good old days”? And what was the government’s role? Today to relieve the taxpayer from the obligation to pay the hospital costs for the uninsured, the country is preparing for “Obamacare,” a mandate for everyone to have health insurance.Before the 20th century, people did not bother with health insurance nor did they voluntarily go into a hospital, a source of infection and death. Only sailors had a mandate to pay into a federal program for medical care. The poorest, the homeless, those lacking social support like the sailors, were condemned to hospitals where doctors volunteered their services in return for the prestige of the appointment. Hand-washing was not expected and the results were deadly.

Niall Ferguson: Turning Points

A Harvard historian, film-maker and journalist, Ferguson is known for his provocative, contrarian views. “The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die” is his latest book. “The Ascent of Money,” a recent documentary series, won the International Emmy award. He is writing a life of Henry Kissinger....History is like an oil tanker. It does not turn on a dime. Mankind sails forward through time in seas that are sometimes calm, sometimes stormy. At times it seems almost becalmed, at other times it can do 12 knots. Depending on who captains the ship, it veers sometimes to port, sometimes to starboard. When it changes direction, the turn is generally slow.The things that change suddenly on an oil tanker are the emotions of the crew. Nine hundred and ninety-nine days out of a thousand, they obey their orders and do their work. But very occasionally there is a drama. The men mutiny and the captain is clapped in irons. Or pirates board the ship. Such events are what historians love to study and call “revolutions.” Still, the ship plows onward.

David T. Courtwright: Booze and Pilots: "Flight"

David T. Courtwright is a medical, social, and legal historian at the University of North Florida.Some movie scenes, like Jack Nicholson smashing through the bathroom door in The Shining, enter popular lore from the moment they appear on the screen. Flight has two such scenes: the crash landing of a packed Boeing 727 and, no less harrowing, its alcoholic pilot contemplating a mini-bar. If you don’t like to fly, don’t see this movie.

Tom Engelhardt: Generals Behaving Badly

Tom Engelhardt created and runs the Tomdispatch.com website, a project of The Nation Institute where he is a Fellow. He is the author of a highly praised history of American triumphalism in the Cold War, The End of Victory Culture, and of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing, as well as a collection of his Tomdispatch interviews, Mission Unaccomplished. Each spring he is a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.

Andrew Roberts: Republicans Must Avoid Civil War

Andrew Roberts is a British historian.The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center was an uncomfortable place to be at midnight on Tuesday, November 6. The free beer and wine were flowing; the would-be ambassadors were wandering around the suites reserved for those who had given $7 million or more to the Republican party; the vast TV screens were tuned in to Fox News (CNN had been booed off). It should have been a party rather than a wake, yet from the moment I had walked in two hours beforehand, I could sense the rising stench of coming disappointment. That special thrill which throbs through election-night parties given by the victorious side was totally absent, even two hours before the Ohio result sent everyone for the doors. From the moment the exit polls recorded that white voters were only making up 72 per cent of the total it was clear: Mitt Romneywasn't going to make it.

Andrew Roberts: Hamas Can Be Utterly Defeated

Andrew Roberts is a historian. His latest book is The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War.

Scott Reynolds Nelson: Lessons From America’s First Fiscal Cliff

Scott Reynolds Nelson teaches history at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters, published by Alfred A. Knopf in September.America faced its first fiscal cliff in 1893. The date should be familiar. It was the start of the Panic of 1893, and it led to the biggest shift ever in the composition of the U.S. Congress. Contemporaries called it the “Avalanche of 1894.”Then as now, a Republican-sponsored change in tax policy brought about the crisis. Throughout the 1880s the United States had run a budget surplus. Americans paid no income tax, but a tariff on imports paid most of the bills. Nearly 25 percent of this came from a tax on imported sugar. The so-called Sugar Trust, run by Henry O. Havemeyer, had long favored a high tax on refined sugar to protect American sugar refineries against foreign competition.

Andrew Roberts: Canada Comes to the Rescue of Great Britain, Again

Historian Andrew Roberts's latest book, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, was published in the U.S. in May. His previous books include Masters and Commanders and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Dr. Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.Canada to the rescue! (Yet again.) The appointment of Mark Carney, a Canadian born in the Northwest Territories, a former Goldman Sachs executive, and presently governor of the Bank of Canada, to the post of governor of the Bank of England, is yet another example of that country coming to Britain’s aid in its hour of need. It is also an eloquent testimony to how the Anglosphere—or what Winston Churchill called “the English-speaking peoples”—continues to work for their mutual benefit, but especially for Britain’s....

Bess Lovejoy: Raising the Dead

Bess Lovejoy is the author of the forthcoming book “Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses.”THIS week, the pale stone tomb in Ramallah that houses the remains of the former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat was pried open. Researchers plan to test samples of Arafat’s skeleton for signs of poison, after suspicious concentrations of the radioactive isotope polonium-210 were found on his clothes and toothbrush during an investigation this summer. Arafat’s final illness has been a source of speculation since his death in 2004; while medical records show his immediate cause of death was a stroke, many Palestinians believe he was murdered by Israel.

Jonathan Zimmerman: Class Time, Not Nap Time

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. The Cherry Hill Board of Education and its teachers recently agreed on a new contract that extends the school day by 30 minutes. Over the course of a 180-day school year, that comes out to about 14 more days of class.But it probably won't make much of a difference, at least not for high school students. That's because the board tacked the additional time onto the beginning of the day, forcing high school kids to show up for school at 7:30 a.m. instead of 8.They won't be awake. Sure, they'll trudge into class and go through the motions. But as a growing body of research reveals, adolescents' bodies - and minds - don't really rouse that early.Consider a recent study of Chicago high school students. It found that they got lower grades in their first-period courses than in the rest. Standardized tests also showed that they scored worse in subjects taught at the start of the day.

Rafael Medoff: How the British Responded to Palestinian Terrorists

The writer is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and coauthor, with Prof. Sonja Schoepf Wentling, of the new book Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the ‘Jewish Vote’ and Bipartisan Support for Israel.

Andrew Roberts: Generals Never Had To Be Faithful

Historian Andrew Roberts's latest book, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, was published in the U.S. in May. His previous books include Masters and Commanders and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Dr. Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. How fortunate that Americans didn’t adopt the same inquisitive and puritanical approach to their generals’ sex lives in the past that they so obviously love indulging in today. For if they had, the history of the Republic would have been far less happy and far more blood-stained. Great generals, indeed great spy chiefs, have been expected to exhibit many magnificent qualities historically, but sexual fidelity rightly hasn’t been prominent among them, at least in wartime. The media witch hunt against Gens. David Petraeus and John Allen is yet another indication that America still doesn’t see the Global War on Terror as a proper war, analogous to the great conflicts of the past. The Civil War saw the sexual philandering of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman during his long and frequent absences from his wife on campaign.

Pietro Nivola: What the War of 1812 Can Teach Us About the Fiscal-Cliff Debate

Pietro Nivola is a senior fellow with the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and co-editor of What We So Proudly Hailed: Essays on the Contemporary Meaning of the War of 1812. ...Glancing back, one cannot help but be struck by certain similarities between the role of party politics in the run-up to the crisis of 1812-14 and the present partisan strife over government tax policy, budgetary priorities, and the national debt.

Jon Meacham: Socializing as a Political Tool

Jon Meacham is the author of “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.”IN this hour of reflexive partisan division, with Americans frustrated by Washington’s seeming inability to address significant fiscal questions, among other issues, an inevitable question arises: Can President Obama do anything to create enough good will to pass some lasting reforms?Here is a modest proposal, one drawn from the presidency of another tall, cool, cerebral politician-writer: use the White House and the president’s personal company to attempt to weave attachments and increase a sense of common purpose in the capital. Dinners with the president — or breakfast or lunch or coffee or drinks or golf — won’t create a glorious bipartisan Valhalla, but history suggests that at least one of our greatest presidents mastered the means of entertaining to political effect.During both of his terms, on the eve of each Congressional session, President Thomas Jefferson warned friends that, in our vernacular, he was about to go offline. “As Congress will meet this day week, we begin now to be in the bustle of preparation,” he wrote a family member. “When that begins, between the occupations of business and of entertainment, I shall become an unpunctual correspondent.”...

Lynn Parramore: What Spielberg’s “Lincoln” Conveniently Leaves Out

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet contributing editor. She is co-founder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of "Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture." Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore. Over this Thanksgiving week, you may find yourself in a movie theater watching Steven Spielberg’s treatment of Abraham Lincoln and the battle to pass the 13th Amerndment, which abolished slavery once and for all. There’s much to be said for Lincoln [3]: marvelous acting, less mythologizing than usual, and a fascinating window into raucous realpolitik. Spielberg’s film stands several cuts above any movie depiction of the Lincoln presidency you’re likely to see.Lincoln himself stands several cuts above the vast majority of U.S. presidents. After some equivocating, he freed the slaves, a monumental undertaking that was a service to the country and to humanity in general. He was also friendlier to workers than most presidents, an affinity noted by Karl Marx, who exchanged letters with Lincoln leading up to and during the Civil War. (You won’t see the GOP acknowledging that!)

Jonathan Zimmerman: Soda Tax Foes Reek of Tobacco

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.Taxes won't reduce consumption. They violate Americans' "right to choose." And they put a disproportionate burden on racial minorities.Those were the claims deployed by the beverage industry to defeat proposed soda taxes in Philadelphia in 2010 and 2011. They also surfaced during the past election season in California, where two cities rejected taxes on sugary soft drinks.But the forefather of these arguments is the cigarette industry, which used almost exactly the same rhetoric for a half-century to resist taxation and regulation. The cigarette companies were wrong then - just as the soda apologists are wrong now.Consider Philadelphia's recent good news on smoking, which has plummeted 15 percent since 2008. Smoking rates declined across the country as well. The main reason is - you guessed it - higher taxes on cigarettes....

Laurence Rees: Hitler's Dark Charisma and Why It Matters Today

Laurence Rees is a former creative director of history programmes for the BBC and the author of six books on World War II. At the heart of the story of Adolf Hitler is one gigantic, mysterious question: how was it possible that a character as strange and personally inadequate as Hitler ever gained power in a sophisticated country at the heart of Europe, and was then loved by millions of people? The answer to this vital question is to be found not just in the historical circumstances of the time - in particular the defeat of Germany in World War I and the depression of the early 1930s - but in the nature of Hitler's leadership. It's this aspect of the story that makes this history particularly relevant to our lives today. Hitler was the archetypal "charismatic leader". He was not a "normal" politician - someone who promises policies like lower taxes and better health care - but a quasi-religious leader who offered almost spiritual goals of redemption and salvation.

Fouad Ajami: Will the Arab Spring Deliver for Hamas?

Mr. Ajami is a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and the author most recently of The Syrian Rebellion (Hoover Press, 2012). 'Egypt of today is entirely different from the Egypt of yesterday, and the Arabs of today are not the Arabs of yesterday." So said Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi after Friday prayers last week, adding: "We will not leave Gaza alone." And Gaza will not leave Mr. Morsi alone. As in decades past, Egypt is playing mediator between the Palestinians and Israel—but Mr. Morsi finds himself in a more precarious position than his predecessors. He has been involved in a delicate balancing act since his election in June, mindful of his indebtedness to the Hamas-allied Muslim Brotherhood that brought him to power and of his need not to alienate his foreign-aid benefactors in Washington. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's mission to the region this week will include talks in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the West Bank with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and in Cairo with Egyptian leaders and officials of the Muslim Brotherhood. Whether Mr. Morsi will join the talks is not clear. Mr. Morsi didn't rise to power to carry the burden of the Palestinian question.

Julian Zelizer: Would Lincoln Be Frustrated with Our Current Congress?

Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of the new book "Governing America."(CNN) -- The critics are raving about Steven Spielberg's new film "Lincoln." A.O. Scott of the New York Times called it "among the finest films ever made about American politics." Viewers get a taste of the legislative process up close by watching how President Abraham Lincoln rounded up the necessary votes in get the 13th Amendment resolution through the House. Viewers see a master at work -- a president who knew how to break through the various divisions in Congress and outflank his opponents.Movies such as Spielberg's often result in inflated expectations about what a president could achieve in the current political environment. The reality is that even the best presidents would have trouble rounding up votes in the contemporary Congress.

Ron Radosh: Thoughts on Conservatism at Restoration Weekend

Coming back from Restoration Weekend in W. Palm Beach, Florida- the annual gathering of the David Horowitz Freedom Center- I heard the leading conservative analysts, and many political leaders as well, present their views of what led to the disastrous defeat of Mitt Romney one short week ago. Politicians were represented by Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, among others, and the roster of prominent speakers included Charles Krauthammer, Bret Stephens, Steve Moore, Pat Cadell, Monica Crowley, Michael Reagan, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and scores more. Everyone addressed the issues of what happened, and what can we do in the future. Eventually, all the videos of the events will appear on Frontpagemag.com, and readers will be able to see and hear what was said. When they appear, make sure to watch Charles Krauthammer’s analysis- to me the highlight of the weekend, and Bret Stephens very important presentation on foreign policy and the Middle East. Both were brilliant and essential.