Historians in the News

Ravitch on Rhee

The PBS show “Frontline” on Tuesday night aired John Merrow’s documentary on school reformer Michelle Rhee, which focused on the 3 1/2 years she was chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. There is sure to be a variety of opinions on what it said and what it didn’t say.Here is the reaction of education historian Diane Ravitch, who has become the preeminent voice in the growing opposition to Rhee’s style of school reform. This appeared on Ravitch’s blog.By Diane RavitchI was invited by Frontline to offer reactions to the documentary about Michelle Rhee. I was disappointed that the documentary did not mention that Rhee is now working on behalf of a far-right agenda of privatization; that Washington Teachers Union President George Parker now works for StudentsFirst; that Rhee’s “miraculous gains” as a teacher in Baltimore have been discredited....

Beschloss now tweeting history

How does modern technology allow us to engage in conversations about the past? Gwen Ifill talks to presidential historian Michael Beschloss about how the Twitter-verse has opened up new ways to view history in the digital age.* * * * *

Tzvi Yavetz, prize-winning Israeli historian of Rome, dies at 88

Israel Prize winner and historian Tzvi Yavetz passed away Tuesday at the age of 88. Yavetz specialized in the history of ancient Rome. He was among the founders of Tel Aviv University....

What 'Lincoln' misses and another Civil War film gets right

(CNN) -- He used the N-word and told racist jokes. He once said African-Americans were inferior to whites. He proposed ending slavery by shipping willing slaves back to Africa.Meet Abraham Lincoln, "The Great Emancipator" who "freed" the slaves.That's not the version of Lincoln we get from Steven Spielberg's movie "Lincoln." But there's another film that fills in the historical gaps left by Spielberg and challenges conventional wisdom about Lincoln and the Civil War."The Abolitionists" is a PBS American Experience film premièring Tuesday that focuses on the intertwined lives of five abolitionist leaders. These men and women arguably did as much -- maybe even more -- than Lincoln to end slavery, yet few contemporary Americans recognize their names....

Refugee and historian von Klemperer, who wrote about Nazi regime, dies at Mass. home at age 96

BOSTON — Klemens Wilhelm von Klemperer, a German refugee who wrote extensively about the rise and fall of the Nazi regime has died in Massachusetts. He was 96.Von Klemperer was an emeritus professor of history at Smith College in Northampton. His Dec. 23 death of natural causes at his home in Easthampton was confirmed Monday by his son, James von Klemperer.Klemens von Klemperer wrote numerous books and articles related to German and central European history, including “German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for Allies Abroad, 1938-1945.”...

Is Diane Ravitch the Cassandra of school reform?

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author of three books and over 100 articles on African-American History, urban history, and the history of sports. His most recent book, White Boy: A Memoir, was published in the spring of 2002.In the spring and summer of 1965, as U.S. policymakers debated whether to send large numbers of U.S. ground troops to Vietnam to ensure that the South Vietnamese government not collapse, a longtime Washington insider named George Ball issued a fierce warning that the policy being recommended would be disastrous. Declaring that the conflict in Vietnam was a “civil war among Asians,” not a front of a global struggle against communism, Ball warned that sending U.S. ground troops lead would lead to national humiliation no matter how large the force sent or the technological advantage it possessed because it would cement the character of the war, from the Vietnamese side, as a struggle against a foreign invader. Ball’s advice needless to say, was disregarded, and the result was exactly as he predicted -- a humiliating defeat for the U.S.

UPDATE: Joyce Appleby backing petition to disarm the filibuster

Joyce Appleby, emeritus professor of history at UCLA and author of "The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism," is circulating the petition posted below among historians who support filibuster reform.  (This is the second time she has championed filibuster reform. The first time was in January 2011 when she circulated this petition.)  She asks historians who wish to sign the petition to contact her at this email address: appleby@history.ucla.edu. We, the undersigned, American historians, political scientists, and legal scholars call upon our senators to restore majority rule to the United States Senate by revising the rules that now require the concurrence of 60 members before legislation be can be brought to the floor for debate.Signatories (UPDATED: 1/18/13)

Yehuda Elkana, Israeli historian and critic of the "Holocaust industry," has died at age 78

Elkana was a survivor of Auschwitz, so when, in 1988, he published an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on “The Need to Forget”, few could question his credentials.

Gerda Lerner, Pioneering Feminist and Historian, Dies at 92

Gerda Lerner, a scholar and author who helped make the study of women and their lives a legitimate subject for historians and spearheaded the creation of the first graduate program in women’s history in the United States, died on Wednesday in Madison, Wis. She was 92.Her death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by Steve J. Stern, a history professor and friend at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Ms. Lerner had taught many years.In the mid-1960s, armed with a doctorate in history from Columbia University and a dissertation on two abolitionist sisters from South Carolina, Ms. Lerner entered an academic world in which women’s history scarcely existed. The number of historians interested in the subject, she told The New York Times in 1973, “could have fit into a telephone booth.”...

NYT calls Bill O'Reilly "arguably the most popular history author in America"

 

Henry Louis Gates interviews Tarantino over use of the "n" word

 Since 1994's Pulp Fiction, the n-word been an issue -- not so much for Quentin Tarantino but for some of the viewers of his films. Why does he use it so liberally in his movies?Things are no different with his latest film, Django Unchained, opening Christmas Day. In the postmodern, slave-narrative Western starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio as sadistic plantation owner Calvin Candie, the word "nigger," by some counts, is uttered 110 times.

Jeff Wasserstrom interviews award winner Stephen Platt

One of the most important awards a book about the past can win is the Cundill Prize in History given by McGill University, and news recently broke that this year's winner is UMass-Amherst China specialist Stephen R. Platt, for his Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War, which was published in hard cover early this year and is about to come out in a paperback edition. It's a book I know well, having reviewed it for the Wall Street Journal, where I described it as an "impressive, gracefully written" account of a major event in Chinese history and noted the care that Platt takes to place this mid-19th-century conflict into a robustly international perspective.

Historian probes conductor von Karajan's 'Nazi' past

VIENNA — Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, a major figure in 20th-century classical music, was a bigger fan of the Nazis than he made out, according to a historian who has unearthed previously unseen documents."It is time to probe scientifically the claims that Karajan constructed and cobbled together... and which in the end he really believed himself," said Oliver Rathkolb from Vienna University.Presenting his findings at a seminar on Friday, Rathkolb cited anti-Semitic comments from letters written by Karajan (1908-1989) in his youth and said that at school the legendary maestro had belonged to an ultra-nationalist, pan-German youth group in Salzburg....

Historian Mohammad Amin dies at 86

New Delhi Historian and educationist Mohammad Amin, who was a teacher at St. Stephen’s College for over four decades, passed away in New Delhi on Saturday. He was 86. Affectionately called Amin Saheb, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2010. He is survived by his wife Khursheed Amin, son Shahid Amin and daughter Ghazala Amin. His last rites would be performed tomorrow. Valson Thampu, principal of St Stephen’s College, said: “Mr Amin had a very memorable and long association with the college. Apart from being an enthusiastic teacher, he influenced generations of students. I was fortunate to have been his colleague from 1973 till the time he retired.”...

Yale prof Witt chronicles another aspect of Lincoln’s legacy

NEW HAVEN — The Emancipation Proclamation, the seminal American document that freed the slaves, had a sweeping side effect many people don’t realize.It changed the face of war. Thanks to Abraham Lincoln’s great Proclamation, America developed a blueprint for the conduct of war that would reverberate from 19th-century Appomattox to 21st-century Afghanistan.“It’s a part of emancipation,” says Yale University law and history professor John Fabian Witt, author of the new book, “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History,” Free Press, $32....

Colorado history professor drugged by students

Two students have been arrested in Colorado after allegedly giving cannabis-laced brownies to unsuspecting classmates and a professor.The pair are accused of serving up the cakes as part of a 'bring food day' at the University of Colorado.Police were called after an unnamed history professor needed hospital treatment, complaining of feeling dizzy and losing consciousness....

Professor looks for ‘meaning’ in Norfolk's history of segregation

HUNTSVILLE — Historians aspire to ignite interest today in events of from the past, professors aspire to entice students with structured education, and authors aspire to evoke emotion through the power of words. Jeffrey Littlejohn, associate professor of history at Sam Houston State University, is a combination of all three.  He is the co-author of Elusive Equality: Desegregation and Resegregation in Norfolk’s Public Schools, published this year by the University of Virginia Press. Littlejohn wrote the 320-page tome along with co-author Charles Ford, department chair and professor of history at Norfolk University. “We were determined to write something that people want to read but that also has a deeper message,” Littlejohn said. “I hope there are vignettes in our book that people will identify with and will think ‘this is a great story.’ ”...

Paul K. Van der Slice, Montgomery College history professor, dies at 77

 Paul K. Van der Slice, 77, who taught history at Montgomery College for 37 years before retiring in 2005, died of cancer Dec. 9 at his home in Bethesda.His daughter, Jennifer Van der Slice, confirmed his death.Mr. Van der Slice specialized in the intellectual, social and cultural history of the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a subspecialty in utopian communities of the 19th century. For five years, he was chairman of the history department.As a Smithsonian fellow in 1998-99, he organized a collection of primary source readings on labor in 19th-century American utopian communities....

UPenn professor helps bring new Jewish Museum to Russia

A new $50 million museum chronicling the richness and complexity of Jewish life and culture in Russia—the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center—opened in Moscow last month, and Penn’s Benjamin Nathans, the Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History in the School of Arts & Sciences, played a key role in creating the state-of-the-art institution.An expert on Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and modern European Jewish history, Nathans chaired the international academic advisory committee that designed the content for the 40,000-square-foot museum, and brought scholars from Russia, Israel, and the United States on board to compose the various exhibitions....

HNN "best history book of 2012" poll featured in NYT

To perhaps no one’s surprise, “The Passage of Power,” the latest installment of Robert Caro’s acclaimed biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, has topped the History News Network’s online poll to choose the best history book of 2012.But perhaps more interesting is what a good year William Seward, the former secretary of state who died in 1870, is having.