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: Rick Shenkman reporting for HNN
4-22-06
Pete Daniel, a curator in the Division of Work and Industry at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, was named incoming president-elect of the Organization of American Historians on the final day of the group's annual meeting, which was held this year in Washington DC. He was elected by the council of the OAH. He is the first public historian to head the OAH in years.
Stanford's Richard White took over from Vicki Ruiz today as president of the OAH. He in turn will be succe
Source: Newsletter of the National Coalition for History
4-28-06
On 26 April, the long awaited history of the House of Representatives by Historian of the House Robert V. Remini was unveiled at an event at the Library of Congress. In attendance were author Remini, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, Secretary of the Smithsonian Lawrence Small, and President and CEO of HarperCollinsPublishers Jane Friedman. Also in attendance was former history teacher and now member of Congress John B.
Larson (D-CT) whose legislation (P.L. 106-99) served as the
Source: NYT (Excerpt)
4-27-06
An audit by the National Archives of more than 25,000 historical documents withdrawn from public access since 1999 found that more than a third did not contain sensitive information justifying classification, archives officials announced Wednesday.
Calling the exposure of the hidden effort to reclassify records a "turning-point moment," Allen Weinstein, the head of the National Archives, announced a new effort to set consistent standards for deciding what records should be
Source: Philip Weiss in the Nation
4-27-06
Intellectuals can only dream of having the impact that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have had this spring. Within hours of their publishing a critique of the Israel lobby in The London Review of Books for March 23, the article was zinging around the world, soon to show up on the front pages of newspapers and stir heated discussion on cable-TV shows. Virtually overnight, two balding professors in their 50s had become public intellectuals, ducking hundreds of e-mails, phone messages and challe
Source: NYT
4-27-06
In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Sean Wilentz, a distinguished historian and the director of the American Studies program at Princeton University, takes a serious look at the possibility that Mr. Bush may be the worst president in the nation's history.
What in the world took so long? Some of us have known since the moment he hopped behind the wheel that this reckless president was driving the nation headlong toward a cliff.
Source: David Brooks in his NYT column
4-27-06
... [In 1996] the liberal writer Michael Tomasky published "Left for Dead," which argued that the progressive movement was being ruined by multicultural identity politics. Democrats have lost the ability to talk to Americans collectively, Tomasky wrote, and seem to be a collection of aggrieved out-groups: feminists, blacks, gays and so on.
At the time, Bernstein and Tomasky were lonely voices on the left, and the multiculturalists struck back. For example, Martin Duberman
Source: Michael Rubin at frontpagemag.com
4-24-06
[Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.]
In the coming week, the Yale Center for International and Area Studies will consider the candidacy of Juan Cole for a tenured position to study and teach the modern Middle East. The vacancy is palpable, but Cole should not be the man to fill it.
The international studies program has long struggled at Yale. In 1950, A.Whitney Griswold shut down the Yale Institute for International Affairs; he did not
Source: Juan Cole at his blog, Informed Comment
4-26-06
I've started a petition drive for college and university teachers to defend John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt from baseless charges of anti-Semitism. I apologize for limiting the petition base this way, but others are welcome to create other petitions that anyone can sign. I feel it is time for teachers in higher education to stand up and be counted on this issue of the chilling of academic inquiry through character assassination. At a time when the use of congressional funding to universities t
Source: Informed Comment (blog)
4-24-06
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal editorial page has published a large number of falsehoods about me.
The most egregious is this:
' He calls Israel "the most dangerous regime in the Middle East." '
This a lie. I never said that. Try googling it. (All that comes up is the circular allegation I said it, never sourced. It never comes up on my site, because I did not say it, or say or imply anything like it.)
I did say that then-Israel
Source: John Fund in the WSJ
4-24-06
In the next few days the university may hire Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, to fill a new spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies.
Mr. Cole's appointment would be problematic on several fronts. First, his scholarship is largely on the 19th-century Middle East, not on contemporary issues. "He has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary," says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr.
Source: Seattle PI
4-16-06
LONDON -- A cup of coffee is just a drink. But a frappuccino is an experience.
So believes Bryant Simon, a historian who is searching for the meaning of modern life amid the round tables and comfy sofas of Starbucks coffee shops.
Simon, who teaches at Philadelphia's Temple University, thinks that by spending time at Starbucks - observing the teenage couples and solitary laptop-users, the hurried office workers and busy baristas - he can learn what it means to live and c
Source: National Coalition for History
4-21-06
After learning of the existence of yet another secret agreement just this
last week -- this one between NARA and the CIA -- Archivist of the United
States Allen Weinstein has released a redacted version of that agreement
and has pledged that the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) would no longer enter into secret agreements with government
agencies that would allow them to withdraw documents from the archives for
national-security reasons. The NARA/CIA agreement that
12-31-69
At the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians Lawrence Levine, professor of history and cultural studies at George Mason University, won the Distinguished Service Award.
Geoffrey Ward won the Friend of History award for his broad support of history in books and numerous documentaries, including two Emmy-winning television series: Civil War and Baseball.
Tiya Alicia Miles picked up the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, which is given to first-time autho
Source: Steve Plaut at frontpagemag.com
4-20-06
... Among the leading voices opposing any Israeli action at all aimed at stopping the massive firing by Palestinian terrorists of Qassam and other rockets at Israeli civilians is Aviad Kleinberg, the chairman of the Department of History at Tel Aviv University. How convenient for him that his campus is not (yet) within range of the Palestinian rockets and missiles.
Kleinberg claims to have some expertise in medieval history, as well as philosophy and religion. (His int
Source: Press Release -- Boston University
4-19-06
Historian Julian Zelizer was among four faculty members from Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences selected as winners of fellowships from the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which recently announced its 187 U.S. and Canadian awards.
BU recipients include Thomas Barfield, professor and chair of anthropology, for his project entitled “Political legitimacy in Afghanistan;” Frank J. Korom, associate professor of religion and anthropology, f
Source: Guardian
4-18-06
Robert Carson, who has died aged 87, was keeper of the British Museum's department of coins and medals from 1978 until 1983, and the most widely admired and respected member of the international community of coin curators, scholars, collectors and dealers. An expert in Roman coinage, he was a stable force in the department during its postwar reconstruction.
Robert was even portrayed, under a pseudonym, in a numismatic roman à clef, The Coin Collectors (1997), by his friend and colleague t
Source: NYT Editorial
4-19-06
Documents wind up missing from public archives for many reasons. Sometimes they're shelved or labeled incorrectly, or lost, and sometimes they're even stolen. But at the National Archives, documents have been disappearing since 1999 because intelligence officials have wanted them to. And under the terms of two disturbing agreements — with the C.I.A. and the Air Force — the National Archives has been allowing officials to reclassify declassified documents, which means removing them from the publi
Source: Daniel Pipes at frontpagemag.com
4-17-06
What is the impact of Campus Watch, a project I founded that"reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them," in its four years of existence? It gets plenty of back-handed compliments (a favorite: Duke University's Miriam Cooke claims it threatens"to undermine the very foundations of American education"), but last week turned up the most eloquent, if u
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
4-18-06
Caroline Elkins, an associate professor of African studies at Harvard University, will receive the prize in general nonfiction for Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
4-18-06
Edmund S. Morgan, a professor emeritus of history at Yale University, will receive a special citation "for a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian" over the past 50 years.
