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: National Review Online
11-30-07
Few books are more authoritative that the volumes in the Oxford History of the United States—a series that includes masterpieces such as The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff (on the American Revolution) and Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson (on the Civil War).
The latest entry is just out: What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, by Daniel Walker Howe. He recently took a few questions from National Review Online’s John J. Miller.
Source: Jeffrey B. Spur in the IraqCrisis newsletter
12-1-07
An expert in Iraqi manuscripts said that the Americans robbed a bunch of
manuscripts in April 2003, which included a Torah [written] in leather and
did not care about Iraqi warnings that Israel has been working to get them.--Reuters
This [story] is indeed an unfounded rumor, which may in part be sustained due to the demonstrable fact that the US army grabbed huge numbers of Iraqi archival materials from government ministries and other sources, and that oth
Source: APril D. DeConic in the NYT
12-1-07
Richard Leigh, a writer who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit over the novel “The Da Vinci Code,” died on Nov. 21 in London. He was 64.
The causes were related to a heart ailment, said an agent at the Jonathan Clowes Agency, which represents him.
Mr. Leigh was co-author of “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail,” a work of speculative nonfiction that proposed that Jesus Christ fathered a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. A best seller on its release in 1982, t
Source: April D. DeConic in the NYT
12-1-07
[April D. DeConick, a professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, is the author of “The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says.”]
AMID much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas’s reward? Ascent to heaven and
Source: British Library Press Office
11-12-07
Dr Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA), has been given
the prestigious Archivist of the Year Award by New York's Scone Foundation at a ceremony
at Columbia University in New York on 12 November. The honour was conferred on Dr Eskander
in recognition of his leadership of the reconstruction of the INLA following its burning
and looting in 2003.
The Award is presented annually by the Scone Foundation to recognise an archivist or
archival researc
Source: Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington, Seattle
11-30-07
To assess the quality of doctoral education in U.S. social science programs, the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington, Seattle surveyed recent social science PhDs, asking them about the application of their education in their subsequent careers. Respondents earned the PhD between June 1995 and July 1999 in anthropology, communication, geography, history, political science, or sociology and were surveyed in 2005 – 2006, yielding career a
Source: Inside Higher Ed
11-30-07
Can an association urge its members to apply the principle of “do no harm” in research when there isn’t much agreement on what “harm” is? Is “doing less harm” a moral standard worthy of consideration or a cop out? Should scholars talk about their conduct during wartime in a general way without regard to the war taking place? Is the war in Iraq so terrible and is the conduct of the U.S. military so reprehensible that scholars should take a firm stand against any involvement?
Those we
Source: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr
11-30-07
The Japanese military used sex slaves to satisfy disgruntled frontline soldiers during World War II and discourage military revolt, a Japanese historian claimed Friday.
Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor of modern Japanese history at Chuo University in Tokyo, made the remark at a forum here organized by the Association for Korean Modern and Contemporary History and Northeast Asian History Foundation.
The remark comes as criticism mounts over the Japanese government's f
Source: http://www.kois.go.kr
11-29-07
Over half the women taken to Imperial Japanese military camps for sexual service before and during World War II were Koreans, according to the latest findings from Japan.
The Japanese euphemistically referred to the sex slaves as ¡°ianfu¡± (comfort women).
Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a professor of modern Japanese history at Tokyo¡¯s Chuo University plans to reveal data indicating that 51.8% of the comfort women were Koreans at an international conference on comfort women held a
Source: AP
11-29-07
"Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and De Gaulle" (HarperCollins Publishers, 299 pages, $25.95), by Paul Johnson: Joan of Arc, the French farm girl who charged into battle, had little in common Queen Elizabeth I or the iconoclastic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. But they were all heroes, in Johnson's view.
Johnson, the hyper-prolific British historian, gives the trio and other famous heroes the same book-length treatment he did for historica
Source: Martin Kramer at his blog: Sandbox
11-23-07
Ira N. Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, has taken a whack at my recent op-ed on Hillary Clinton's Foreign Affairs
Source: Prensa Latina
11-28-07
A documentary on the life and work of Havana City historian Eusebio Leal will be screened in Mexico City Thursday.
The film, produced by Mexican Alejandra Ochoam, had support from the Lam Culture House Center, and parallels a photo exhibition by Silvia Martinez entitled "Siguiendo los pasos de Eusebio" (Following Eusebio's Footsteps).
La Jornada daily states that Leal has tirelessly worked for over 30 years rescuing Havana, without selling or privatizing, and
Source: http://www.worldpress.org
11-28-07
Michael Byers recently released Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? He recently spoke with journalist Am Johal from Vancouver. [Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.]
Johal: I just read your book over the weekend. How did you come up with the idea to write a contemporary response to George Grant's iconic Lament for a Nation?
Byers: The motivation was intensely perso
Source: Joe Kaufman at FrontpageMag.com
11-29-07
[Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of Americans Against Hate, the founder of CAIR Watch, and the spokesman for Terror-Free Oil Initiative.]
On Wednesday, November 21, 2007, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) calling on FAU’s President and Board of Trustees to issue an apology concerning an incident where a girl was allegedly spit on by an FAU employee. CAIR, a group tied to extremist activity, used
Source: Inside Higher Ed
11-29-07
A special panel of the American Anthropological Association — after spending more than a year studying the question of whether its ethical standards should bar ties to the military and intelligence agencies — issued a report Wednesday that recommended tighter scrutiny of such work, but explicitly affirmed the possibility that it could be conducted ethically in some cases.
“We do not oppose anthropologists engaging with the military, intelligence, defense of other institutions or org
Source: Oliver Kamm at his blog
11-11-07
When taking his leave of The Nation in 2002, its longstanding columnist Christopher Hitchens remarked that the magazine was"becoming the voice and the echo chamber of those who truly believe that John Ashcroft is a greater menace than Osama bin Laden". This was altogether too kind, I feel: the magazine has nothing like so reasoned a message. Take The Nation's"Liberal Media" columnist,
Source: Eric Alterman at his blog, Altercation
11-27-07
Speaking of
me, I often have trouble deciding which attacks on me in the blogosphere demand
responses and which I am elevating to an importance they do not deserve by
doing so (in addition to wasting my time). But I see that in the past few days,
I've been attacked as an anti-Japanese
racist by a right-wing blogger, attacked as an anti-black racist by a left-wing
blogger, quoted favorably by right-wing anti-Semites, attacked by Naderites,
and attacked in Commentary by"Jamie
Source: http://marshallfoundation.org
11-28-07
Dr. Larry I. Bland, editor of The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, historian, author, and teacher, died Tuesday, November 27, in Lexington, Virginia. He was 67 years old.
Generally recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the life and career of George Catlett Marshall, Bland was working on the sixth volume of the Marshall Papers when he died. The Marshall Papers is the principle publications project of the George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington.
In addit
Source: Andrew Romano at Newsweek blog
11-16-07
[Q.] So why Hillary?
[Wilentz:] I think Hillary is important because the election really is the culmination of what's been a 40 year struggle for the Democrats to rediscover who they are. A 40-year struggle against what we'll call Nixon-slash-Reaganism. And, simply put, she's in the best position to be a president. Which is to say, she understands how American politics works. She understands the trajectory of American political history for the last 40 years because she's lived it in a way
Source: Reuters
11-26-07
The New York Public Library has acquired the papers of historian Arthur Schlesinger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and confidant to President John Kennedy who died in March at 89.The library announced on Monday it had bought some 250 boxes, or nearly 300 linear feet in library parlance, from Schlesinger's estate for an undisclosed amount, safeguarding his journals and correspondence with world leaders for use by researchers and historians.
The price has b
