Historians in the News

AHA says digital scholarship should receive academic credit -- And here's how

by Seth Denbo

To encourage giving proper credit to academics doing digital history the AHA has published Guidelines for the Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship by Historians.

Can a News Photo Ever Change History?

The famous AP photo of a young girl running naked down the street shook the nation. It was published in June 1972. It was not until March 29, 1973, that the last American troops departed Vietnam, and not until April 29, 1975 that we fled the country.

Native Americans complain about the revised AP framework for US history

They say it “perpetuates lies about Native Americans."

Report: Historians least likely among humanities PhD's to draw on other disciplines

59% reported another history subject as their secondary field!

NYT History Book Reviews: Who Got Noticed this Week?

by Erik Moshe

This week … voting rights, Russia, the Holocaust, and Asian-American history.

Historian Howard Segal takes on his US senator, Susan Collins

by Howard Segal

He asks:  Does she know history?

Deja Vu: Historians will once again be debating a resolution about Israel at the annual AHA convention

by Rick Shenkman

This year the group sponsoring the resolution is coming prepared, correcting last year's mistake, when they failed to give sufficient advance notice.

Sacramento State historian chastised by student for denying Indians were victims of genocide

The student claims she was expelled from class after protesting Professor Maury Wiseman’s presentation. The school denies she was disenrolled but has launched an investigation.

Conservatives claim colleges are brainwashing students into believing 9/11 was "our fault"

"Not all of us will be mourning 9/11 victims and their families this Friday on the 14th anniversary of the attacks. Hundreds of college kids across the country will instead be taught to sympathize with the terrorists." -- Paul Sperry

She's a historian who's trained to examine the past, but Harvard's Drew Gilpin Faust says in interview that she personally prefers looking forward not backward

by Stephen J. Dubner

This was in answer to a question on a Freakonomics podcast about subjects she's changed her mind about.  "I think I’m a person who doesn’t look back a lot, I’m always looking forward, and so I don’t identify and say ‘whoops, I changed my mind there.’ “

Historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham wins National Humanities Medal

The National Humanities Medal honors Professor Higginbotham "for illuminating the African-American journey. In her writings and edited volumes, Dr. Higginbotham has traced the course of African-American progress, and deepened our understanding of the American story."

AHA President Vicki L. Ruiz named National Humanities Medalist

We are proud to announce that AHA president Vicki L. Ruiz will be among the 10 honorees for this year’s ceremony, to be held September 10.

Historians of Color Are Revolutionizing the Narrative of ‘American Exceptionalism’

by David Levering Lewis

For too long, says David Levering Lewis, we have looked in the wrong place and race for the genesis of our national story.

Henry VIII voted worst monarch in history

‘Self-indulgent wife murderer and tyrant’ tops poll of historical writers, ahead of Edward VIII and Charles I

The Fuhrer style: Historian says press coverage of Hitler’s lavish life fueled his rise to power

Despina Stratigakos, an architectural historian at the University at Buffalo, says even the NYT fell for Hitler’s propaganda.

Two scholars from UT object to the Texas school's decision to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis

by Al Martinich and Tom Palaima

Al Martinich and Tom Palaima say the school president has made things worse than before.

A history professor explains why Americans are so prone to conspiracy theories

Historically, conspiracy theories have often focused on orchestrated wrongdoings supposedly perpetrated by big business or government on ordinary citizens. But recent conspiracy theories have focused on the victims and their loved ones as key players in the manipulation of the public. What has changed?

Now Greg Grandin has come out with a study of Henry Kissinger

by Steven Cohen

This makes two new books on Kissinger.  The other is by Niall Ferguson.  Guess which is more sympathetic.

Japanese historian upends the familiar narrative of WW 2 by taking a bottom up approach, focusing on fascism from the grassroots

by Ethan Mark

As a young historian researching prewar popular political movements in the early 1970s, Yoshimi Yoshiaki (b. 1946) became increasingly struck—and troubled—by the systematic inattention to popular experiences of the war period. So he wrote Grassroots Fascism: a radically different vantage on the wartime experience from the “bottom-up” and a bold attempt to break out of the constricted confines of “history in the passive voice.”

Holocaust-denying historian David Irving organizes 'disgusting' £2,000-a-head holiday tours of former concentration camps and Hitler's HQ so people can 'make up their own mind about the truth'

Irving, 77, is notorious for his attempts to play down the extent of the Holocaust, and his insistence that Hitler was unaware of the plan to exterminate the Jews.