Historians in the News

How Hitler's World War II Weapons Helped Israel Win Independence

And here is where the other odd twist of fate happened: Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin provided the arms.

What Street Names Say About Us

A geographer who studies the civil rights movement told Deirdre Mask, “We have attached the name of one of the most famous civil rights leaders of our time to the streets that speak to the very need to continue the civil rights movement.”

"How the South Won the Civil War" Review: One Side Kept Fighting

At the outset of the war, the great majority of Northerners wanted to reunify the country more or less on prewar terms.

A Sharp Shock, But Not a Depression: A Historian's View

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the economic effects will be severe but not nearly as long-lasting as the Great Depression,” says David Kennedy, a professor of history at Stanford University. “Both the depth and duration are not likely to look like the Great Depression.”

Historians Want Your Pandemic Journals And Photos ‘In Real Time’

“There will always be official records,” says Anne McDonough. “But the thoughts and the responses and the impact on everyday, local people, if it is not actively collected, unfortunately that will go by the wayside.”

William R. Polk, Historian and Middle East Envoy, Dies at 91

Over six decades, Mr. Polk delved into multiple careers, working in and out of government, writing, co-writing or editing more than two-dozen books and traveling the globe, often to hot spots.

The History of Pandemics Teaches Us Only That We Can't Be Taught

As Howard Markel, a physician and historian of science, wrote in WIRED last month, “I feel like quoting Yogi Berra: It’s ‘déjà vu all over again,’ albeit a nightmarish blend of several déjàs vu into one.”

The Forgotten Women of the Gulag

A new book by Monika Zgustova brings the harrowing, heartbreaking history of the Soviet Gulag’s female prisoners to life.

Harvard Historian Bernard Bailyn Takes a Long Look Back in ‘Illuminating History: A Retrospective of Seven Decades’

To Bernard Bailyn, Adams University Professor Emeritus at Harvard, history involves storytelling, and historians, like novelists, should aim to depict a coherent world. But the historian, of course, must obey constraints that the writer of fiction naturally ignores.

A Review of Andrew J. Bacevich's "American Conservatism: Reclaiming an Intellectual Tradition"

From Henry Adams to Joan Didion, Bacevich chronicles American conservative thinking throughout the 20th century.

Princeton Historian: America Can Beat Coronavirus if We Don't 'Defeat Ourselves'

Stephen Kotkin, renowned for his work studying authoritarian regimes, said history teaches that the United States can triumph over the coronavirus pandemic if America doesn't "defeat ourselves."

Can a Pandemic Remake Society? A Historian Explains.

It’s happened before. Here’s what it would take to happen again.

CSUF Professor’s New Book on the History of Robots in America Resonates in Coronavirus Era

Dylan Abnet's “The American Robot” explores how robots and their like—automatons, androids, artificial intelligence and cyborgs—are tied to questions about modern culture.

How Coffee Ruined a Country

by Lizabeth Cohen

Lizabeth Cohen reviews Augustine Sedgewick's book, which argues that coffee monoculture was disastrous to El Salvador.

Online Roundtable—Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power (by Simon Balto)

A roster of historians of racism and law enforcement including Melanie Newport, Max Felker-Kantor, Anne Gray Fischer and Dan Berger discuss Simon Balto's book Occupied Territory on policing in Black Chicago. 

SHGAPE Prizes 2020

by Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Andrew Huebner, Caroline Grego, Alana Toulin and Mark C. Boxell are winners of annual prizes from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 

Meet Your Meme Lords

A small team at the Library of Congress, led by Abbie Grotke, is archiving internet culture as fast as it can (now, from home).

In 19th-Century America, Fighting Disease Meant Battling Bad Smells

Melanie Kiechle, a history professor at Virginia Tech, foul smells or "miasmas" were considered to indicate risk of disease before the germ theory of disease developed.

Historians Among Recipients of 2020 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships

Historians Mark Philip Bradley, Amy Nelson Burnett, James T. Campbell, Dyan Elliott, Susan Juster, Vera Keller, Bernadette Meyler, Chris Otter, H. Glenn Penny, Kim Phillips-Fein, Camille Robcis, Erica Schoenberger, David Sepkoski, and Anna Shternshis were among the 2020 awardees of the Guggenheim Fellowship.  

A Letter From The UHA About Our 2020 Conference

As a result of the uncertainly resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, the Urban History Association has decided to postpone by one year our biennial conference previously scheduled for October 2020.