Roundup: Talking About History

Ian Johnson: ‘Worse Than the Cultural Revolution’: An Interview With Tian Qing

Ian Johnson writes from Beijing and Berlin on religion and society. His most recent book is A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West.Tian Qing may be China’s leading cultural heritage expert. A scholar of Buddhist musicology and the Chinese zither, or guqin, the sixty-four-year-old now heads the Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, an institution set up by the government to protect China’s native traditions in the performing arts, cuisine, rituals, festivals, and other forms of culture. As Tian notes, these are gaining in popularity but the nature of this revival is ambiguous: Are they being recovered as living traditions or as objects for urbanized Chinese to enjoy as tourists in their own land?

Robert W. Merry: Saddam's Head Not Worth the Cost

Robert W. Merry is editor of The National Interest and the author of books on American history and foreign policy. His next book, Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians, is due out on June 26 from Simon & Schuster.

Daniel Mendelsohn: Why We Can’t Let Go of the Titanic

Daniel Mendelsohn's work frequently appears in the New Yorker.In the early nineteen-seventies, my Uncle Walter, who wasn’t a “real” uncle but had a better intuition about my hobbies and interests than some of my blood relatives did, gave me a thrilling gift: membership in the Titanic Enthusiasts of America. I was only twelve, but already hooked. The magnificence, the pathos, the enthralling chivalry—Benjamin Guggenheim putting on white tie and tails so he could drown “like a gentleman”—and the shaming cowardice, the awful mistakes, the tantalizing “what if”s: for me, there was no better story. I had read whatever books the local public library offered, and had spent some of my allowance on a copy of Walter Lord’s indispensable “A Night to Remember.” To this incipient collection Uncle Walter added the precious gift of a biography of the man who designed the ship. It has always been among the first books I pack when I move. A little later, when I was in my midteens, I toiled for a while on a novel about two fourteen-year-old boys, one a Long Islander like myself, the other a British aristocrat, who meet during the doomed maiden voyage. Needless to say, their budding friendship was sundered by the disaster.

David Helvarg: The Savior of California's Coast

David Helvarg is executive director of the Blue Frontier Campaign. His book, "The Golden Shore: — California's Love Affair With the Sea," will be published in 2013.A good argument can be made that no one since Father Junipero Serra has had as much impact on coastal development in California as Peter Douglas. Douglas, who died a week ago, wrote and helped pass Proposition 20, the California Coastal Commission initiative, in 1972. He wrote the 1976 Coastal Act, worked for the commission from its early days and was its outspoken executive director for more than 25 years despite often fierce opposition, including a nearly successful attempt by then-Gov. Pete Wilson to get rid of him in 1996.

Eyal Press: The Unsung Heroes of the Balkan Wars

Journalist Eyal Press is the author of "Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times."Twenty years ago last week, Serbian snipers fired on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators in Sarajevo, launching a brutal siege that brought ethnic violence in the Balkans to menacing new heights.In the two decades since, attention has understandably focused on the deeds of the architects and perpetrators of the Balkan wars. Confronting the truth about how the violence was planned and orchestrated, many have argued, is an essential step in getting formerly warring factions to reckon honestly with their responsibility for what transpired.But this point should apply no less to the conduct of those who behaved honorably during the war, daring to cross the lines of ethnic division that too many of their fellow citizens chose not to traverse....

Lea VanderVelde: Another Anniversary for the Overlooked Mrs. Dred Scott

Lea VanderVelde is Josephine Witte professor of law at the University of Iowa, Guggenheim fellow in Constitutional Studies, and author of “Mrs. Dred Scott: A Life on Slavery’s Frontier,” published by Oxford University Press. Her next book, “Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom,” will appear later this year, also published by Oxford.Today, April 6, marks an anniversary of the legal filing that became one of the most divisive cases in the history of the US Supreme Court. Controversy over recent court debates – Obamacare or strip searches, for instance – pale in comparison.

WaPo Editorial: Ike's Memorial Shouldn't be Derailed

SECOND-GUESSING the design of the nation’s memorials is as American as the iconic figures they honor. When the Lincoln Memorial was being planned, no less an authority than Frank Lloyd Wright called it the “most ridiculous, most asinine miscarriages of building material that ever happened.” Critics of the Jefferson Memorial wondered why this father of democracy was housed in a Roman temple. So controversial was Maya Lin’s spare homage to those who died in Vietnam that the highest-ranking member of the executive branch to show up for its dedication was the deputy interior secretary....

Jason Willick: Conservatives against history

Mr. Willick is a UC student. It looks like Rick Santorum — who said Monday that most of California’s public universities don’t offer American history courses — isn’t the only Republican making things up about the University of California curriculum.In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last Saturday called “How California Colleges Indoctrinate Students,” Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz wrote: “none of the nine general campuses in the UC system requires students to study the history and institutions of the United States.”One wonders if Berkowitz bothered to visit the UC website — or do any research on the subject whatsoever — before writing off to the Wall Street Journal. If he had, he would have seen that the University of California has three systemwide graduation requirements: writing, a foreign language, and, yes — American history and institutions.

Peter Oborne: It’s Time to Give John Major the Credit We So Cruelly Denied Him

Peter Oborne is the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator. Monday marks a notable date in political history – the anniversary of April 9 1992, the last time that the Conservative Party managed to achieve victory at a general election. Right up to the BBC exit polls, it was assumed that Neil Kinnock’s Labour would win. But John Major, always underestimated by a sneering metropolitan media class, triumphed against the odds. He won more votes – 14 million – than any other British prime minister has ever done. In popular terms, the margin of victory was immense. No less than 42 per cent of the voters came out for Major, 34 per cent for Kinnock. But the bias of the British electoral system hit the Conservatives hard. Had Labour enjoyed that 8 per cent lead in the popular vote, it would have secured a parliamentary majority of more than 100. Unlucky Major ended up with a majority of just 21, which was whittled away over the coming years until his government ended in ignominy and defeat. His administration has enjoyed a terrible reputation and remains associated with sleaze, incompetence, drift and weakness. But as time has passed this verdict has started to look unfair. History may yet be much kinder to John Major than many would have thought...

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Problem of Black History

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle.I thought this story from the Times on the decline in the number of African-American caddies buried the lede. The writer pitches it as something we should be mournful about or at least feel rather wistful....I would argue that sometimes an absence of black people is actually the result of progress, or at the very least the result of some kind of change that doesn't immediately involve a boot on your neck. Caddying, perhaps regrettably, carries with it some connotations that don't really appeal to young black people today....

John O'Sullivan: How the U.S. Almost Betrayed Britain

Mr. O'Sullivan is the author of The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World.Thirty years ago this Monday, Argentine marines invaded the Falkland Islands, captured its British defenders and declared the islands to be Argentine territory: Las Malvinas. Britain dispatched a naval "task force" to regain them less than a week later. The Falklands War had begun. According to newly released documents from the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., the U.S. almost took sides against its most important ally, driven by the diplomatic maneuvering of Secretary of State Alexander Haig. It's already a matter of record that, at first, Washington ostentatiously refused to take sides. Secretary Haig embarked on energetic shuttle diplomacy between Buenos Aires and London to craft a settlement. One month after the landing, the military junta governing Argentina rejected his compromise. The National Security Council met to determine the next stage of U.S. policy...

Gerry Hassan: The Continued Legacy of Britain’s South Atlantic Adventure

Gerry Hassan is a writer, policy analyst and researcher.The 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Falklands war is today, a conflict that continues in its importance. Like many at the time, I had to first find the South Atlantic islands on a map, then put them into my leftist anti-Thatcherite view of the world, and then observe the mood of a Britain I barely recognised. The Falklands war raised so many questions then and now. Was this a war of principle or pride? What did this say about Britain’s self-image and who ‘we’ were as a ‘people’? Would Margaret Thatcher have survived without retaking the islands? And would the Tories have won in 1983 without military victory? Definitely not and arguably; Thatcher herself concedes the former in her memoirs...

John Shakespeare: Falklands ... The Land That Time Forgot

John Shakespeare served as a diplomat in Argentina from 1973-77.

Max Hastings: Britain's Last Imperial Hurrah

A 60-minute documentary, The Falklands Legacy With Max Hastings, is available to view on the BBC  iPlayer until next Sunday evening.How does Britain’s 1982 saga appear, from the perspective of the second decade of the 21st century?First, almost no pundit or historian disputes that Margaret Thatcher was right to go to war after the Argentines seized Britain’s Falklands dependency 30 years ago yesterday. To be sure, she acted for partisan political motives. Her own government was responsible for the series of diplomatic and strategic bunglings which caused the military dictatorship in Buenos Aires to conclude that we were no longer either willing or able to defend the islands.Thatcher knew that the Falklands had nothing to do with the huge economic and industrial problems of this country in 1982. Losing them would not affect our national circumstances, save in one small but vital matter: self-respect....The first test of the political transformation wrought by the war came at Beaconsfield, where a by-election was held on May 27, in the midst of the fighting. The Tories, who had feared defeat, won by a landslide. The Labour candidate, who opposed the conflict, lost his deposit. He later told fellow Labour politician Robin Cook that he learned from the experience that the British people like war prime ministers.

Dominic Lawson: Patriotism is Why Thatcher's War Won Her the Public's Backing

Dominic Lawson is a British journalist.

Ian Milligan: Illusionary Order: Cautionary Notes for Online Newspapers

Ian Milligan holds a PhD in Canadian History from York University and currently teaches in the Department of Canadian Studies at Trent UniversityOnline digitized newspapers are great. If you have access (either through a free database or via a personal or library subscription), you can quickly find the information you need: a specific search for a last name might help you find ancestors, a search for a specific event can find historical context for it (i.e. the Christie Pits Riots, or a certain strike), and generally the results are beautiful, render relatively well, and are – crucially – immediate.

Alexandra M. Lord: Our Secret Nonacademic Histories

Alexandra M. Lord left academe in 2000 for a position with the federal government. Since 2004, she has run Beyond Academe, a free Web site that helps historians find work outside of the academy.When my seatmate on a delayed flight turned and casually asked what I did, I braced myself. Over the past 15 years, I have discovered that "historian" ranks high on most people's list of fantasy jobs; their enthusiasm can sometimes be a bit overwhelming.My seatmate was, as are so many lawyers, a former history major. "And your area of expertise?" he excitedly asked."I'm a medical historian. My recent book was on the history of sex education," I replied."Wow," he said, "That must be incredibly controversial. You must encounter a lot of taboos and deep, dark secrets."Well, I have heard countless stories about other people's sex education at birthday parties and Passover Seders, in the gym, and even in the grocery store. But taboos? Deep, dark secrets? Very few. I have, however, stumbled up against the ultimate taboo in writing about a different topic: nonacademic career paths for historians and other Ph.D.'s in the humanities.When I decided six years ago to create a Web site for historians looking for work outside of academe, I did so because of my own tortured career path....

Ben Alpers: The Academy in Peril

Ben Alpers is a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma.

Samuel Gregg: The Left Resumes Its War on History

Samuel Gregg is Research Director at the Acton Institute. He has authored several books including On Ordered Liberty, his prize-winning The Commercial Society, and Wilhelm Röpke's Political Economy.

Jonathan Aitken: Preacher Maggie

Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator's High Spirits columnist, is most recently author of John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway Books). His biographies include Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed (Doubleday) and Nixon: A Life, now available in a new paperback edition (Regnery).