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: Smithsonian
3/25/2021
The application of DNA testing technology to the bodies of people from the medieval era suggests that the Black Death was present much earlier than believed.
Source: Wall Street Journal
3/26/2021
The author of an acclaimed book about George Washington's creation of the cabinet recommends five books about presidential cabinets, including those of Lincoln, Eisenhower and JFK, the unofficial team of African American advisors to FDR, and the consequential relationship between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Source: Public Books
3/25/2021
Two new books by Kathy Peiss and Richard Ovenden deal with the question of acquiring or destroying knowledege as an act of war, including the work of archivists in the OSS's "Chairborne Division" and the forced labor of Jewish scholars to identify major works of Judaica for Nazi Germany to purge.
Source: FrankNews
3/26/2021
Historian Keri Leigh Merritt, interviewed about the history of labor organizing in the South, links the history of Southern policing to the maintenance of exploitative labor practices after the Civil War and explains how the fight to unionize Amazon's Bessemer, Alabama facility extends the politics of the Civil Rights Movement.
Source: Business Insider
3/26/2021
The importance of Black musicians to American popular culture is not reflected in the ownership of record stores. Joshua Clark Davis explains why.
Source: The New Yorker
3/22/2021
by Jill Lepore
Historian Linda Colley's new book examines the rise of written Constitutions as governing documents, and argues that constitiutionalism and democracy don't necessarily go hand in hand.
Source: NPR
3/27/2021
Paula Yoo's book for young adults describes the beating death of Vincent Chin in 1982 and the way his death catalyzed an Asian-American movement.
Source: Axios
3/25/2021
A recent meeting with the President was convened by Jon Meacham and featured Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Michael Eric Dyson, Joanne Freeman, Eddie Glaude Jr., Annette Gordon-Reed and Walter Isaacson. Topics included historical comparison of large-scale policy initiatives.
Source: Daily Beast
3/22/2021
Wilbur Williams was suspended for a 1976 incident of police brutality that evidence shows he wasn't involved in, and butted heads with the Mobile, Alabama political establishment. In 1981, he led a contentious investigation that led to the conviction of KKK members for a lynching that nearly tore the city apart.
Source: National Geographic
3/22/2021
Governor William Woods Holden responded to a brazen campaign of KKK terrorism with a declaration of martial law in two North Carolina counties. The backlash led to his impeachment.
Source: History.com
3/23/2021
Despite popular imagery, many Americans – urban workers, African Americans, and farmers in particular – experienced the 1920s as an era of deprivation and hardship that flowed into the worse times of the Great Depression.
Source: Asian American Writers' Workshop
3/25/2021
Two newsletters by and for queer communities of color in the Bay Area are a primary source for understanding how Black and Asian American lesbians created and maintained community.
Source: Columbia University Libraries
3/22/2021
Andy Horowitz and Claudio Saunt are the winners of the 2021 Bancroft Prizes in American History and Diplomacy for their respective books "Katrina: A History, 1915-2015" and "Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory."
Source: Ars Technica
3/23/2021
Historian Emma Souther's new book is a mix of the true crime genre and a history of crime and punishment in ancient Rome.
Source: The Baffler
3/23/2021
by Samuel Huneke
Do global campaigns for LGBTQ civil rights that originate in affluent Western societies reproduce the "civilizing mission" trope of colonialism, or use the goal of antidiscrimination to buttress the influence of wealthy nations? A historian considers a new book on global gay rights.
Source: Skipped History
3/24/2021
by Ben Tumin
Ben Tumin's "Skipped History" video series returns with a discussion of the 1954 Guatemala Coup, drawing on the work of Greg Grandin, Stephen Kinzer and Steven Schleshinger, and Vincent Bevins.
Source: Letters and Politics
3/22/2021
Cinema scholar Celine Parreñas Shimizu discusses the ways that film has contributed to social perceptions of Asian and Asian American women.
Source: Greg Mitchell
3/22/2021
by Greg Mitchell
Documentarian Greg Mitchell's new movie about the two film crews – one Japanese, one American – who recorded the human toll of the Hiroshima bombing and had their footage suppressed has premiered. Find out how to view it.
Source: The Guardian
3/21/2021
Jonathan Steinberg's scholarly work ranged from evaluating participation in the Holocaust to a biographical study of the influential German chancellor, and his teaching work resulted in him supervising the Prince of Wales in his undergraduate history studies.
Source: ABC 10
3/21/2021
Historian Brooke Newman, after careful research, is allowing her daughter to participate in the a trial of a vaccine, already tested for teens, on younger children. They cite the personal desire to return to normalcy, the documented safety of the vaccine in earlier trials, and advancing the collective cause of public health in their decision.
