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.
12-31-69
Over the last two months four historians have appeared in segments on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, the popular cable network. A few months ago it was Michael Beschloss. This week it was Columbia University's Eric Foner and Manning Marable, and journalist and oral historian Studs Terkel.
All of the historians came off well on the show, one of the most popular on TV among young people, playing along with the producers' gags.
Beschloss and Terkel
Source: Josef Joffe at the website of the New Republic
4-6-06
Two political scientists, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, have recently sallied forth with a paper that puts The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to shame. The gist is that the "Israel Lobby," the core of which "is comprised of American Jews," keeps "bending U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests." As a result, the Jews have jeopardized not only U.S. security, but that of much of the rest of the world.
Source: Oliver Kamm at his blog
4-5-06
THIS MONTH, the American Society of Historians for Foreign Relations will honour the author of a recent work on the role of the atom bomb in Japan’s defeat in 1945. In doing so, it will reward a pernicious thesis already appropriated by anti-Western campaigners for whom the study of history is a device for forcing pre-specified political conclusions.
The author is Tsuyoshi Hasegawa; his book is called Racing the Enemy. Unlike earlier revisionist historians, Hasegawa does not argue
Source: Jeffrey Berg in the Philadelphia Weekly
4-4-06
There are obvious places that jump to mind when talking about America's civil rights history: Selma. Montgomery. Greensboro. Birmingham. Detroit. Philly ain't one of 'em.
But Matthew Countryman's new book Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia lends new light to the local battles waged here. The Germantown native, born into a biracial family of civil rights activists, rethinks previous notions about black power, which conventional wisdom has dictated was external an
Source: Eric Weiner in Huffington Post
3-29-06
Kudos to the good people at the New York Historical Society for looking beyond the past sins of plagiarism committed by Doris Kearns Goodwin and bestowing on the prolific celebrity historian a prestigious award and $50,000 prize in honor of her recent biography of Abe Lincoln, "Team of Rivals."
On Wednesday the society announced that it was naming Goodwin "American History Laureate" and was giving her its inaugural book prize, which apparently carries a price tag
Source: Mickey Kaus in Slate
3-30-06
Note to Doris Kearns Goodwin--Ben Domenech Died for Your Sins: Maybe Domenech just wanted to win $50,000 from the New York Historical Society! ... Eric Weiner notes that the wages of plagiarism are good if you have a survival network that includes Walter Isaacson and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. ... For more of th
Source: Roger Cohen in the NYT
4-2-06
For the director of a shuttered museum in a country at war, the imaginary can be a welcome refuge. Condemned to contemplate his own and his country's fate in great halls emptied of visitors, Donny George paces past showcases of ancient vessels and jars and clay tablets, and he dreams.
In his mind's eye, the museum director sees the grand opening: the courtyard filled with 1,000 guests, succulent lamb and sumptuous dates on tables beneath the palms, a Baghdad chamber quartet playing,
Source: Bill Steigerwald in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
4-1-06
It's no surprise Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes has made so many political friends and enemies. A conservative columnist, counter-terrorism analyst and author or co-author of 18 books, he's a staunch supporter of Israel and a harsh critic of radical Islam.
Praised as an "authoritative commentator on the Middle East" by his allies at the Wall Street Journal, he's been branded "an anti-Islamist extremist" by some Arab-American groups. He's also the founder of th
Source: Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Prospect
3-1-06
... As the centenary of his birth arrives on 25th March, it may be that AJP Taylor needs some pale gleam to kindle past passions. He belongs to what has been called the most remote of ages, the day before yesterday, and my impression is that few people under 40 have any idea of how extraordinary Taylor's stature—or at least his fame—once was. Forty years ago he was the best known historian in this country. He was a don who taught generations of pupils and was the most popular lecturer of his tim
Source: Hunter College
3-30-06
The James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism awarded by Hunter College has been given this year to, among others, Juan Cole.
This is the first year the award has gone to a blogger.
Cole runs the blog, Informed Comment.
Source: NYT
3-30-06
Denis Twitchett, a scholar of imperial China best known for his role in conceiving and creating "The Cambridge History of China," a monumental 15-volume study widely regarded as the most comprehensive history of China in the English language, died on Feb. 24 in Cambridge, England. He was 80.
His death was announced by Princeton University, where he retired in 1994 as Gordon Wu Professor of Chinese Studies, the first academic to be appointed to that chair. His landmar
Source: Press Release -- Purdue News Service
3-27-06
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., March 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- A Purdue University history team is assisting Simulex Inc., a Purdue Research Park company, in developing a computer simulation that will help America better understand what matters to citizens living in Baghdad.
"History is more relevant today than many people think," says Stacy Holden, an assistant professor of history who studies the Middle East. "Learning history is more than just memorizing dates and facts for a test.
Source: The Washington Post
3-29-06
NEW YORK -- After she left the convent, Karen Armstrong called herself an atheist. "I used to hate religion," she says. "I loathed it in my angry days."
Seventeen books later, she is recognized as one of the great religious historians, and she has reconsidered her label.She regards herself to be deeply religious but with no denomination. "Sometimes I call myself a freelance," she says in her melodious English accent. "I c
Source: u.texas.edu
3-29-06
The looting of the Iraqi National Museum in April of 2003 provoked a world outcry at the loss of artifacts regarded as part of humanity's shared cultural patrimony. But though the losses were unprecedented in scale, the museum looting was hardly the first time that Iraqi heirlooms had been plundered or put to political uses. From the beginning of archaeology as a modern science in the nineteenth century, Europeans excavated and appropriated Iraqi antiquities as relics of the birth of Western civ
Source: Scott McLemee in Inside Higher Ed
3-29-06
... Garry Wills takes a skeptical look at WWJD in the opening pages of his new book, What Jesus Meant, published by Viking. He takes it as a variety of spiritual kitsch — an aspect of the fundamentalist and Republican counterculture, cemtered around suburban mega-churches offering a premium on individual salvation.
In any case, says Wills, the question is misleading and perhaps dangerous. The gospels aren’t a record of exemplary moments; the actions of Jesus are not meant as a templ
Source: NYT
3-29-06
The New-York Historical Society has named Doris Kearns Goodwin its American history laureate and will present her with its inaugural $50,000 Book Prize for American history for "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" (Simon & Schuster), a biography of the president and his cabinet. The prize, to be awarded annually, will be bestowed on May 5 at the society’s annual "Weekend With History," a two-day program of informal conversations and presentations.
Source: History Today
3-27-06
Bryan Ward Perkins has been announced as the 2005/6 winner of the Hessell-Tiltman History Prize. His book, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilisation, looks at how and why successive generations have understood the fall of the Roman Empire and why this particular period in history is still significant today. For many years the fall of Rome has been attributed to hostile and vicious barbarian invasions but more contemporary views propose that there was a largely peaceful transition into German
Source: AScribe
3-28-06
LEWISTON, Maine, March 28 (AScribe Newswire) -- Four honorary degree recipients will speak at the 140th commencement at Bates on May 28. They are Shakespearean scholar and cultural critic Marjorie Garber, AIDS researcher David Ho, historian David McCullough and choreographer Mark Morris. The 10 a.m. commencement ceremony takes place on the historic quad in front of Coram Library. A writer of acclaimed, best-selling histories and distinctive narrator for television and film,
Source: Conrad Black in the American Spectator in a review of Mr. Wilentz's new book, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
3-23-06
[Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (Public Affairs).]
This book is a prodigious feat of scholarship and organization, weaving into its narrative every political splinter group, and attempting to give appropriate weight to all the tides and currents of American sociology from the Revolution to the Civil War. No detour into labor and religious and political factionalism is too obscure to be deserving of the brief redirection of the entire nar
Source: Duke University News and Communications
3-23-06
Durham, N.C. -- John Hope Franklin, the distinguished scholar and James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University, will deliver Duke’s 2006 commencement address on Sunday, May 14, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Thursday.Franklin, 91, is considered a leading figure in the field of African-American history, American race relations and Southern regional history. He has received dozens of honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and
