Historians in the News

Will Buffalo Change Anything?

Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and survivor/activist David Hogg discuss whether American politicians will ever confront the horrific combination of racism and guns. 

Was Your Wisconsin Town a "Sundown Town"?

Stephen Berrey discusses the way that violent segregation took place outside the South in the 1890s and early 1900s.

Why are Historians at War with the New York Times?

Politico's media columnist argues that the paper's outsize role in the culture is driving the anger of historians whose uncredited work was foundational to the paper's recent series on Haiti's debt payments to France. 

Labor Historian: Amazon's Warehouse Victory is a Big Step, But Just a Step

Cornell's Ilene DeVault says the organization of Amazon's Staten Island warehouse is more important that unionization at Starbucks for the reversal of the decades-long attack on organized labor in the US. 

John Mack Faragher on California History as American History

John Mack Faragher's new book examines the rise of America's diversity and prosperity – and the conflicts attendant on both – in California. 

Nicole Hemmer Reviews Martin and Burns's "This Will Not Pass"

by Nicole Hemmer

The book by two political reporters portrays the dire contrast between a Republican Party willing to do anything to hold power between November 2020 and January 2021 and a Democratic Party enmeshed in business-as-usual. 

"We're Still Here": Past and Present Collide at a Native American Residential School

What is the experience of Native American students at one of the few surviving government-run indigenous residential schools in the United States? 

Historians on Teaching with Integrity in the Face of "Gag Laws"

  Leonard Moore, Katharina Matro, Julia Brookins, Kathleen Hilliard, James Grossman, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, and James Sweet describe how their ability to examine the past honestly and students' freedom to learn support democracy. 

The Complicated History of Abortion and Abortion Law in the United States

Many scholars, including Carla Spivack and Lauren MacIvor Thompson have challenged Samuel Alito's historical research and argue that for much of American history abortion was neither outlawed nor particularly controversial. 

Discovery of Earliest Known Record of Mayan Calendar

A fragment discovered at the Las Pinturas pyramid site in San Bartolo, Guatemala connects the ancient site to a calendar system used by indigenous Mayan people today. 

Buffalo Shooting Centuries in Making, Say Historians of Slavery and Reconstruction

Manisha Sinha and Bernard Powers link the mass killing to longstanding repression of Black political power, and the justification of violence for that purpose. 

Isaac Chotiner Interviews Kathleen Belew on White Power and the Buffalo Mass Shooting

"The idea is simply that many different kinds of social change are connected to a plot by a cabal of élites to eradicate the white race, which people in this movement believe is their nation."

What if Mental Illness Isn't All In Your Head?

by Marco Ramos

A historian of mental health reviews two new books and concludes that pharmaceutical and neurological approaches to mental health have failed and it's time to turn the lens onto society.

Nursing Clio Project Connects Health, Gender and History

“The personal is historical,” the blog’s authors declare — and its lineup of historians and authors proves that point again and again.

Historian Leslie Reagan on the History of Abortion and Abortion Rights

Leslie Reagan explains that there's more to the history of abortion rights than the laws cited by Samuel Alito criminalizing the procedure. 

Mellon Foundation Event: Chinese American History, Asian American Experiences (May 19)

Historians Erika Lee and Mae Ngai discuss the history of Chinese Americans in the context of Asian American history and American multiculturalism with Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander on May 19. 

Harvard Peabody Museum Returns Sacred Scrolls to White Earth Tribe

Professor Philip Deloria praised the repatriation of the artifacts as a "rebalancing" of accounts between the tribe and the university. 

How the Evangelical Movement Embraced the Abortion Issue

Kristin Kobes Du Mez discusses how Evangelical Christians came to drive the abortion debate in the US in the context of a backlash against feminism and a growing infrastructure of conservative voter mobilization.

Kathleen Belew: Buffalo Massacre Likely Driven by "Great Replacement" Myth

"A man accused of killing 10 people in Buffalo, New York was allegedly motivated by a racist doctrine known as 'replacement theory.' It's just a new name for an old set of racial hatreds, Kathleen Belew told NPR."

AAIHS Statement on Buffalo Mass Shooting

by Robert Greene II

"Black Americans and other marginalized groups in America and around the world have found ways to resist this reprehensible violence. We will all continue to do so. For now, AAIHS wishes to express its condolences to those harmed by the tragedy in Buffalo."