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: WaPo
5-26-07
Eugen Weber, an eminent historian whose books on France and modern Europe have influenced a generation of scholars and students, and who became well known for a 1989 public television series on history, died May 17 of pancreatic cancer at his home in Los Angeles. He was 82.
A professor at the University of California at Los Angeles for more than 50 years, Mr. Weber was a prolific writer with wide-ranging scholarly interests. The most popular of his more than a dozen books is probabl
Source: Eureka Reporter
5-25-07
Students and teachers from local high school history classes had an opportunity to learn about an important subject in today’s world — diplomacy — from a person with extensive first-hand experience in the field.
Susan Holly, a senior historian with the State Department, visited Humboldt County on Thursday and Friday to speak to students about the United States government’s role in the Guatemala Coup of 1954.
On Thursday, Holly addressed four separate groups of high school stu
Source: http://www.allheadlinenews.com
5-25-07
Waterloo, ON (AHN) - The Klondike Gold Rush attracted 40,000 people from all over the world to Canada's Yukon, to try their luck at finding gold. Now, a website geared towards students is hoping young detectives can piece together clues and answer the question of who started the it all. Ken Coates, a University of Waterloo historian has written the mystery and is inviting students to solve the famous Canadian case.
He told the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, "your job is to do the d
Source: Michigan State University news announcement
5-25-07
Frederick Williams, a leading scholar on President James A. Garfield and a long-time former MSU faculty member, died Sunday, May 20. He was 89.
Williams’ passion for American history led to the publication of a four-volume study: The Diary of James A. Garfield. Co-edited with former MSU history professor emeritus Harry J. Brown, the series was published between 1967 and 1982. The Garfield diaries provided historians with an unparalleled look at the era and have become the definitive
Source: David Broder in the WaPo
5-27-07
When historian Douglas Brinkley was asked by the late Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., general editor of the American Presidents series published by Times Books, to undertake a short biography of Gerald R. Ford, the man from Michigan who served less than three years in the White House was a neglected subject.
By the time Brinkley had finished the manuscript, Ford's story had been told, copiously and repeatedly, in newspaper obituaries recording his death at age 93 last December, and his c
Source: Ann Hulbert in the NYT
5-27-07
... Where ideological clashes doomed a quest for national standards in the 1990s, pragmatic calculations might tip the balance in favor now. Let the federal government pay for a national test and the formulation of standards, suggests Diane Ravitch, a clear-eyed historian of school reforms who was an assistant secretary of education during George H.W. Bush’s administration. The move could save the states the estimated half-billion dollars they spend on their own testing programs — and, Ravitch n
Source: Pter Steinfels in the NYT
5-26-07
In January, Gary Dorrien was installed as the Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Niebuhr, who taught social ethics at Union from 1928 to 1961, was the most prominent and influential American theologian of the last hundred years. His evolving notion of “Christian realism” shaped the outlook of Depression-era radicals, World War II interventionists, anti-Communist cold warriors and early civil rights militants. He lectured across the country
Source: Amy K. Rosenthal at the website of the Weekly Standard
5-24-07
THE 1967 SIX DAY WAR has spawned hundreds of books, perhaps most importantly Michael Oren's bestselling Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
The war's 40th anniversary commences on June 5th and Oren has continued tracking its importance. He explains now that it, "Not only created the modern Middle East as we know it today, but changed Arab society and politics profoundly. . . . It sounded the death knell for secular Arab nationalism and the man w
Source: WaPo
5-25-07
Vicki Kaye Heilig, 61, a former historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, died May 2 at Rowan Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, N.C. She had cancer.
Miss Heilig, a longtime resident of Hagerstown, Md., served as the organization's District of Columbia division president from 1992 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2002. She was historian general from 2002 to 2004 and received the organization's Jefferson Davis Medal.
Friends said Miss Heilig was a driving
Source: NYT
5-25-07
Cultural historian; noted curator and author; biographer of three legendary photographers, Robert Capa, Alfred Stieglitz, and Cornell Capa, Founding Director of the International Center of Photography, Richard was Consulting Curator of the Robert and Cornell Capa Archives at ICP. A longtime faculty member, Richard also lectured and wrote extensively on photography and art. His most recent projects for ICP included exhibitions and publications on the work of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. The Board
Source: American Libraries Online
5-25-07
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saad Eskander left the relative safety of England to accept the directorship of the National Library and Archives of Iraq. Librarians and cultural organizations around the world had voiced outrage over the looting and burning that occurred after the takeover, and Eskander was determined to play a role in the recovery and the establishment of a democratic government. He spoke with American Libraries Editor in Chief Leonard Kniffel by mobile phone A
Source: HNN Staff, citing report in the NYT
5-24-07
Shaul Bakhash is a historian at George Mason University. He is married to Haleh Esfandiari, the American citizen and the director of the Middle Eastern program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington who was arrested by Iran last week.
In an op ed in the NYT today the conservative scholar Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, cites Bakhash's religious background as a factor in his wife's detention:
Just as the form
Source: NYT
5-24-07
Kenneth L. Sokoloff, an economic historian who was a leading expert on the role the United States patent system played in technological and productivity advances in the 19th century, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 54.
The cause was liver cancer, said his father, Dr. Louis Sokoloff.
Mr. Sokoloff, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that in the early age of industrialization, the American patent system was uniquely structured
Source: CNN
5-23-07
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: All right, now to your one-of-a-kind experience, a sneak peek into the Reagan diaries. This is the first time the diaries of a U.S. president have ever been released. Historian Douglas Brinkley edited the diaries. Douglas Brinkley is right here with us tonight at the Reagan library. Nice to see you, Doug.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Nice to see you, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. So it's very exciting. You got to edit these diari
Source: Press Release -- American Enterprise Institute
5-23-07
In response to recent media stories about the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I), AEI resident scholar Frederick W. Kagan offers the following notes:
This is the first full-scale strategic review undertaken within the U.S. command since General David Petraeus took over as MNF-I commander. Such a review is a normal part of the transition process when a new commander takes charge, and it is generally designed to ensure that the commander and his staff fully understand the realities i
Source: BBC
5-23-07
According to the results of the carbon tests, it has been proven that bones in graves, claimed to have been a mass grave of the Armenians in Nusaybin town of southeastern city of Mardin, were in fact bones dating back to 257-597 B.C., Prof Dr Yusuf Halacoglu, chairman of the Turkish History Society (TTK), said on Wednesday [23 May].
Halacoglu and Prof David Gaunt from Swedish Stockholm Soederntoern University carried out researches in Nusaybin and the samples were underwent laborat
Source: Ethiopian Herald
5-23-07
"African historians have major obligations to contribute towards the development of greater clarity on the issues - society, state and identity-in African history so that the project of the African Union could be successful," Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said.
Opening the 4th Congress of the Association of African Historians yesterday, Seyoum indicated that the whole project associated with the Pan-African ideal has been based on a sense of common identity molded by a c
Source: Baltimore Sun
5-23-07
Baltimore historian Taylor Branch is to receive a major literary award today for the final installment of his trilogy on Martin Luther King Jr. and his times.
The book, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (Simon & Schuster, 2006), is to be honored at George Washington University by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing human rights.
At Canaan's Edge has already won the 2006 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize fo
Source: WaPo
5-23-07
Charles Rappleye, who was once an investigative journalist, has won the third annual $50,000 George Washington Book Prize for his biography "Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution." It's the story of John and Moses Brown, brothers who founded Brown University but were dramatically opposed to each other on the business of slavery. It was a system that Rappleye describes in his book as "the most hazardous and the most lucrative business
Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com
5-22-07
Local historians use words like "incomprehensible" to describe a proposal to eliminate the full-time city historian in favor of a part-time position subcontracted through the Rochester Historical Society.
Mayor Robert Duffy has proposed such a move in his 2007-08 budget released Friday.
The administration argues that working through a private nonprofit agency is more cost-effective. Preparations will continue for an international Underground Railroad conferenc
