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: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1-9-07
[HNN Edior: HNN broke the following story over the weekend. Click here to watch a video interview with Professor Fernandez-Armesto.]
British historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, author of the 2006 book "Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration," found the streets of downtown Atlanta much more difficult to navigate during last week's annual convention of the American Historians Association.
Fernandez-Arme
Source: Voice of America
1-8-07
John Hope Franklin helped Americans rediscover, and rethink, some critical chapters in their nation's history. The 92-year-old historian's influence on the prism of American history has been so profound that in 1995 he was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, when Bill Clinton presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"John Hope Franklin, the son of the South, has always been a moral compass for America, always pointing us in the direction of tru
Source: Atlantic Monthly (Jan-Feb)
1-1-07
[Robert D. Kaplan is an Atlantic national correspondent and the Class of 1960 Distinguished Visiting Professor in National Security at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis. His latest book is Imperial Grunts.]
Twenty-five hundred years ago, the greater Middle East constituted a world where circular boats, covered with skins, plied the Tigris; where Egyptians shaved their eyebrows in mourning for a beloved pet cat; and where Libyan tribesmen wore their hair long on one side and
Source: Bloomberg News
1-8-07
The prince often dined with Goering. Hitler brightened at his sight. Extending his charm into the southern realms of Mussolini was wife Mafalda, daughter of the Italian king Vittorio Emmanuele III.
Then their friends, no longer finding the couple useful, turned on them. In 1943, Philipp of Hessen was imprisoned in Flossenbuerg; Mafalda died in Buchenwald. Philipp's brother Christoph died in a mysterious plane crash.
Their stories are told in the absorbing ``Royals a
Source: Times Online (UK)
1-7-07
THE Queen’s official historian in Scotland has sparked a political row by claiming that the country could flourish as an independent state.
Professor Christopher Smout, the Historiographer Royal, said it was “perfectly feasible” for Scotland to go it alone and that it could prosper in the same way as eastern European republics have done since the break-up of the Soviet Union. He claimed voters south of the border would be happy to see the break-up of the United Kingdom.
Source: http://www.redorbit.com
1-5-07
CHICAGO -- Like cell phones or the Internet in recent history, the telescope's introduction in the early 17th Century had a swift and lasting impact on the world. Telescopes revolutionized military strategy and within months showed the father of astronomy, Galileo Galilei, that Earth is not the center of the universe.
Until recently, scholars thought only 8 or 10 of these important early telescopes _ made between 1608 and 1650 of tightly rolled paper and crudely ground lenses _ had
Source: Mary L. Dudziak at legalhistoryblog
1-8-07
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports in its Jan. 12 issue about a new service purporting to rank scholarly productivity in graduate programs. Here's the Chronicle:
The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, partly financed by the State University of New York at Stony Brook and produced by Academic Analytics, a for-profit company, rates faculty members' scholarly output at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
1-8-07
The trouble faced by those who fall between the cracks in questions of citizenship was taken up by Linda J. Kerber, a professor of history and law at the University of Iowa and the association's 2006 president, in her presidential address on Friday night.
In an essay titled "The Stateless as the Citizen's Other," Ms. Kerber dove into her topic by posing a question provoked by Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly: "What passport could the ill-fated child of Madame
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
1-8-07
ATLANTA The 121st annual meeting of the American Historical Association, held here this past weekend, drew 4,730 historians, students, and exhibitors to panels, meetings, and job interviews.
The number of attendees was down from the record of 5,664 set at last year's meeting in Philadelphia, but outpaced the fewer than 4,000 historians who attended the 2005 annual meeting in Seattle.
Attendance was "good for a non-East Coast corridor city," the association's e
Source: Scott Jaschik at the website of Inside Higher Ed
1-8-07
Arnita A. Jones almost gushed when she told historians about how many new Ph.D.’s she was chatting up at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta who were telling her, “I have four interviews tomorrow,” or “I’ve got three interviews today.”
Just a few years ago, one didn’t hear so many positive reports from job seekers. But if the mood was generally upbeat about the job market, there was also a clear realization that historians don’t have it easy when it
Source: Scott Jaschik at the website of Inside Higher Ed
1-8-07
Sometimes it’s not just what you are against, but how you are against it. On Saturday, every member who spoke at the business meeting of the American Historical Association expressed opposition to the war in Iraq and support for free speech.
But there was fairly intense debate on how to express those ideals. In the end, the association’s members at its business meeting backed a resolution calling on members to “do whatever they can to bring the Iraq war to a speedy conclusion.” Sup
Source: Charles McGrath in the NYT
1-7-07
THE club of people accused of plagiarism gets ever larger. High-profile members include Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Kaavya Viswanathan — of chick-lit notoriety — and now even Ian McEwan, whose best-selling novel “Atonement” has recently been discovered to harbor passages from a World War II memoir by Lucilla Andrews. Plagiarism is apparently so rife these days that it would be extremely satisfying to discover that “The Little Book of Plagiarism,” by Richard A. Posner, has itself been
Source: NYT
1-8-07
Conrad M. Black, the former chairman of Hollinger International, has been relatively quiet lately as he awaits his trial this spring on fraud and racketeering charges in Chicago. But a literary spat and apology to the author of a book he reviewed critically put him back in the gossip pages last week.
Mr. Black was chosen to review “Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World,” by Margaret MacMillan, a historian at the University of Toronto in part because he is himself writing a
Source: NYT
1-7-07
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, a noted historian and women’s studies scholar who roiled both disciplines with her transition from Marxist-inclined feminist to conservative public intellectual, died on Tuesday in Atlanta. She was 65 and had lived in Atlanta for many years.
Ms. Fox-Genovese’s husband, the historian Eugene D. Genovese, confirmed the death, citing no specific cause. He said that his wife had lived with multiple sclerosis for the last 15 years and that her health had declined a
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog, Cliopatria
1-6-07
At yesterday's 4th Annual Banquet of the Cliopatricians at the American Historical Association convention here in Atlanta, the winners of The Cliopatria Awards for 2006 were announced. Many thanks to Jeremy Boggs of ClioWeb and George Mason University who designed the logo for The Cliopatria Awards. Thanks also to the judges who made the difficult decisions in selecting winners of the awards from among the many excellent nominations: Alan Allport, Martha Bridgam, Ben Brumfield, Miriam Burstein,
Source: Inside Higher Ed
1-5-07
It’s not easy to get into history Ph.D. programs and it’s not speedy to finish up.
Those conclusions are evident from new data from the American Historical Association, which started its annual meeting Thursday, in Atlanta.
History departments in the United States with doctoral programs received an average of 74.1 applications for the fall 2007 term and anticipate enrolling an average of 9.1 students. Those departments report currently having an average of 54.7 students
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1-4-07
As a historian, scholar and self-described complex conservative, Dr. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese took comfortable orthodoxy and turned it inside out, generating vitriolic criticism and devoted followers in the process.
Emory University recruited Dr. Fox-Genovese in 1986 as founding director of its Institute for Women's Studies, where she established the nation's first doctoral program in the field, said Dr. Virginia Shadron of Atlanta, assistant dean of Emory's graduate school of arts an
Source: Robert Dreyfuss at tomdispatch.com
1-4-07
... What's astonishing about the debate over Iraq is that the President -- or anyone else, for that matter, including the media -- is paying the slightest attention to the neoconservative strategists who got us into this mess in the first place. Having been egregiously wrong about every single Iraqi thing for five consecutive years, by all rights the neocons ought to be consigned to some dusty basement exhibit hall in the American Museum of Natural History, where, like so many triceratops, their
Source: Newsday
1-4-07
Cathal Nolan, a Boston University history scholar who had agreed last summer to become president of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, has stunned the organization by turning down the appointment.
Nolan, who had been working part-time for the Muttontown-based association from Boston, several weeks ago alerted the board that his daughter's health made the move to Long Island impossible.
Nolan said "the primary reason I have declined the offer is family med
Source: Inside Higher Ed
1-3-07
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, a prolific scholar of American history and a sometimes controversial figure in women’s studies, died Tuesday at the age of 65, following complications and infections related to surgery last year. Fox-Genovese has been a professor at Emory University since 1986 and previously taught at the State University of New York at Binghamton and the University of Rochester. She was the author of numerous books and articles — a number of them about the antebellum South, and some writ
