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: USA Today
12/5/2020
Film historians suggest the new Netflix drama overstates Frank Mankiewicz's influence over the final form of "Citizen Kane" and takes some other liberties with the facts.
Source: New York Review of Books
12/8/2020
World War II was bookended by the infliction of mass suffering on Poles at the war's beginning and on German civilians at the war's end, with the worst years of Europe's history in between.
Source: 3AW (Australia)
12/7/2020
Arizona State historian Catherine O'Donnell tells an Australian interviewer that 2020 may be bad, but humanity has seen worse years. Listen for a little perspective?
Source: NPR
12/6/2020
Books on investigating crimes of racial terror during the civil rights era, the decline of hitchhiking in American culture, Afghan Islamic extremism, and the importance of Richard Wagner in the world of music are recommended by NPR's Book Concierge.
Source: Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
12/5/2020
A longtime Virginia political observer suggests that there is more to learn by considering Woodrow Wilson's complex social views and political legacy than by taking his clear racism as reason to hide him from sight.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
12/2/2020
Books assessing the culpability of ordinary Germans for Nazi crimes, the allied firebombing of Dresden, the battle for Okinawa, and the mind of Adolf Hitler are among the Monitor's choices for the year's best books on World War II.
Source: Montgomery Advertiser
12/3/2020
Edward Ayers and Kevin M. Levin are cited in a discussion of the gradual turn of Alabama's history curriculum away from the Lost Cause mythology and apologetics for slavery.
Source: The New Yorker
12/2/2020
The use of the German film "Downfall" in internet memes points to the danger of treating Hitler's demise as a closure to the murderous ideologies he propagated.
Source: Smithsonian
12/1/2020
Books about racism, military medicine, George Washington, the Civil War in the west, and an academic con are among the top history books of 2020 according to the editors of Smithsonian Magazine.
Source: New York Times
12/3/2020
A new documentary examines the lives of both the great singer and the filmmaker who died suddenly while working on a documentary of Billie Holliday's life.
Source: New York Times
12/6/2020
Times Columnist Charles M. Blow looks to scholars including historian Jim Downs to examine mistrust among Black Americans of a potential COVID vaccine; medical authorities have abused the trust and violated the consent of Black patients too often in the past for those fears to be dismissed out of hand.
Source: Christianity Today
12/4/2020
A reviewer of Peter Manseau's new book "The Jefferson Bible" finds it a valuable account of Jefferson's position in the conflict between religious orthodoxy and freedom of conscience and belief, but was less impressed with TJ's editing job, which produced a joyless text.
Source: War on the Rocks
12/1/2020
The staff of War on the Rocks offer suggestions for reading – on defense issues and otherwise.
Source: New York Labor History
12/6/2020
Historian Michael Koncewicz reviews a new book on the notorious "Hard Hat Riot," when a mob of construction workers and Wall Street traders attacked antiwar protesters; the incident remains a touchstone for thinking about the politics of class and the culture war.
Source: TedEd
12/7/2020
by Riché D. Richardson
A brief video examines Rosa Park's work as a racial justice activist before the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Source: National History Center and Woodrow Wilson Center
12/3/2020
The Washington History Seminar and the Woodrow Wilson Center host Mira Siegelberg for a discussion of her book "Statelessness: A Modern History" on Monday, Dec. 7 at 4:00 PM.
Source: Lexington Courier-Journal
12/2/2020
Professor Bruce Holle of the University of Kentucky was a "student magnet" during his 45-year career. He passed away due to complications of COVID-19 on November 30.
Source: New York Times
12/2/2020
Professor Hackett was noted for translating "The Buchenwald Report," made by German-speaking US military officers who described in detail their findings at the liberated concentration camp, preserving a key document for the fight against Holocaust denialism. He died of complications of the coronavirus.
Source: Cornell Chronicle
12/1/2020
Colleagues remember Richard "Dick" Polenberg as a generous and compassionate colleague and mentor as well as an inspiring teacher and accomplished scholar of modern American history.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
A recent eruption of dissention in UCLA's African American Studies department arguably reflects the strains caused by poor institutional support by the university, an issue faced by Black Studies departments on many campuses.
