This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: BusinessWeek
2-10-11
Most Egyptian businessmen are keeping low profiles these days. The protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square blame them for Egypt's ills, and mobs have even trashed some of their properties. Yet Egypt's most prominent mogul, Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Orascom Telecom Holding, the Middle East's biggest telecom company, is in Cairo fielding calls on his mobile phone, appearing on TV, and (as a member of an informal committee of "wise men") negotiating with newly appointed Vice-President Omar
Source: WaPo
2-9-11
WARSAW, Poland -- A Polish publishing house is defending its decision to publish a book that says some Poles actively profited from Jewish suffering during the Holocaust - a claim that challenges a national belief about Polish actions during World War II.
"Golden Harvest," by Princeton academics Jan Gross and Irena Grudzinska Gross, argues that rural Poles sometimes sought financial gain from Jewish misfortune in a variety of ways, from plundering Jewish mass graves to fer
Source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
2-1-11
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced that historian Allison Blakely has been appointed to the National Council on the Humanities. Blakely was nominated by President Barack Obama on August 5 and confirmed by the Senate December 21. Blakely is a professor of European and Comparative History at Boston University and previously taught at Howard University for 30 years. He i
Source: Christian Chronicle
2-6-11
A memorial service was conducted Saturday, Feb. 5, at the White Station Church of Christ in Memphis, Tenn., for Earl Irvin West, a prominent author, minister and Christian university professor.
West, a professor of church history emeritus at Harding University Graduate School of Religion in Memphis, died Friday, Feb. 4. He was 90....
Source: NewsMax
2-4-11
Egypt’s brutal crackdown on demonstrators and the media would have “angered and goaded” the late, great President Ronald Reagan, who would have sided with the people trying to throw off a dictator, best-selling historian Douglas Brinkley tells Newsmax.
“One of the things I learned in editing 'The Reagan Diaries' is to never say what Reagan would do, because he surprised people,” Brinkley told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Thursday night.
However, there’s little doub
Source: BBC News
2-8-11
TV historian Tristram Hunt, known for his series on the English Civil War and his national newspaper columns, was one of the most high-profile of the new MPs elected in 2010. Nine months later how is he finding the job?
Tristram Hunt is inordinately proud of his cup and saucer.
The Labour MP displays the delicate china pieces in the corner of his Westminster office - behaviour more reminiscent of a maiden aunt or a local museum curator than a hardened politician.
Source: Media Newswire
2-7-11
(Media-Newswire.com) - David L. Preston, associate professor of history at The Citadel, won the prestigious Albert B. Corey Prize for 2010 for his recent work, “The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667-1783.”
The Corey Prize recognizes the best book on Canadian-American relations or on the history of both countries. The prize is awarded every two years by the American Historical Association and the Canadian Historical Associa
Source: AP
2-7-11
WASHINGTON —
An amateur Virginia historian is denying allegations by the National Archives that he changed the date on a presidential pardon issued by President Abraham Lincoln.
Seventy-eight-year-old Thomas P. Lowry of Woodbridge, Va., said Monday that he was pressured by federal agents to confess. The Archives says Lowry has confessed to using a fountain pen to change the date on a pardon by Lincoln from 1864 to 1865.
The change made it appear that Lowry had di
Source: JHU Gazette
2-7-11
Harry M. Marks, an associate professor in the History of Medicine Department at the School of Medicine and the Elizabeth Treide and A. McGehee Harvey Professor of Medical History since 1989, died at his home in Baltimore on Jan. 25 of prostate cancer. He was 64.
Author of The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 1900–1990 and numerous articles, Marks was an internationally recognized authority on the history of 20th-century medicine, clinical
Source: Guardian (UK)
2-6-11
The historian Dorothy Thompson, who has died aged 87, was best known for her writing on the social and cultural aspects of the 19th-century Chartist movement. Her interest in the struggle of workers and women for rights had been awakened during her school days in suburban Bromley, Kent, when she was active in a communist youth group, and was deepened by her long engagement in radical politics. As a result she brought a complex understanding of the process of organising to her historical work.
Source: ABC 7 (San Francisco)
2-8-11
BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- World War II ended more than 65 years ago, and the men who fought those battles have been chronicled in books, movies and on TV. But, a project at UC Berkeley is making sure we don't forget about the women at home who kept the fighting men in the battle.
"I graduated from high school and the next year there was the shipyards," said World War II shipyard worker Edythe Esser.
That's how World War II changed Esser's life. She joined the
Source: NYT
2-7-11
In every iteration of the interminable discussion of the new book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” someone inevitably brings up the crucial issue of the sleepover — the childhood ritual in which the author, Amy Chua, wouldn’t let her daughters take part.
The sleepover, along with its cousin the slumber party, has apparently become an essential part of childhood, for boys as well as for girls.
“My impression is that sleepovers are a phenomenon of the suburbs and they
Source: NYT
2-7-11
In the year since the Supreme Court handed down its 183-page decision in Citizens United, the liberal objection to it has gradually boiled down to a single sentence: The majority was wrong to grant First Amendment rights to corporations.
That critique is incomplete. As Justice John Paul Stevens acknowledged in his dissent, the court had long recognized that “corporations are covered by the First Amendment.” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, listed more than 20 pr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
2-4-11
David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia, used Google Earth satellite maps to pinpoint 1,977 potential archaeological sites, including 1,082 teardrop shaped stone tombs.
"I've never been to Saudi Arabia," Dr Kennedy said. "It's not the easiest country to break into."
Dr Kennedy told New Scientist that he had verified the images showed actual archaeological sites by asking a friend working in th
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
2-3-11
The founders of Emory University owned slaves. They used slave labor to build the campus. Their pro-slavery views helped drive the North-South schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church leading up to the Civil War.
The university’s slave legacy doesn’t end with the antebellum era. In 1902, the college forced a professor to resign for an article he wrote condemning lynching.
Fast forward to 2003 when a professor’s use of a racial slur led to campus-wide debates.
Source: Kansas City Star
2-3-11
WASHINGTON - Had he lived just a few years longer, Ronald Reagan would have turned 100 this Sunday. In his memory, the nation will honor his mark on history - and debate his legacy.
His widow, Nancy Reagan, will lay a wreath at the Reagan library in California, where the 40th president was buried when he died in 2004 at the age of 93. A group of F-18s from the USS Ronald Reagan will salute him from the air.
In Washington, the city where he made his greatest impact, poli
Source: USA Today
2-2-11
A new portrait of single Americans, drawn from a major new survey, suggests the attitudes and behaviors of today's singles are quite unlike their counterparts just a few decades ago....
"Men are now expressing some traditionally female attitudes, while women are adopting some of those long attributed to men," says biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, who helped develop the survey with social historian Stephanie Coontz and Justin Garcia, a doctoral fellow with the Instit
Source: Telegraph (UK)
2-1-11
It is a secret code that has confounded some of the finest minds of the past 150 years, and proved irresistible to hundreds of conspiracy theorists.
Explanations for the eight-letter inscription on the 18th century Shepherd's Monument, at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, have ranged from a coded love letter to Biblical verse.
Some have even suggested that the letters OUOSVAVV – framed at either end by DM – were a sign left by the Knights Templar pointing to where the
Source: National Review
2-2-11
It’s been a few days, so I’ve checked in again with Barry Rubin, who last time we spoke threw some cold water on early optimism about events in Egypt. Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and author of books including The Muslim Brotherhood: The Organization and Policies of a Global Islamist Movement.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: What do you make of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s statement yesterday?
Barry Rubin: The regime
Source: Barry Rubin at the GLORIA Center
1-29-11
[Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.]
1) How do you judge the Egyptian protests?
It is tempting to see this as a revolution that will bring down the regime. But Egypt is not Tunisia. And while the demonstrations are passionate it is not clear that the numbers of participants are huge. If the elite and the army hold together they could well prevail
